Displaced persons can be helped as well as harmed by the use of data.
Protecting these vulnerable people from the harms posed by data use is a shared responsibility.
Here a few recommendations to bear in mind:
– The collection, generation and use of data should never be done simply because they can be; the need and potential benefits should be clear, defined and justified as a way to respond to a need or improve the service towards refugees.
– Presume that all your users will not read the terms and conditions of your technology product. Consider the ethical implications of collecting data when building your product.
– If you choose to disclose data, it must not lead to already vulnerable individuals and communities being further harmed or exploited. In case where it is possible, pre-identify risks associated with a proposed used of data. – Assume that hostile regimes may attempt to access data for the wrong reasons. Most State supported hackers and some Government surveillance services are capable of hacking any data.
– As most data breaches and leaking come from human failure, it matters that you take extra care in the way you store, who has access and how one can get access to the data. Make sure to always adhere to legal and ethical standards in place. – Any data or results deriving from a population should be shared with that population. Too many communities in tech projects get asked for their data without seeing the results!
– Overall, this data responsibility rule goes beyond the concepts of “data privacy” and “data protection”. It entails a set of principles, processes and tools that seek to leverage data to improve people’s lives in a responsible manner
"We only collect data when it has a practical function and it is collected anonymously and strictly confidential. Most of the current data we collect is to help us review and improve our services for the people we support. The data we collect for the improvement and expansion of our services is both done by listening to the personal opinions of individuals and by debrief forms we fill out on a daily basis. These allow us to understand the personal frustrations of how services function, and understand the wider supply/demand limitations and changes of our work." Refugee Info Bus, France
Ex 1: in the DataHub - Data Privacy Cookie Consent Banner with Eunice + Krupa + Niamh (to be added) @Niamh Phelan
Ex 2: DoctorX - what happens to offline apps data when you migrate to an Appstore ? (to be added) @Ahmad Bassam
Ex 3: Integreat - they use anonymised data and don’t collect some others. That enables them to cater for their users while not being a leak for other interests.