Ethics & Privacy Series

ADAPT ran a successful series of ‘Ethics and Privacy’ public lectures with internationally renowned figures to discuss and debate the impact of AI systems on society today and address the many legal questions that AI presents. ADAPT develops content technology to help industry and individuals understand, manage, and control the overwhelming amount of content with which we are all increasingly confronted. We believe ethical and privacy issues need to be to the forefront during technology development. This Research Initiative brought together researchers from across disciplines (Computer Science, Law, Ethics, Sociology etc.)  both within ADAPT and beyond to progress the state of art and practice in Ethics and Privacy.

The Initiative

  1. ADAPT developed an event series through which issues can be exposed and discussed from several different perspectives. Videos of previous talks can be found on the ADAPT YouTube channel.
  2. Promotes the ongoing research that advances the state-of-the-art and practice in ethics and privacy being undertaken within the Centre.  An “Ethics of ADAPT” white paper has been published which aims to provide an early concise overview of the ethical challenges that can be identified in the research being undertaken at the ADAPT Centre. Research is underway in the following areas:
    • Ethics of personalisation technologies.
    • Personal privacy in a world of the Internet of Things;
    • Ethics in eHealth app development;
    • Personal data agent to manage digital footprint;
    • Machine-readable terms and conditions;
    • Encoding legislation into machine enforceable policies.
  3. Coordinates apps and initiatives arising out of research in ADAPT to practically engage people in addressing ethical and privacy concerns in their use of technology and its development. 

 Initiatives include the BigFoot initiative intends to raise awareness about peoples’ digital footprint. It has developed an app that allows you to analyse and understand your online privacy needs with the goal to assist you in adjusting your privacy settings in social media apps.