Towards Ethical Big Data Artifacts: A Conceptual Design

Abstract

Although Big Data generates many benefits for individuals, organizations and society, significant ethical issues are forcing governments to review their regulations so that citizens’ rights are protected. Given these ethical issues and a gradual increase of awareness about them, individuals are in need of new technical solutions to engage with organizations that extract value from Big Data. Currently, available solutions do not adequately accommodate the conflicting interests of individuals and organizations. In this paper, we propose a conceptual design for an artifact that will raise awareness amongst individuals about Big Data ethical issues and help to restore the power balance between individuals and organizations. Furthermore, we set forward a design agenda outlining future activities towards building and evaluating our proposed artifact. Our work is grounded in discourse ethics and stakeholder theory and intertwined with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)