The Ethical Dimension of Collaboration

1
The Ethical Dimension of Collaboration

• Professor Simon Rogerson
• Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility
• De Montfort University, UK
• srog_at_dmu.ac.uk

2
ICT potential

• self-learning and adapting systems
• human activity recognition
• tracking technologies and sensors
• sharing of contextual information between
  different services and objects
• supplementing human faculties
• virtual community technologies
• quality of life and inclusion

3
FP7 context

• research activities supported by the Framework
  Programme should respect fundamental ethical
  principles
• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
  Union
• opinions of the European Group on Ethics in
  Science and New Technologies (EGE)
• any proposal which contravenes fundamental
  ethical principles shall not be selected and may
  be excluded from the evaluation, selection and
  award procedures at any time

4
Due regard

• explicitly address ethical concerns
• the research
• its conduct
• its outcomes
• ethical issues beyond the obvious must be
  addressed
• likely that new, sensitive applications will come
  to the fore
• unique set of ethical issues for eye tracking
  technology and application
• specific tasks or specific work package

5
Privacy

• right to privacy and data protection is a
  fundamental right
• Europeans view personal privacy as an important
  issue
• compliance with Data Protection legislation
• research volunteers have the right to remain
  anonymous
• manner in which research outcomes are reported
  must not contravene the right to privacy and data
  protection
• must carefully evaluate and report the personal
  privacy implications of the intended use or
  potential use of the research outcomes
• volunteers (conduct) and beneficiaries (outcome)

6
Informed consent

• whenever research involves volunteers in
  interviews, behavioural observation, invasive and
  non-invasive experimentation, and accessing
  personal data records
• empowers the individual to make a voluntary
  informed decision about whether or not to
  participate in the research based on knowledge of
  the purpose, procedures and outcomes of the
  research
• information must be given specifying the
  alternatives, risks, and benefits for those
  involved in a way they understand.
• right to withdraw consent at any time and, if
  requested, associated data destroyed
• special consideration must be given when
  volunteers have reduced autonomy or are vulnerable

7
Attentive Interfaces and Reactingto Intent
(COGAIN 2006)

• Gaze-based Attentive User Interfaces (AUIs) to
  support disabled users towards a research agenda
• interacting with objects in the real world by
  looking at them directly rather
• making real-world objects gaze aware

8
The ethics

• Doing the research
• Representative volunteers
• Informed consent of those with incapacity of
  making decisions
• Nature of non-invasive trials
• Trial results data security
• Nature of the application
• Human helper emulation and machine inferences
• Constant monitoring local and distributed
• Fail safe
• Attitude / feeling of user
• Choice

9
An approach to addressing the ethical dimension

• Work Package which spans the life of the project.
• Start of Project Review
• Undertake a thorough review of the potential
  ethical and social impact of the project
  culminating in a Project Ethics Agenda which will
  guide both the substance and conduct of the
  research throughout the life of the project
• Intermediate Review(s)
• Review the project components and identify
  potential ethical issues regarding both the
  project process and the anticipated project
  outcomes
• End of Project Review
• Review the project outcomes to identify any
  inherent positive and negative ethical effects

10
Responsible research
The rapid pace of scientific and technological
progress can give rise to serious ethical
questions of concern to all Europeans. These
questions may also have potential implications
for future generations. Science and Society
Action Plan European Commission, 2002
srog_at_dmu.ac.uk
11
Additional Information on Ethics related to
undertaking ICT research in FP7
http//cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ethics-ict_en.html