The use of data particularly data about people for data mining has serious ethical implications and practitioners of data mining techniques must act responsibly by making themselves aware of the ethical issues that surround their particular application. For example, data mining sometimes can be used to discriminate people, especially regarding racial, sexual and religious orientations. Web data include content extracted from online environments, including community websites such as forums, individuals websites and blogs, social network sites such as facebook, and microblogs such as twitter. To gain some insight into current webdata mining practices and the attitude of web data miners to the ethical issues involved, twenty of these professionals were interviewed. Metadata may become the latest hightech ethical and discovery issue to confront litigators. Aside from privacy concerns, there are a number of other ethical issues surrounding the widespread use and in uence of data mining technologies.
The paper also takes a quick survey of new zealand. Ethics of data science university of colorado denver. Ethical issues for data mining were considered in relation to individual privacy. The forum guide to data ethics national center for. This research paper looks at the core issues of data mining and ethics. Unfortunately, many professionals applying webdata mining in a business context do not foresee any moral dangers in webdata mining. Pragmatic methods to reduce dishonesty in webbased courses.
Alongside updated guidance and procedures, members of recs need training and education about ethical issues in online research. Built by mining relevant public data and combining that with input from editorial staff, including improvisational comedians. Ethical issues in mining industry coal mining mining. Web mining does, however, pose a threat to some important ethical values like privacy and individuality. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and statistics with an overall goal to. Use of information a detailed description of how user data is used on the web site. Computer sys ems often tbnction less as background technologies and more as nc ive gonstituen in shapin society brey 2000. When data mining aims to disclose information about the moral competences and values of individuals or groups an undertaking we call morality mining, novel ethical problems emerge.
Furthermore, the legal implications attaching to these developments are equally important and require examination. Download citation ethical issues in web data mining web mining refers to the whole of data miningand related techniques that are used toautomatically. Web structure mining, web content mining and web usage mining. Data mining is defined as extracting information from huge set of data. The ethical dilemma posed by data mining the carroll news. Ethical issues in web data mining ethics and information. Thisinvisible informationgatheringis common on the web.
Pdf ethical aspects of web log data mining researchgate. Although social and ethical issues have been identi. Ethical issues of data reporting and the quest for authenticity catherine a. Ethical issues in web data mining lita van wel and lamb. We propose six principles as a framework for considerations to guide higher education institutions to address ethical issues in learning analytics and challenges. Ethical and legal issues in web development objectives by the end of this lesson, you will be able to. However, mining a clickstream of data obtained from an oblivious internet user instigates a variety of ethical problems.
When used in abusiness context and applied to some type ofpersonal data, it helps companies to builddetailed customer profiles, and gain marketingintelligence. This should be ajoint responsibility shared by web miners bothadopters and developers, web users, andgovernments. Depending on how they are queried and combined with other datasets, a given dataset can traverse categories in unpredictable ways. The ethics of big data european economic and social.
We have taken coal, gold and uranium mining and presented the ethical issues in the ndustry. Companies who use data mining techniques must act responsibly by being aware of the ethical issues that are surrounding their particular application. Its no secret that electronically storing patient data has led to a whole host of new problems in the last few years. Ethical issues in social media research for public health. This description should specify whether user data will be used to send. On the ethical and legal implications of data mining college of. Consider the strengths and limitations of your data. New legal and ethical challenges are affecting the future of big data in healthcare, and other industries too. The important ethical issue with data mining is that, if someone is not aware that the information knowledge is being collected or of how it will be used, heshe has no opportunity to consent or with hold consent for its collection and use.
For example, in the litigation surrounding vioxx, the new england journal of medicine recently cast doubt on a study it published in 2000 after discovering, through metadata on a computer diskette, that some data for the study had been deleted just two days before being submitted for. The business practice of data mining and warehousing has become common as it has led to improvements in targeted marketing for many companies employing such techniques. Data mining is another term for secondary analysis the reuse of data for purposes other than what is was originally collected for. Web usage mining raises privacy concerns when web users are traced, and their actions are analysed without their knowledge. Businesses need to show ethical proactivity when interacting with user data and not just because its the right thing to do. Ethical issues in web data mining ethics and information technology. The use of data particularly data about people for data mining has serious ethical implications and practitioners of data mining techniques must act responsibly by making themselves aware of the ethical issues that surround their. Ethical issues this a brief introduction to ethical issues arising in social research with big data. Ethical issues concerning metadata insights holland. The search for truth and its unbiased reporting are ultimate goals of conducting scienti. For example, health data can now be extracted from our purchases of everyday goods, our social media exchanges, and our web searches.
