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

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

The annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers will include two special sections  on Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience.

Session organizers are Rodolphe Devillers, Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Francis Harvey, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota; and Dawn Wright, Environmental Systems Research Institute and College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University.

From the organizers' Web site:

Ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight geospatial/geographic technologies as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, these sessions provides a forum to engage ethical issues. For instance:

• Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
• Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
• Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
• Georeferenced photos, tweets and volunteered (and unvolunteered) geographic information can reveal private information. Those data that are increasingly publically available and used to study societal phenomena raise significant privacy concerns.

Papers in this session again engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues;
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T

These sessions are co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.

My thanks to Deepsea Dawn Wright for sharing this information.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for abstracts: Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

Call for AAG 2013 Abstracts: 

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/aag_ethics13.html

Following successful sessions at the 2009-2011 AAG meetings on ethics and GIScience, we are organizing sessions to continue and expand discussions of this important topic. Ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight geospatial/geographic technologies as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, these sessions provides a forum to engage ethical issues. For instance:

• Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
• Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
• Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
• Georeferenced photos, tweets and volunteered (and unvolunteered) geographic information can reveal private information. Those data that are increasingly publicly available and used to study societal phenomena raise significant privacy concerns. 

Papers in this session again engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues; 
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T

These sessions are co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.

To participate: 

1. Please register for the AAG 2013 meeting and submit your abstract online following the AAG Guidelines (http://www.aag.or/cs/anualmeeting/call_for_papers).
2. Please send your paper title, PIN, and abstract no later than Wednesday, October 20 to Rodolphe Devillers (rdeville@mun.ca), Francis Harvey (fharvey@umn.edu), or Dawn Wright (dwright@esri.com).

Call for papers: Geographic Information Ethics

This Call for Papers comes from Francis Harvey, University of Minnesota:

After two years of engaging sessions, Dawn Wright and I have moved ahead with a call for papers in a 2011 Geographic Information Ethics session at the AAG conference in Seattle, WA. The general theme is still the breadth of interactions with ethical issues and geographic information. The list of sample topics points to this breadth.

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues;
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T
• ethics of data publication and peer review

This breadth has been advantageous in developing important discussions and creating a forum for work that engages ethical dimensions of geographic information technologies. Following last year's presentations and discussions, we have added the topic of data publication and peer review to the list.

At this point we write to bring this session to your attention and see if you may be interested in presenting. Also, if you could pass this notice about the call to colleagues working on ethics and geographic information, we'd appreciate your help in identifying other participants for the session.

The full call is online at: http://web.me.com/fhap13/AAG_GIS-Ethics_Sessions/GIS_Ethics_Sessions.html

I'm always happy to post relevant announcements.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

The 2010 meeting of the Association of American Geographers included a session on "Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience." The full results from the session can be found at

http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/aag_ethics10.html. 

Thanks to Dawn ("Deepsea Dawn") Wright, Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, for sharing this information.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director