A refined ethical impact assessment tool and a case study of its application

Michael Bailey, Erin Kenneally, David Dittrich

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Research of or involving Information and Communications Technology (ICT) presents a wide variety of ethical challenges and the relative immaturity of ethical decision making in the ICT research community has prompted calls for additional research and guidance. The Menlo report, a revisiting of the seminal Belmont report, seeks to bring clarity to this arena by articulating a basic set of ethical principles for ICT research. However the gap between such principles and actionable guidance for the ethical conduct of ICT research is large. In previous work we sought to bridge this gap through the construction of an ethical impact assessment (EIA) tool that provided a set of guiding questions to help researchers understand how to apply the Menlo principles. While a useful tool, experiences in the intervening years have caused us to rethink and expand the EIA. In this paper we: (i) discuss the various challenges encountered in applying the original EIA, (ii) present a new EIA framework that represents our evolved understanding, and (iii) retrospectively apply this EIA to an ethically challenging, original study in ICTR.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationFinancial Cryptography and Data Security - FC 2012 Workshops, USEC and WECSR 2012, Revised Selected Papers
PublisherSpringer
Pages112-123
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783642346378
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event16th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security - FC 2012 Workshops, USEC and WECSR 2012, FC 2012 Workshops - USEC and WECSR 2012 - Kralendijk, Bonaire, Netherlands
Duration: Mar 2 2012Mar 2 2012

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume7398 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference16th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security - FC 2012 Workshops, USEC and WECSR 2012, FC 2012 Workshops - USEC and WECSR 2012
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityKralendijk, Bonaire
Period3/2/123/2/12

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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