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This is a Technikon podcast.

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What happens at the intersection of ethics

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and technology? It's

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now becoming customary to install

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ethics experts in technology related

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projects everywhere, but to what

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end and what kind of ethical

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architecture is required to keep pace

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with the exponential growth in technology

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development? I'm Peter Balint

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from Technikon, and these are questions

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we strive to answer in this podcast series

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called Ethics and Technology -

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A Prerequisite for European Research.

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Each episode we look at the role of ethics

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in different technology related sectors

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such as cybersecurity, medical

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technology and software and hardware

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engineering and many more. Today

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we look at infrastructure and smart mobility.

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Our guest, Hans Graux, is an attorney

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in Brussels working on the mGov4EU on

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behalf of Project Partner Timelex.

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Timelex is a niche law firm specializing

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in the legal aspects of information

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technology, which of course includes

1:08

ethics. Welcome Hans and

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thank you for coming on today.

1:12

Thank you for for inviting me.

1:14

When we talk about ethics, most discussions

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quickly go to privacy protection

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and data protection, but this is just

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one piece of the pie. There's so

1:24

much more to ethics. Can you edify

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these perceptions by citing the role

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that ethics plays in the mGov4EU

1:32

project?

1:33

Absolutely. And well, it's a very

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welcome question because indeed there's a tendency

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in European research projects to narrow

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ethics challenges down to data protection, privacy

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protection, and basically the questions on

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which kinds of information about citizens

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gets collected and what it's used for. But

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ethics is a lot broader as a

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as a working topic. Basically, it

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comprises all kinds of potential

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breaches, potential risks, potential infringements

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of fundamental rights. And

2:01

I think mGov4EU is an interesting project

2:04

to demonstrate that -the the

2:06

core idea behind mGov4EU is

2:08

basically the whole notion

2:10

of data sovereignty - giving people control

2:13

over their personal data and

2:15

obviously privacy data protection is

2:17

a big part of that. We want to make sure

2:19

that data still gets dealt with

2:21

safely and securely. But there is

2:23

a broader component to that which isn't purely

2:26

about data protection and privacy

2:28

protection. It's also basically about the

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questions, for instance, of empowerment,

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of non-discrimination, of making

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sure that you're building an information society that's

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accessible pretty much across the board to

2:38

all of our European citizenship. Look simply

2:40

at the question, for instance, of digital

2:43

divide. That's not a data protection issue.

2:45

That's not a privacy issue. But if

2:47

you want to build an

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ecosystem like this project wants to do

2:51

where people get more control over their

2:53

own information where they can use their own mobile

2:56

phone to interact more securely

2:58

with public administrations, manage

3:00

their own information, manage their own official

3:03

documentation, evidentiary documents, certificates,

3:05

attestations. If you want to allow people to do

3:07

that, that can be very beneficial.

3:10

But not everybody in the citizenship will be

3:12

able to do that. There is still a digital divide. Not

3:14

everybody is as equally handy with at

3:16

home with mobile devices. So you do need

3:19

to make sure that your project is designed in a

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way that takes that into consideration

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and that you still keep avenues open

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for people who aren't really all that comfortable

3:28

acting, interacting with digital

3:30

technologies and with mobile devices.

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So that's a good example of an

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ethics challenge that mGov4EU needs

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to deal with and where we need to provide guidance

3:41

that actually isn't related to data protection

3:43

or privacy protection at all. But

3:46

that does have a very big ethics

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component

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Since you broke this wide open I have to follow

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up with a question. Do we need

3:53

a continuous approach to

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make sure that ethics ideas are being

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adhered to or are

4:00

regular monitoring efforts and general

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rules sufficient?

4:04

I think there's no way to steer

4:07

around the need for continuous assessment.

