6.3 Data ethics — privacy and consent

Data affects real people

Every program that collects, stores, or processes data can help or harm the people it describes. Two ideas sit at the center of responsible data use: privacy (respecting what is collected and how it is used) and informed consent. Informed consent means a person understands what data is collected, how it will be used, who can access it, and how long it is kept — and agrees willingly.

What responsible use looks like

Consent buried in a long terms-of-service that no one reads, or made hard to refuse through confusing design, is not genuine consent. Good practice also includes data minimization (collect only what you need), sensible retention (keep data only as long as you need it), and transparency (tell users clearly what happens to their data). Even metadata — information about the data, such as who was contacted, when, and for how long — can reveal sensitive patterns.

On the exam, an ethics question describes a scenario and asks which issue it raises. Read carefully: the responsible choice usually favors users' rights, transparency, and fairness over convenience or profit.