Here is a quote taken from the 2016 Royal Society Publishing Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences paper What is Data Ethics:
“…data ethics can be defined as the branch of ethics that studies and evaluates moral problems related to data (including generation, recording, curation, processing, dissemination, sharing and use), algorithms (including artificial intelligence, artificial agents, machine learning and robots) and corresponding practices (including responsible innovation, programming, hacking and professional codes), in order to formulate and support morally good solutions (e.g. right conducts or right values) “
In healthcare, the technologies associated with data collection and processing are moving forward at an ever increasing pace, and leaving behind any thoughtful discussions around the ethics of these technologies.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at my last post Google’s Deep Mind, Artificial Intelligence, and Your “Private” Medical Records and you will see what I mean.
Anyway, this paper, (and it’s associated 14 follow-up papers contained in it’s theme issue) makes a good case for the creation of a new branch of ethics called Data Ethics.