Safety net

Its been described as the latest weapon in the fight against online paedophiles but in order to be successful, Project Isis needs to overcome concerns over internet privacy. Dr. Penny Duquenoy and Prof. Awais Rashid describe the ethical challenges.

A project that aims to produce an ethics-centred monitoring framework and tools for supporting law enforcement agencies in policing online social networks for the purpose of protecting children is never going to be easy. For starters there are two ethics angles to consider. The first is to do with standard research good practice, i.e. research ethics (what are the ethical aspects to be taken into account in the research?). The second is more challenging: what are the ethical aspects of the technologies and the context in which they are to be used?

From the research ethics perspective, the issues to be considered by computer experts from the universities of Lancaster, Middlesex and Swansea working on the Isis project, are: how, and from where, is the data to be gathered? How to preserve confidentiality? What measures are in place with regard to the researchers and their exposure to the data?

Traditionally there are three basic principles of research ethics that underpin the acceptable conduct of research involving human participants. They are: (i) respect for persons, (ii) beneficence and (iii) justice. The first acknowledges human autonomy (the right of an individual to make choices) and is usually understood in research terms as obtaining informed consent to participating in the research project. The second is about doing good, including attending to the well-being of those involved in the research (participants, and researchers). The third concerns the consideration of risk and benefit, and special protection for vulnerable groups.

Support

Due to the sensitive nature of the project, the team is using secondary data, that is, data held by law enforcement agencies and which has been stripped of identifiers (i.e. anonymised). The researchers are also aware of the environment they are working in, and support, including counselling, is available for them if needed.

The risks and benefits of using technology in this way were considered at the proposal stage of the project, and the project plan presented to a research ethics committee for their consideration (and approval). It is also good practice to refer back to an ethics committee if unanticipated issues arise during the project, or the research design should change in a way that has a bearing on research ethics.

With standard research processes in place, the next big question mark centred on the ethical aspects of the technologies and the context in which they are to be used?

On the one hand the protection of children is an ethical good (i.e. children are vulnerable and in this instance denied the right to make their own informed choices). The controversy comes when we ask the question is it the highest ethical good? In other words, we are looking at a trade-off between two human rights: maintaining an individuals right to privacy and protecting human dignity and the integrity of the person. This is the stuff of ethical dilemmas.

To widen our perspective on this issue, and to highlight other potential ethical issues, the Isis project has sought input from stakeholders. These include experts on privacy, IT professionals with expertise in on-line communications and public engagement, professionals in social care, policing, and professionals who have studied the online environment. Their input will inform the design of the tools (what should be adapted, what should be included, what should be left out) and the process will inform our ethics-centred framework.

In general terms, any technology that tracks and records someones activities has the potential to be ethically alarming it most obviously affects individual privacy. If the monitoring operation is transparent does this overcome the difficulties? At least one could say it is honest, and not part of some covert or deceptive practice. Transparency of operation is the strategy employed in the use of cameras in public places signs are displayed to inform the public that cameras are in use, and often the cameras are clearly to be seen. The public then have been informed. Have they given their consent though? Do they have choices opt-out or opt-in? (That is, can they express their self-determination?) nutshell

It is clear from everyday business that informed consent is considered relevant to good practice how many times have we telephoned a company for help and the first thing we hear is that our call/conversation may be recorded. Has anyone ever said they didnt wish to be recorded? Would the interaction between customer and service personnel continue?

Of course, intelligence gathering by government law enforcement agencies is a different matter following a suspect around the streets to catch them committing an offence would be pointless if you made yourself known, the whole point is not to be visible. But in the streets it is easier to concentrate on one person, and not sweep the population of the town into the plot.

The other point to consider is have we got the right person? Is the information received, and the interpretation made of it, true? On what grounds have judgements been made? Are they valid? Do they take into account human irrationality?

The capability of the technology to track, gather data, hold data indefinitely, manipulate and interpret data to provide a profile, offers a temptation that is hard to resist. Whether you are working for law enforcement, the health care sector, or for commercial organisations interested in targeting customers to increase sales, shadowing peoples movements on the internet has become easy.

It might be legal (or it might not, youd better check!) but is it ethical? That is the question.

The only way to ensure that ethical considerations form part of key design decisions of such systems is for ethicists and technologists to work closely together, with ethicists acting as a disruptive influence, raising ethical concerns at every possible opportunity. This confronts the technologists with the ethical implications of their design choices and encourages a culture of ethics-aware development of technical solutions. Balancing the ethical considerations against the technical advancements is non-trivial, even impossible, but asking the difficult questions is itself an excellent means to consider what the potential ethical implications of a technology might be.

Isis in a nutshell

• The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.
• It aims to develop tools that analyse language and syntax used online, to tell if an adult is masquerading as a child as part of the victim grooming process.
• It uses a technique known as authorship attribution, which indicates differences in how people of a particular age group write.
• The system will also be able to keep track of secret code words used by paedophiles as file names for child pornography. This is a key problem for law enforcement agencies who struggle to keep track with the changing vocabulary.
• The three-year project is due to be completed in October 2011.