DIMARUCUT, FEBIE VALLENE I.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY(ARC203)

Instructions:
Imagine that you are now part of the workforce, identify one (1) Science and one (1) Technology Ethical
dilemma you think that exist in an organization and discuss how can you help in addressing the issue.

a.) Technology:

Today, with the rise of the Coronavirus pandemic, working from our homes has become
normalized. Companies have come up with ways to ensure their employees are doing what
they're supposed to be doing. Software that can monitor employees has now become in
demand, with programs that track every typed word, snapping photos through computer
cameras, GPS coordinates, even surveilling how much time spent on social media compared to
their desk work and more. In short, having no say on your every move being recorded. This
raises the concern on where the line should be drawn with regards to privacy intrusion,
between maintaining productivity from a home-based workforce to shady surveillance.

I would address this issue by first investigating and educating myself on how the company
tracking software works. Get to know everything that it tries to collect and with this
information, I can assess how boundaries should be drawn and voice out these concerns on
maintaining our rights with our privacy. And at the same time accomplishing my part and
responsibilities as an employee so that privacy-intrusive measures don't have to be obliged.

b.) Science:

Another example of an ethical dilemma with regards to the control of scientific data that is
being collected in the workplace is the "The Google's Project Nightingale is meant to collect and
analyze the detailed personal‐health information of millions of people across the USA. As a
result, Google employees had full access to non‐anonymous patient health data. Although
Nightingale violated no laws regarding health data, the case raised fears over privacy. Ethically
speaking, Ascension and Google ignored various standards for handling personal and sensitive
data (Zook et al, 2017). First, this was clearly a breach of confidentiality as patients trusted the
hospitals that their health data would be managed with the greatest respect for privacy. Second,
patients were not asked for consent to share their data with Google for storage and processing.
Third, patients’ privacy was seriously disrespected, because data were not anonymized prior to
its transfer to Google."

Towards a responsible data science, a way to address this is first, being conscious and aware of
the data that is being collected and mindful of the adverse consequences of giving out our
sensitive/personal information to know our rights with regards to dilemmas that may arise.
Another is transparency which must be clear for participants/patients for which purposes their
data is being used, where and by whom they are used and processed. There should be explicit
consent where the participants need to be informed for which their data is being used, where it
is being stored, and have the right to decide whether data shared is in anonymized or
identifiable form. More importantly, having the right to be able to have the data corrected or
withdrawn from the study.
Reference:
Satariano, A. (2020, May 06). How My Boss Monitors Me While I Work from Home
The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/technology/employee-monitoring-
work-from-home-virus.html

EMBO Mol Med. 2020 Mar 6. Google's Project Nightingale highlights the necessity of data
science ethics review. NCBI. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059004/