Author: Karishma Brahmbhatt
Publisher: Allen & Overy
Publication Year: 2019
Summary: The following article describes how in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Financial Services Sector is scrambling to implement data ethics into their data collection and analysis processes. Without an ethical mindset, Brahmbhatt argues that the industry not only risks losing consumer trust, but may also face punitive legal action. Thus, Brahmbhatt proposes several considerations to keep in mind in order to mitigate risk. First, companies should avoid performing analysis merely because they can; rather, these organizations should ask themselves if they should be performing the given analysis, and whether or not their analysis may end up hurting people unintentionally. Second, organizations should engage with stakeholders to establish principles for data ethics that are equitable, but also actionalbe and practical. Making a point unique from other pieces, Brahmbhatt notes that organizations should remain flexible and willing to reevaluate their stances on data ethics as the sociocultural landscape continues to evolve. Further, the author points out that data ethics frameworks need not be built from the ground up, but rather, existing Financial Services frameworks can be leveraged and modified to incorporate data ethics principles. The same concept applies to product development; rather than shoehorning ethics onto the end of the process, consider altering what already exists to weave ethics into the entire product development pipeline. Lastly, Brahmbhatt notes that analysts must interrogate both how they handle their data, and from where it is sourced. This ensures that principles of data ethics are considered from data collection, to analysis, to product deployment.