Ethical and Legal Concerns on Data Science for Large Scale Human Mobility

Abstract

Emerging technologies make new tools available for studying large scale human mobility, including satellite imaging, mobile phones, social media, and virtually any large scale data repository that contains traces of human behaviour. The speed with which these potential surveillance venues opened up have made it impossible for the legal and regulatory frameworks to keep up, and a range of ethical issues have became very prominent. In this chapter, we provide a starting point for thinking through the ethical and legal concerns of applying data science to the host of traces human activity generates, and their use in humanitarian projects, academic studies, and policy decisions. We define core concepts, discuss examples, and provide guidelines, tools, and further reading suggestions to help the reader navigate this burgeoning area.