Groups Urge Openness and Transparency for NTIA Data Research Guidelines
NTIA should prioritize transparency and open-internet principles and respect individual privacy rights when crafting potential ethical guidelines for researchers who handle pervasive data, consumer and internet advocates said in comments recently posted.
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NTIA requested public comment on the potential guidelines in December, and comments closed Wednesday. Pervasive data refers to material “about people gathered through online services,” the agency said in its comment solicitation.
Reddit submitted comments in favor of flexibility, transparency and privacy protections. It argued for flexibility in terms of recognizing that different platforms collect various types of data. Companies, at a minimum, should inform users “about how and when their data is being used by researchers and limit ... how that data can be used in a manner that aligns with user expectations,” Reddit added. The platform argued for data deletion rights that researchers should respect.
Public Knowledge urged NTIA to consider user expectations for privacy, orient guidelines that benefit the public and root them in “values and principles of openness, sharing, and reciprocity.” At the same time, researchers shouldn’t be “unduly restricted from taking advantage of publicly accessible data, lest we lose the open and public character that makes our digital landscape so valuable.”
The Center for Democracy & Technology told NTIA to be cognizant of the impact of data brokers holding and sharing data for researchers, which, it said, comes with little oversight. “Ethical guidelines for research using pervasive data should account for risks to subjects stemming from the use of data, like data held by data brokers, collected in ways that are inconsistent with respect for the rights and privacy interests of individuals.”