Ethics First, Data First, or Business First?

Prof. Nick Falkner - University of Adelaide

Oct. 26, 2018, 2:30 p.m. - Oct. 26, 2018, 3:30 p.m.

Trottier 2100

Hosted by: Prof. Elizabeth Patitsas


Data gathering is now commonplace in cities but the rise of increasingly effective analytics and machine learning mean that we are uncovering many things about a populace who don’t realise how much information they give away on a daily basis. Recently, a member of the independent advisory board overseeing Sidewalk Lab’s work in Toronto resigned, citing the parent company’s greed for data and the hosting organisation’s indifference to the problem. There are, however, solutions that allow us to investigate and measure activity without wholesale attacks on personal privacy or requiring the notional data stewards to be “good people”.

Speaker Bio: Nick Falkner received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, in 2007, after a career in the computing industry and winemaking.   He is currently the Director of the Australian Smart Cities Consortium and an Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Adelaide, tenured since 2012, specialising in networks, data security, ethics, and educational research around student motivation and learning models. He is a recognised leader in innovation around multi-disciplinary problem solving and works with challenging problems in the areas of human habitation and global education. A/Prof Falkner is a highly awarded instructor and has developed a number of courses around ethical and security issues in the network context.