Hazard: Lacks Informed Consent

Description

This hazard applies to datasets or algorithms that use data which has not been provided with the explicit consent of the data owner/creator. This data often lacks other contextual information which can also make it difficult to understand how the dataset may be biased.

Examples

Example 1: Large public social media datasets rarely collect informed consent from ‘participants’.

Example 2: Data linkage projects tend not to involve informed consent.

Safety Precautions

• Being clear about the limitations of any ground truth inferences made from the data.

• Systems built solely with this type of data should not be applied in practice.