Data Ethics and Governance Flashcards

Which regulation primarily governs the privacy of student education records in the United States?

Answer: FERPA

FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) protects the privacy of student education records at institutions that receive federal funding.

A data analyst is building a dashboard that will display individual employee performance scores to managers. What ethical consideration is most important?

Answer: Ensuring role-based access so only authorized managers see relevant scores

Role-based access control ensures sensitive performance data is only accessible to authorized individuals, protecting employee privacy.

What is the main goal of differential privacy?

Answer: To add mathematical noise to datasets so individual records cannot be identified while preserving statistical utility

Differential privacy adds carefully calibrated statistical noise to query results so that no individual's data can be inferred, while aggregate insights remain valid.

Which Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirement most directly affects data analysts working with financial data?

Answer: Financial data must be accurate, auditable, and access must be controlled and logged

SOX requires that financial data be accurate, that access controls are in place, and that audit trails exist to detect and prevent fraudulent reporting.

What is a data catalog's primary function in a data governance program?

Answer: Providing a searchable inventory of data assets with metadata, lineage, and ownership information

A data catalog acts as an organized registry of data assets, enabling users to discover, understand, and trust data through metadata, lineage, and ownership details.

An analyst publishes a report showing that a neighborhood's average income is high, masking the fact that a small number of extremely wealthy residents skew the figure. This is an ethical concern related to:

Answer: Misleading aggregation

Misleading aggregation occurs when summary statistics hide important variation within the data, leading stakeholders to draw incorrect conclusions.

Which of the following best describes the principle of 'purpose limitation' in data privacy?

Answer: Data collected for one specific purpose should not be used for unrelated purposes without consent

Purpose limitation requires that personal data be collected for a specific, explicit purpose and not subsequently used in a way that is incompatible with that purpose.