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And I think European projects are generally quite

4:11

good at that, at least the ones that sort of internalize

4:14

the role of ethics. So there's

4:16

a lazy way to do ethics and there's

4:18

a proper way to do ethics. The lazy

4:20

way is to just look at you know what are the ethics questions

4:23

that have been imposed to us as a part

4:25

of the project grant and

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what are the boxes that we need to tick? And

4:30

just to say in a couple of weeks before the deadlines

4:32

are due, we'll write up the deliverables, we'll send

4:34

them in and we'll be done with it. That's the

4:36

lazy way to do it. But obviously

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that will not help you monitor continuously

4:42

what lessons you're learning and what problems

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you face and what new issues might come up.

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To do that, you really need a continuous approach where

4:49

all of the partners more or less internalize

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the ethical values of the project and

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have an ethics awareness.

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And that's very challenging because in

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European research projects a part of the strength

5:00

is that you have a broad team, a broad

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range of stakeholders, all of whom have their

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own expertise, but all of them also have the

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tendency to look at every part

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of the project from their own narrow perspective.

5:12

If you're an application

5:14

designer, then you want to build your application

5:16

in the way that it works and it functions. But you

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don't have to worry too much, you don't want to worry too much about

5:20

the societal impacts and

5:23

what ethical problems you might be creating

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with a specific solution. And yet precisely

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that part is very important if

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you want to make sure that ethics are

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done right. You really need basic guidance

5:36

for the project, you need a short statement of what the

5:38

main ethical principles and constraints of the

5:40

project are. You need everybody to understand

5:42

those and you need a willingness within the team

5:44

to keep an eye out for those and

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to communicate about them. At least flag and

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say, hey, this is what we're doing right now.

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I'm kind of concerned of what the implications

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are going to be. Maybe it's nothing, but maybe we should have

5:55

a brainstorming session or maybe I'd like

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someone else to look at it. And if

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you do it that way, if you sort of create this culture

6:03

of ethically responsible

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development within a project, you can do a

6:07

lot of good and also and finding out sort

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of where the unintended consequences

6:11

of your project might be, which could be beneficial

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or which can be detrimental for from

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an ethics perspective, making sure that those

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are analyzed correctly and you have a way to deal with

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those challenges before you bring a final

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product to the market where you have to say, you know, we

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had a good idea, but the implications

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of what we're doing here are pretty serious,

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there are some some downsides that are difficult to manage

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which jeopardize the viability

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of our project outcome as a market product.

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So it sounds like then the ethics efforts

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within a project, they continue to grow with

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the project through the lifetime of the project, and

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maybe this feeds into this idea

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of responsible research. Many

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EU projects expect their partners

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to adhere to this idea of responsible

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research. Can you give examples

6:56

of what this means in general and perhaps

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more specifically in the project

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that you're involved in, which is mGov4EU ?

7:04

Absolutely. So that's sort of the overarching

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principle for European research

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projects. The Commission

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would like all of its funded projects to practice

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responsible research, responsible innovation,

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and that's actually a very hands

7:18

on approach towards handling ethics challenges,

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because the core difficulty is that

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the things like fundamental rights and ethics,

7:25

they sound good to everybody. The issue is that

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you need to make sure that those values

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are somehow ingrained into your project

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and the outcomes in the way you approach those. And

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that's difficult because usually

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there isn't one solution that's

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ambiguously optimal. And as a project,

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you need to make some choices there on

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where you place your priorities, which

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values you choose to to emphasize,

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and how you mitigate some potential negative

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impacts on other values. I'll make that

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a little bit more concrete specifically in the for mGov4EU. So

7:57

that project is essentially about allowing

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people to maintain better

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control over their own personal information,

8:05

making sure that when they want to identify

8:08

themselves in a specific service, they don't reveal

8:10

more information than they need to. It also

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builds on the philosophy that citizens

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are generally capable of managing their

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own personal information

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and that they can keep control over that data

8:22

via their mobile devices. That's

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a very explicit value. That's about citizen

8:27

empowerment. That's about giving people control

8:29

over their own information. That's a very powerful

8:31

idea and a very ethical

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perspective on how to deal with data. But

8:36

there's also there's

8:38

also tensions there with other fundamental values,

8:40

obviously with data protection, privacy protection.

