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The estimated size of the digital universe in 2011 was 1.8 zettabytes. It is predicted that between 2009 and 2020, this will grow 44 fold to 35 zettabytes per year. A well defined data management strategy is essential to successfully utilize data.*
My 12-year-old daughter recently asked me if she could install Snapchat on her iPhone. I have no problem with snapping and sharing pictures that erase themselves after a few seconds. No problem, if there could be shared and congruently applied ethics for using the internet. The danger today is that the internet is anonymous and users can hide behind IP addresses that are impossible to see or track for ordinary users.
Snapchat, for example, is misused by people sending inappropriate pictures or taking screenshots and saving pictures that should be erased. It is not only the internet that needs digital ethics. It is also the handling of data in general that should be ethical.
“Google has given access to healthcare data of up to 1.6 million NHS patients!” Guardian, May 2016
For the last year in the UK, internet “revenge porn” has been a crime. The National Security Agency is collecting the calling records of millions of Americans, leaked by former agency contractor Edward Snowden, a clear threat to the personal privacy of ordinary citizens. Daily, millions of comments on blogs and websites have to be erased by editors because of unethical content. Google itself is erasing thousands of websites daily for the same reason.
If you want an affair, just hide anonymously in the internet using Ashley Madison’s dating site , or hack the site’s data bank and wash millions of marriage cheaters ashore. Today, we are dealing with the sexualisation of young children being randomly exposed to porn sites on the internet. I could easily go on like this for pages noting the ethical data crimes of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
And don’t get me wrong; I am not against digitalizing our world. I think, however, that all users of data, and hence the internet, should be data-ethics savvy.
For decades CLP has specialized in leadership and we think that today’s leaders play a crucial role in dealing with data in a professional and ethical way. Leaders are the ones to guide organizations and people, build start-ups, products and services. Organizations and their organizational leaders have a direct impact on society.
With the digital transformation, leaders are increasingly facing new challenges. Leaders must transform their businesses and guide them into the digital age. They have to lead differently, coming from a hierarchical tell and control leadership culture to a collective network culture. They must, for example, let loose and deal with the feeling of losing power while creating fast-changing networks.
Leaders have to become data savvy, using that advantage for better decision-making. But leaders must also act as role models in the application of “ethical digitalization”. The internet is not the playground to exploit others simply because we can. It allows, rather, the intelligent use of data in such a way that we drive new and existing businesses within the boundaries of old and new applied human ethics.
CLP calls for learning in Digital-Ethics
We need to train leaders in how to use data in an ethical way and, as a whole, how to drive the digital age in an ethical way.
The age of digitalization is young; so is the topic of digital ethics. CLP is dedicated to helping organizations, leaders and all people to transform into the digital age. If you are a representative of an organization and you need to train your leaders to become digitalization savvy, or if you are a freelancer consultant offering the service of digital ethics, please get in touch with us.
POSSIBLE CONTENT OF THIS TRAINING COULD BE:
- The change in society – from market capitalism to a collaborative common.
- Where do we work tomorrow? Ethical questions about work in the future.
- How the technological future looks – Artificial Intelligence, software platforms, 3D-printing, data analytics, predictive data, etc.
- How organizations will change: From hierarchical structures to networks.Leading the digitalized organization: Dealing with colleagues, direct reports, robots, virtual friends and humans.
- Ethics of innovation: Creating and using data, software and devices.
Yours,
Dr. Marcus Gottschalk and the CLP Team