Internal Audit and Data Ethics / Blog by Jim Pelletier / May 21, 2019
The ethical collection, use, and dissemination of data has quickly emerged as an alarming threat on the digital landscape and must become a priority for internal audit. This threat brings with it the potential to magnify the devastating consequences of a privacy crisis.
To help your organization get on the ethical side of this, here are a few questions to consider from an internal audit perspective:
- How does your organization collect data? Do consumers know what is happening?
- How does your organization analyze the data? Have the algorithms been verified? Is there any bias in the algorithms?
- What is your organization learning from the data? Does it potentially cross any lines into knowing something personal or health related?
- How is your organization using the data? Do customers understand how their data is being used? Does your organization draw a line, for example, between data used to improve marketing efforts and data used to outright manipulate people? (I get this is a very gray area, but does the use of the data at least fit within your organization’s stated values?)
- Does your organization sell the data to others and do your customers know about it?
- Has your organization’s code of ethics evolved along with its use of technology?
Read the whole blog from here.