8:43

That's that's one of the key priorities here. You

8:45

want to make sure that by putting

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all of the data in a mobile

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phone or at least under the control of a mobile phone,

8:52

you don't want to accidentally lower

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the bar of security. You want to make sure that

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the application of the services that you have there

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are adequately protected

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and that they take into account

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the skill level of a reasonable,

9:06

of an average person or even someone with

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a lower than average skill level. If

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you are going to put people in control

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over their own data, you need to do it in such

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a way that people don't actually harm themselves.

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That's the data protection issue as well. But

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there's also a bigger justice issue behind that

9:22

that. What do you do, for instance, when things go wrong,

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when there's an incident, when somebody steals data from

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your mobile phone because there were tricked,

9:28

because of the phishing exercise,  you know, how

9:32

do you protect people then? So empowering

9:34

citizens, you know, obviously, nobody could possibly

9:36

object to that. But how do you balance

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that with the need for data protection,

9:41

making sure that people cannot get tricked? And

9:43

how do you provide people with adequate protections

9:45

if something goes wrong? What is the degree of control

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you exercise over the whole

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framework and over where data can

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flow? So that's a good example

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of where the application of an ethical framework

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and making explicit what kind of values you have

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will help scope the approach

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to the work and the design of the architecture

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around that.

10:05

So, yeah, I think that those are great examples. And it kind

10:07

of makes me wonder now what

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happens when you have two

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different perceptions of what ethics really

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means. A

10:16

prime example is the cultural differences

10:19

which may alter perceptions about ethics.

10:21

Absolutely. At the

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beginning of a project, there should be a discussion

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about what kind of values you endorse within a

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specific project, what kind of outcomes you want to get

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and what kind of fundamental rights you want to

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strengthen. And that is the point where you can

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have an open discussion and say, OK, well, how important

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is, for instance, individual governance?

10:40

How important is governmental supervision

10:42

for us? And what are the kind of lessons that we draw

10:45

out of that in terms of architectural

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requirements? And most European

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projects have that sort of built into the approach

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in the sense that they have a task early

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on where somebody needs to look at

10:56

what are the legal requirements and what are the ethics requirements.

10:59

But it's actually quite rare that a project explicitly

11:01

says, well, OK, let's not do

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that abstractly and just say no , what is what

11:06

is the GDPR general data protection regulation,

11:08

what does the law impose on us as an obligation

11:10

in terms of data protection? But let's actually

11:13

reflect on what are the

11:15

different ethical values that we could be designing our

11:17

solution for. And one of the choices

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that we want to make as a consortium, not from the

11:21

perspective that one choice is the right one,

11:23

is necessarily optimal for society,

11:26

but at least making it more explicit

11:28

what the choices are that you make as a project

11:31

that will serve also as your basis for evaluation

11:33

later on to see whether you did a good job. And

11:35

maybe you'll find halfway through the project that you were

11:38

too flexible or too strict, and that's perfectly

11:40

fine, that just means that you're learning on a difficult

11:42

topic.

11:43

And I think this goes back to what we mentioned

11:46

earlier about this idea of the continuous

11:48

approach or this constant evolving

11:50

of, you know, how ethics fits into

11:52

a project, so...

11:54

Exactly. And it

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also goes, you know, also to

11:58

it impacts a lot of more practical aspects

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of the of the project as well.

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Yes. I'm glad you bring up the practical aspect

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of ethics. This is something we will talk about

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in a future episode, so for

12:10

our listeners, stay tuned. And

12:13

as for today's show, that's all we have time

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for. But it was great to get an insider's view

12:17

about ethics and technology in

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a real world setting. Thanks

12:21

for coming on today.

12:22

You're very welcome. Thank you for the questions. It was

12:24

very interesting.

12:26

And thank you for listening and make sure

12:28

to join us next time as we examine how

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ethics fits into cybersecurity,

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we will look at a huge government funded project

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which allocates quite a few resources to

12:38

ensuring effective ethics principles

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are embedded in a measurable way.

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You won't want to miss it. See you next

12:45

time.

12:49

The mGov4EU project has received

12:51

funding from the European Union's Horizon

12:53

2020 Research and Innovation Program

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under grant agreement number 959072