Latest trends in digital ethics

All charities, of all sizes, must eventually deal with a particular conundrum: how should they ensure that digital data is collected and used ethically?

 

Digital ethics is a consideration for any organisation, but it’s particularly important for charities as they carry out digital transformation because charities rely on a very high level of trust. That’s why it’s vital that charities are aware of the latest trends in digital ethics.

 

 

What is Digital Ethics?

 

A code of digital ethics lays out the principals of conduct that should be practised by charities in all of their digital activities. This could include campaigns to increase reach using social media, or the use of donor or volunteer data held in a constituent relationship management (CRM) system to shape and inform fundraising campaigns.

 

Digital data, combined with the use of packaged software, cloud-based software services, and even artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, give digital charities powerful new ways of achieving their fundraising, service delivery, and other goals.

 

Digital ethics is important as it governs how this data and technology is used to achieve these goals in a way that does not endanger or erode trust in the charity.

 

In practice this means dealing with what charities ought or ought not to do in their digital activities, rather than considering only what they can or cannot do.

 

 

Key trends that make digital ethics important

 

 

Fallout from the pandemic

 

The pandemic has caused a huge acceleration in digital transformation – from remote working to digital service delivery – and many charities have achieved in 18 months more than might previously have been expected to have been achieved in five years or more.

 

As a result, many organisations, including charities, have some catching up to do when it comes to the ethical side of this transformation.

 

In the early days of the pandemic, there was a feeling that almost anything was permissible because of the exceptional situation. But this exceptional situation is now the ‘new normal’ and charities should be addressing the ethics of their new digital operations as a matter of urgency.

 

 

Increased awareness and concern

 

Since the beginning of 2021 there have been numerous stories in the media about unintended bias and discrimination built into digital services which rely on AI to manipulate digital data. The bias can take many forms including gender bias, racial prejudice, and age discrimination.

 

There has also been a near continuous stream of stories about data breaches leading to the leaking of private information about individuals.

 

The consequence is that many people are far more aware of the risks of their data being used by organisations such as charities and they are more concerned about how it us used.

 

That has an important implication for trust: charities that are not seen to safeguard their constituents’ data effectively or to ensure that it is used or shared in accordance with a rigorous ethical code will likely suffer a loss of trust – and therefore a significant loss of support.

 

 

Decline in trust in technology

 

The pandemic has highlighted the opportunity for technology such as social media to be used to propagate dangerous misinformation and untruths about many topics including vaccines, people, and 5G.

 

This has resulted in a decline in trust in the technology sector as a whole, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer report. This echoes similar findings from a 2020 Pew Research report.

 

The trend should be disturbing for charities, many of whom are increasingly turning to digital technologies to enhance their powers to do good.

 

A key way to counter this increase in distrust of technology is for charities to adopt and articulate a clear code of digital ethics to demonstrate that they are using technology in a way that merits constituents’ trust.

 

 

Legal requirements

 

Today there are relatively few legal requirements that specifically relate to the use of technologies such as AI. Instead most legal obligations stem from regulations such as the UK GDPR. But many people believe it is only a matter of time before the use of digital technologies such as AI become subject to specific regulations to help prevent its misuse – inadvertently or otherwise.

 

Until such regulation is actually introduced, one of the best ways that charities can ensure that they will broadly be in a position to comply with it is to ensure that they have a taken a strong digital ethics stance. That’s because regulations will likely be designed to ensure digitally ethical behaviour, so charities with a strong digital ethics code will have to make few, if any, operational changes to comply.

 

Perhaps more importantly, new regulations will not be able to highlight any ethical shortcomings in historical practices when they are introduced.

 

Digital ethics itself is not new, but for many charities the move to digital is something that that is relatively novel. Thanks to the trends highlighted above, it’s clear that digital ethics has never been such an important thing for charities to consider, and something that is likely to become increasingly important in the coming months and years.