Web mining refers to the whole of data mining and related techniques that are used to automatically discover and extract information from web documents and. Web mining makes it difficult for an individual to autonomously control the unveiling and dissemination of data about hisher private life. It makes utilization of automated apparatuses to reveal and extricate data from servers and web2 reports, and it permits organizations to get to both organized and unstructured information from browser activities. Balancing economic benefits and ethical questions of big data in the eu policy context study the information and views set out in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the european economic and social committee. Its possible for businesses to follow the law and yet cross an ethical line when mining data. A wellelaborated ethical debate on privacy violations through data mining deals with issues such as discrimination, threats to autonomy, misuse of data, and the consequences of erroneous information custers et al. Ethical data mining is also a nobrainer that leads to enormous benefits for business. On ethical and legal aspects of data mining mehmet cudi okur abstract data mining technology allows large volumes of data to be exploited for discovering previously unknown,possibly useful knowledge. The main ethical issue in data mining is one of informed consent.
Data mining operates on both numerical data and symbolic data, such as text. Web mining aims to discover useful information or knowledge from web hyperlinks, page contents, and usage logs. Based on the primary kinds of data used in the mining process, web mining tasks can be categorized into three main types. The speed and extent of developments in information technologies have increased the power and potential of data mining. Ethical issues involving data may be more challenging than the ethical challenges of some other advanced technologies partly because data and data science are ubiquitous, having the potential to impact all aspects of life, and partly because of their intrinsic complexity. The ethical issues identified are relevant in all research contexts, but the fact that every digital interaction can become a unit of data makes these issues far more complex and not always within the researchers control, nor is it within the control of individual persons to give consent. Web mining refers to the whole of data mining and related techniques that are used to automatically discover and extract information from web documents and services. The ethics of the methods, however, are less clear, and part of this is the novelty of this form of research. As the name proposes, this is information gathered by mining the web. One such issue pertains to the accuracy of information collected during the data mining process. Publishers pdf, also known as version of record includes final page, issue.
Ethics and methods are interdependent, and the rise of mass data mining across social media and the internet has presented ethical dilemmas surrounding privacy, rights and autonomy, and such social justice issues as discrimination. It covers both the direct and indirect ethical issues of data mining. Web mining is the application of data mining techniques to discover patterns from the world wide web. Read ethical issues in web data mining, ethics and information technology on deepdyve, the largest online rental service for scholarly research with thousands of academic publications available at your fingertips. Although the use of data analytics has become the norm for many companies, it has brought into focus the ethical implications of using such analytical methods. An examination of the associated ethical issues is thus increasingly appropriate, if not overdue. When used in a business context and applied to some type of personal data, it helps companies to build detailed customer profiles, and gain marketing intelligence. On the ethical and legal implications of data mining.
Data security principlea data user needs to take reasonably practical steps to safeguard personal data from unauthorized or accidental access, processing, erasure, loss or use, while taking into account the harm that would affect the individual should there be a breach. Data mining is the process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Ethical issues in mining industry free download as powerpoint presentation. Ethical data mining is a nobrainer that leads to enormous benefits for business.
Ethical issues in web data mining eindhoven university of. Web content and structure mining is a cause for concern when data published on the web in a certain context is mined and combined with other data for use in a totally different context. Web mining does, however, pose athreat to some important ethical values. New data analytics constantly change the kinds of outcomes that become possible. Ethical and legal issues for medical data mining abstract this paper emphasizes on uniqueness and specialty of medical data mining healthcare related data mining is one of the most rewarding and challenging areas in application of data mining and knowledge discovery. Academic emergency medicine june 2000, volume 7, number 6 691 special contributions research ethics.
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