Anthea Lipsett, The Guardian; Drones and big data: the next frontier in the fight against wildlife extinction
"Yet it’s not more widely used because few researchers have the skills
to use this type of technology. In biology, where many people are
starting to use drones, few can code an algorithm specifically for their
conservation or research problem, Wich says. “There’s a lot that needs
to be done to bridge those two worlds and to make the AI more
user-friendly so that people who can’t code can still use the
technology.”
The solutions are more support from tech companies, better teaching
in universities to help students overcome their fears of coding, and
finding ways to link technologies together in an internet-of-things
concept where all the different sensors, including GPS, drones, cameras
and sensors, work together."
Issues and developments related to ethics, information, and technologies, examined in the ethics and intellectual property graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" will be published in Summer 2025. Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Showing posts with label IoT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IoT. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Sunday, February 17, 2019
With fitness trackers in the workplace, bosses can monitor your every step — and possibly more; The Washington Post, February 16, 2019
Christopher Rowland, The Washington Post; With fitness trackers in the workplace, bosses can monitor your every step — and possibly more
[Kip
Currier: This article--and case study about the upshots and downsides
of employers' use of personal health data harvested from their
employees' wearable devices--is a veritable "ripped from the headlines"
gift from the Gods for an Information Ethics professor's discussion
question for students this week!...
What are the ethics issues?Who are the stakeholders?What ethical theory/theories would you apply/not apply in your analysis and decision-making?What are the risks and benefits presented by the issues and the technology?What are the potential positive and negative consequences?What are the relevant laws and gaps in law?
Would you decide to participate in a health data program, like the one examined in the article? Why or why not?
And for all of us...spread the word that HIPAA does NOT cover personal health information that employees VOLUNTARILY give to employers. It's ultimately your decision to decide what to do, but we all need to be aware of the pertinent facts, so we can make the most informed decisions.
See the full article and the excerpt below...]
"Many consumers are under the mistaken belief that all health data they share is required by law to be kept private under a federal law called HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The law prohibits doctors, hospitals and insurance companies from disclosing personal health information.
But if an employee voluntarily gives health data to an employer or a company such as Fitbit or Apple — entities that are not covered by HIPPA’s [sic] rules — those restrictions on disclosure don’t apply, said Joe Jerome, a policy lawyer at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit in Washington. The center is urging federal policymakers to tighten up the rules.
“There’s gaps everywhere,’’ Jerome said.
Real-time information from wearable devices is crunched together with information about past doctors visits and hospitalizations to get a health snapshot of employees...
Some companies also add information from outside the health system — social predictors of health such as credit scores and whether someone lives alone — to come up with individual risk forecasts."
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