Balancing ethics and innovation during tech transformation

With appli­ca­tions rang­ing from bio­met­ric ID checks to hyper-per­son­alised mar­ket­ing, cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies such as big-data ana­lyt­ics and machine learn­ing are pow­er­ing busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion. Yet, as key ques­tions con­cern­ing the ethics of using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence remain unan­swered, this can be dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry for busi­ness­es.

For board­rooms lack­ing detailed tech­ni­cal knowl­edge, hurtling into the next big tech project can be a tempt­ing way to boost oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and keep up with the com­pe­ti­tion. While recent advances in IT have offered employ­ers many new pow­ers – mon­i­tor­ing home­work­ers’ pro­duc­tiv­i­ty by log­ging the num­ber of key­strokes they make, for instance – actu­al­ly wield­ing these will not always be the smartest move.

“Just because the algo­rithm says ‘yes’, it doesn’t mean that the board must slav­ish­ly fol­low its lead,” says Dr Ian Peters, direc­tor of the Insti­tute of Busi­ness Ethics. “It’s worth remem­ber­ing that, if a dig­i­tal adop­tion goes wrong and your staff or cus­tomers suf­fer as a result, blam­ing the tech­nol­o­gy can nev­er be an option.”

A com­pa­ny should first ensure that it has enough in-house tech­no­log­i­cal exper­tise at the senior lev­el – a chief infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty offi­cer, for instance – to future-proof itself, he says. The next step, if the firm is con­sid­er­ing any tech inno­va­tion that would have a direct impact on employ­ees, cus­tomers or any oth­er group of stake­hold­ers, would be to engage them in mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tions. 

“Each busi­ness has its own unique cul­ture, pur­pose and set of val­ues. Any trans­for­ma­tion project that flies in the face of those three ele­ments is doomed to fail­ure,” Peters argues.

Organ­i­sa­tions that break the law on data pro­tec­tion, even inad­ver­tent­ly, face hefty penal­ties. Exper­ian, for instance, could be fined £20m if the Infor­ma­tion Commissioner’s Office rules that the cred­it ref­er­ence agency sold users’ per­son­al infor­ma­tion with­out their con­sent. But is mere­ly ensur­ing legal com­pli­ance enough for many firms at a time when trans­paren­cy and trust are as fun­da­men­tal to them as the Gen­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion Regulation’s ‘pri­va­cy by design’ ethos?

Transcending compliance

Rightmove’s CFO, Ali­son Dolan, would argue that it isn’t enough. She believes that in-house com­pli­ance func­tions need to extend their remit, giv­en the high lev­el of pub­lic frus­tra­tion with data secu­ri­ty breach­es and intru­sive online mar­ket­ing prac­tices.

“While the GDPR took a lot of crit­i­cal deci­sions about data pri­va­cy out of the hands of busi­ness­es, they can’t afford to let their guard down, con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of secu­ri­ty prob­lems we all see,” she says. “My advice to all con­tent-based organ­i­sa­tions is to hire the best com­pli­ance spe­cial­ists you can find, look at their role in the con­text of the entire ecosys­tem of the busi­ness and pro­mote good dia­logue between them and your tech peo­ple.”

Although the demand for com­pli­ance experts notably out­strips sup­ply, the grow­ing deter­mi­na­tion of con­sumers to hold busi­ness­es to account has made their input vital, Dolan argues. These pro­fes­sion­als will not only under­stand what the tech team is doing and be famil­iar with the legal ram­i­fi­ca­tions. They will also be able to “inform the board of approach­ing eth­i­cal prob­lems and set out the impli­ca­tions of any data mis­use”.

Guarding the ethics

Instead of rely­ing on in-house experts, bio­met­rics soft­ware provider Yoti asks exter­nal ethics ‘guardians’ to hold it to account for the com­mer­cial deci­sions it makes. Ethics is huge­ly impor­tant to the com­pa­ny, which pro­vides age-ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tems for clients rang­ing from gov­ern­ments to online casi­nos.

The firm’s guardian coun­cil is an inde­pen­dent pan­el of peo­ple with exper­tise in fields such as human rights and data pri­va­cy. Last year, it vetoed the management’s plans to extend Yoti’s ser­vices to e‑voting, cit­ing con­cerns about “the politi­cised nature of these process­es” and the high lev­el of rep­u­ta­tion­al risk attached to them. 

“For an organ­i­sa­tion to build a set of core prin­ci­ples from the get-go is quite unusu­al in our sec­tor,” says Julie Daw­son, direc­tor in charge of reg­u­la­to­ry and pol­i­cy mat­ters at Yoti. “It makes the com­pa­ny a very refresh­ing place to work. Hav­ing an eth­i­cal approach to some­thing as poten­tial­ly sen­si­tive as bio­met­rics is a clear advan­tage to us in attract­ing the right sorts of clients. It enables us to employ peo­ple who share our val­ues too.”

Yoti also has an inter­nal trust and ethics group. This invites rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all cor­ners of the busi­ness – from recep­tion­ists and secu­ri­ty guards to HR offi­cers and mar­ket­ing exec­u­tives, to play their part in shap­ing the firm’s poli­cies.

“It’s a bit like jury ser­vice: every­one gets a turn,” Daw­son explains. “Group mem­bers are encour­aged to use their anten­nae and report any­thing – anony­mous­ly, if they like – that doesn’t look right.” 

While many organ­i­sa­tions look to their senior experts in tech­nol­o­gy and com­pli­ance to bal­ance their appetite for inno­va­tion against their wider eth­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties, both Peters and Dolan believe that the buck must always stop with the chief exec­u­tive. 

“Fac­ing the prospect of los­ing mon­ey to be the sort of busi­ness you ulti­mate­ly want to be is prob­a­bly the biggest test of your eth­i­cal val­ues. A firm’s readi­ness to do that is an atti­tude that needs to come from the top,” Dolan says. “Mon­ey-spin­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties that appear to harm nobody but may not be ful­ly GDPR com­pli­ant can and do arise. It puts me in mind of the old def­i­n­i­tion of integri­ty being what you do when no one’s watch­ing.”