Data Science Ethics Notes – Class 11 Data Science (844)

Class 11 Data Science Ethics Notes (CBSE) cover the data ecosystem, data governance framework, and the importance of ethics in data science with pointwise explanations, examples, and exam-oriented content.

How the Data Ecosystem is Evolving

• Earlier, data was small, structured, and static, making it easy to store and analyze.
• Traditional tools like descriptive statistics, predictive modeling, and classification were used to analyze such data.
• As data evolved, it became large, unstructured, and continuously changing.
• Handling this data requires knowledge of sensor-based data, IoT, machine learning, and support vector machines.
• Today, data is massive, integrated, and dynamic, where different data systems work together.
• Modern data analysis requires concepts like machine learning and deep networks.
• As the data ecosystem evolves, data ethics also becomes more complex.

Why Do Data Scientists Need to Understand Ethics?

• Data scientists have access to a large amount of data, so they must follow ethical guidelines while collecting, using, and analyzing data.
• Organizations should implement protective mechanisms and policies to prevent the mishandling and unethical use of data.
• Ignoring ethical guidelines can lead to serious problems, such as data breaches and misuse of personal information.
• Data breaches allow hackers to steal confidential data from organizations, which is often sold illegally.
• The Yahoo data breach exposed the email addresses, names, and dates of birth of around 3 billion users.
• The Marriott (Starwood) hotel data breach exposed the names, addresses, contact numbers, and passport information of around 383 million guest accounts.
• Another ethical issue is using people’s data without their consent.
• A social networking site conducted an experiment by changing users’ news feeds without their permission to study how it affected their reactions and interactions.
• This experiment was performed without obtaining users’ consent, making it an example of unethical use of data.

Data Governance Framework

• A data governance framework is a set of practices and processes for managing data in an authorized way.
• It helps an organization manage and control its data assets effectively.
• It ensures data security, privacy, integrity, and proper data flow.

Benefits of a Data Governance Framework

• Makes regulation and compliance more effective.
• Increases transparency in data-related activities.
• Improves the value of organizational data.
• Helps resolve data-related issues more efficiently.