Expert Group “Data Ethics” : kick-off meeting on 4th April 2017
The recently formed expert group “Data Ethics” is going to have its kick-off meeting on the 4th of April 2017 at Katholische Hochschulgemeinde aki, at Zürich.
Issues such as data protection, workplace surveillance, or the potential consequences of future technologies require constant ethical reflection and stakeholder dialogue. This expert group will offer a forum to discuss ethical issues that matter to its members in their respective contexts, enabling them to develop concrete solutions for ethical challenges. Such issues may range from professional ethics (legitimate conduct as a professional in various work-related scenarios) to organisational aspects (data collection, usage, and processing within companies) to legal and political issues (data protection, industry agreements, codes of conducts, standards and labels, and public decision-making processes). The main goal of the group is to develop and foster competence regarding ethical issues in data usage, and to make sure that state-of-the-art approaches are shared so they can be applied by group members in their respective fields.
Potential activities of the expert group may include:
- discussing specific industry cases and options for ethically sound implementation of data usage
- organizing events with nationally and internationally renowned experts on ethics of data usage in order to exchange ideas and learn about existing standards in Switzerland and abroad
- developing ethical standards for companies and organisations
- discussing, preparing, and presenting input to political decision makers
Benefits of attending this group are not limited to networking but also include self-reflection, professionalization in the field of data ethics, and laying the groundwork for tangible long-term outcomes, such as codes of conduct, standards or labels regarding the legitimate use of data in Switzerland.
The first meeting will have a round of introduction and topics of interest from each participant. On the basis of these, activities and goals of the group will be decided and ways to actively shape the group will be discussed.
The group is lead by Prof. Dr. Christoph Heitz from ZHAW and Dr. Thorsten Busch from Lassalle-Institute as the academic leads and Dr. Gundula Heinatz from Swiss Mobiliar as the industry lead. The participation in the group meeting is limited to the members of the Data+Service alliance, therefore if you are already a member of the alliance and would like to participate in the first meeting, please directly get in touch with the group leaders. However if you are not a member of the alliance yet, please get in touch with us to discuss the various member benefits and the different membership plans.
We look forward to hearing from you and have your participation in the expert group meeting!