Book on ethical guidance for PICT on its way

Emerging Pervasive Information and Communication Technologies (PICT): Ethical Challenges, Opportunities and Safeguards 

Edited by Kenneth D. Pimple,  Ph.D.

To be published by Springer; expected publication date June 30, 2013.

Description

This book provides a wide and deep perspective on the ethical issues raised by pervasive information and communication technology (PICT) – small, powerful, and often inexpensive Internet-connected computing devices and systems. It describes complex and unfamiliar technologies and their implications, including the transformative potential of augmented reality, the power of location-linked information, and the uses of “big data,” and explains potential threats, including privacy invaded, security violated, and independence compromised, often through widespread and lucrative manipulation.

PICT is changing how we live, providing entertainment, useful tools, and life-saving systems. But the very smartphones that connect us to each other and to unlimited knowledge also provide a stream of data to systems that can be used for targeted advertising or police surveillance. Paradoxically, PICT expands our personal horizons while weaving a web that may ensnare whole communities.

Chapters describe particular cases of PICT gone wrong, but also highlight its general utility. Every chapter includes ethical analysis and guidance, both specific and general. Topics are as focused as the Stuxnet worm and as broad as the innumerable ways new technologies are transforming medical care.

Written for a broad audience and suitable for classes in emerging technologies, the book is an example of anticipatory ethics – “ethical analysis aimed at influencing the development of new technologies” (Deborah Johnson 2010).

The growth of PICT is outpacing the development of regulations and laws to protect individuals, organizations, and nations from unintended harm and malicious havoc. This book alerts users to some of the hazards of PICT; encourages designers, developers, and merchants of PICT to take seriously their ethical responsibilities – if only to “do no harm” – before their products go public; and introduces citizens and policy makers to challenges and opportunities that must not be ignored.

For more information

"Behind the Webcam's Watchful Eye"

There are some ingenious strategies out there for proctoring tests for MOOCs and other online courses.If you're willing to pay enough, and impose enough restrictions on the students, it looks like it can be very effective - possibly more effective than proctoring in-person tests. I wonder how anyone would determine how much less than foolproof would be good enough?

Monitoring online tests for online classes - Behind the Webcam's Watchful Eye |The Chronicle of Higher Education - bit.ly/15aNnX6
— Kenneth D. Pimple (@Ethical_PICT) April 15, 2013

Automated essay grading and Twitter followers

Let's see: College professors are starting to depend on computers to grade essays, and Twitter users are spending millions of dollars to get fake followers. Is this the best that AI can offer?

Less attention to teaching and fewer jobs for scholars? - Essay-Grading Software Offers Professors a Break nyti.ms/ZaKIof
— Kenneth D. Pimple (@Ethical_PICT) April 6, 2013

Can someone explain this to me? Pure vanity? - Fake Twitter Followers Become Multimillion-Dollar Business nyti.ms/12rV9aW
— Kenneth D. Pimple (@Ethical_PICT) April 7, 2013

Big Data goes to grade school

I haven't been posting many blog entries lately because I've been busy editing a book on pervasive computing. More on that later.

For today, I've got something that isn't quite in the main stream of this blog: Data aggregation on K-12 students.

The quotations in this entry are from an article by Stephanie Simon and published by Reuters, "K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents" (March 3, 2013).

I'll start with the up side: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others have developed "a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school." A newly created nonprofit organization, inBloom Inc., will run the database.

School districts will be able to use the database free of charge (for now). This one database will be able to integrate a school's student data in one place. "Schools tend to store different bits of student information in different databases, often with different operating systems." This is inefficient on its face, and it makes it difficult for schools to provide instruction tailored to the abilities and interests of students.

Seven states are already signed up, and the larger the pool of school districts, the more useful the database will be. Creators of educational technologies will be able to mine the database and create better education packages, including custom packages for states, school districts, individual schools, clusters of students (sports fans, say, or those who struggle with math), and even individuals.

Just think of the possibilities. With several states using the same platform for data, there will be huge incentive for technology companies to get on the band wagon. It seems likely that better and less expensive applications will appear quickly.

This all sounds great, and if it is handled properly, it might be truly wonderful. But if there weren't a down side, I wouldn't be writing about it.

In order to exploit the database, corporations will have to have access to all of this student data.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

What about the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the U.S. Department of Education's regulation to protect student privacy and is known to make it difficult for families paying their children's college tuition to see the kid's grades? Apparently it's no obstacle.

Federal officials say the database project complies with privacy laws. Schools do not need parental consent to share student records with any "school official" who has a "legitimate educational interest," according to the Department of Education. The department defines "school official" to include private companies hired by the school, so long as they use the data only for the purposes spelled out in their contracts.

It's not hopeless: "Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information" and the database "gives school administrators full control over student files, so they could choose to share test scores with a vendor but withhold social security numbers or disability records." Still, there are reasons for concern.

"Once this information gets out there, it's going to be abused. There's no doubt in my mind," said Jason France, a father of two in Louisiana.

While inBloom pledges to guard the data tightly, its own privacy policy states that it "cannot guarantee the security of the information stored ... or that the information will not be intercepted when it is being transmitted." [ellipsis in original]

So it looks like schools and states will be depending on the good character of corporations with dollar signs in their eyes to handle student information in a responsible and safe manner.

Did I mention that the database infrastructure was built by Amplify Education, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp?

How do you think that will work out?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director