Ethics in the Internet of Things: Where, Who, How?

Irina ShklovskiTechnologies in Practice

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Why so much concern with ethics in IoT lately?

Why so much concern with ethics in IoT lately?

Why so much concern with ethics in IoT lately?

Who is responsible for ensuring connected devices we allow into our lives behave ethically?

Ethics and the Internet of Things

Is it really about ethics?

Is it really about ethics?

Ethics is like this big elephant in the room whenever IoTis discussed...

– IoT developer atThingsCon Salon

What is this “ethics” in IoT?

In general terms, ethics concerns the frameworks and principles that define our ability to have a good life and to clearly conceptualize our rights and responsibilities.

Ethics is not a framework that can be bolted on to the end of a process, nor a set of outcomes against which our actions should be measured, but a process itself.

What is ethics anyway?

What are the benefits of getting it right?For whom? (It can never be for everybody)

Ethics is about negotiating tradeoffs in an informed way

Ethical frameworks support informed moral reasoning

What is ethics in IoT?

When the flows of data and decisions about its collection and use become invisible to the end-user the onus of morality shifts further towards the developer and producer of the technology in question.

Where is ethics in IoT?

So what’s a developer to do?

Values and Ethics in Innovation for Responsible Technology in Europe 2017-2020

Funded by the EU Horizon 2020 research and

innovation programme under grant agreement No 727040

VIRT-EU

We are looking for manifestos, standards, guidelines, best practices. Share yours! https://virteuproject.eu/virteu-call-iot

http://virteuproject.euinfo@virteuproject.eu

irsh@itu.dk

Develop a framework for asking and answering questions that have moral valence

Provides a set of conditions that define a point at which difficult questions need to be asked

A communication tool that supports ways of making the call given the acknowledged and discussed issues

VIRT-EU tools and purposes

Mapping the domain of IoT in Europe:Analysis of existing manifestos and guidelines

Share yours! https://virteuproject.eu/virteu-call-iot

VIRT-EU – Participate!

VIRT-EU Partners

1. Map the domain of IoT

• Analysis of existing manifestos and guidelines

• Relationship development across Europe

• Identification of field sites

2. In-depth fieldwork at select field sites

• London, Amsterdam, Lyon, Barcelona, elsewhere?

• Co-design with small sub-groups across field-sites

3. Tool development and testing

• Working closely with developers at field-sites

• Design challenge event in London

Steps and goals

VIRT-EU will analyze and map the ethical practices of European hardware and software entrepreneurs, maker and hacker spaces, and community innovators

VIRT-EU Goals

- Understand how IoT innovators enact ethics as they design future devices

- Generate a new framework for Privacy, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment (PESIA)

- Develop tools to support ethical reflection and self-assessment as part the design and development process for IoT technologies

VIRT-EU Goals

Fundamental assumption:When designers of technologies talk to each other, debate and disagree about what tools to use and how to manage and respond to data, they negotiate and enact ethics

VIRT-EU Approach

• Ethnography• Data mining and social network analysis• Legal and policy analysis• Co-design and speculative design

VIRT-EU Approach

VIRT-EU Approach

Ethics and the Internet of Things