Valid consent

1. Valid consent

Hello!

2. Why consent in data ethics?

Giving consent or permission to use one's data is a great mechanism to provide control and give users a say in how their data or information is being used. It also raises the aspect of data ownership and the right thing to do while using other people's property. This includes individuals' personal or privacy-sensitive information or even their intellectual property like their art or ideas.

3. Data ownership and IP

Companies need to clearly understand the provenance and ownership of the data they use for their projects. This applies to all data, whether its personal information or copyright-sensitive data. Regarding copyright, it's crucial to establish the owner of a photo or even a blog article if they wish to reuse it. It's as simple as not stealing someone else's work. If you need to use it, ask permission and compensate if required. For example, Getty images sued the questionable use of their images by an AI image generation company which did not seek permission or pay royalties to the Getty artists and photographers, which is very unethical. Just because an image is online, it doesn't mean anyone is free to do whatever with it.

4. Even for the non-tech stuff

Clarifying granular consent and ownership also applies to less technical data collection. If you interview someone, you need to be sure that you have the permission to not only use their photo, names, but also to use their direct quotes if you wish to publish them. This also applies to plagiarism, where one copies another's work without citing or properly compensating them. If you interview someone, your recording of the answers may be subjective, so it's a good ethical practice to offer the participant to review the information that you collected.

5. Personal data- focus on the valid

Consent is primarily at the forefront when we talk about the personal data of individuals. For consent to be valid, the giver should be well informed with specific, clear, easy-to-understand information. They should freely give consent. That is, they have a real choice, no pressure to give in, and they participate voluntarily. For instance, if a photo editing app requests a user to give their GPS locations automatically, the user has no choice; it's not freely given consent. In the same way, if employers request data from their employees beyond the contractual necessity, the consent might be affected by the employer's power. Consent is also tricky when collecting children's data, where parental consent might be necessary, and even then, children should also be given a choice.

6. What is in the consent request form?

The essential elements that need to be included in a consent request form are your organization's name and contact details, the explicit purpose of data collection, how you will treat the data, and the modes of use and reuse. You should mention possible data-sharing third parties and indicate clearly that users can withdraw consent at any time.

7. Many ways to record consent

There are many ways to request and record consent. You can provide a clear option to tick a box, or by sending a form or a specific email, giving granular options to choose what kind of data they wish to share, or even an audio recording of verbal consent. While it's possible to request consent at any point of the data life cycle, it's most efficient to design a robust consent form right from data acquisition.

8. Consent management and individual requests

Managing consent is as important as acquiring it. You need a systematic approach to store and retrieve the record and modality consent of your data providers or users. It's advisable to set up automated consent withdrawal tools for people to withdraw consent easily. For example, set up an unsubscribe button for your marketing emails. The consent records are personal data, so you must safeguard them and regularly perform consent reviews adequately.

9. Let's practice!

Great, let's practice!

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