Moral Responsibility of Data Professionals - Whistleblowing

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Data professionals have concrete duties: know every data source and pipeline, enforce change management, access governance and incident response, and get stakeholder sign-off on definitions. Case evidence includes Panera hid a breach for eight months, YouTube paid $150 million for COPPA violations, and Cambridge Analytica’s mass data misuse. Whistleblowing follows documented steps: collect evidence, pick the governing agency, submit complaints, and consider counsel; one recounted case involves being ordered to manipulate data, resigning, and pursuing a pending whistleblower claim. Recommended tool: Autoboard risk-management tool.

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1. 0:00Intro
2. 4:20The Power of Data Professionals Data professionals have incredible power create algorithms to push certain content o create models to flag/target certain individuals bear influence over data privacy and data governance Data professionals have expansive access to sensitive info customer DOB, email, phone, demographics, dependants, etc Data professionals are looked to advise decisions and be arbiters of truth This power can be used for incredible endeavors, but also to harm others
3. 8:28Data Ethics: Knowing Your Data Where/what are the sources of data? where/who are we sending data? Where are the different data environments/servers located? Which tables contain personal identifiable information? • What transformations do certain data elements undergo? What are the data relations and replication diagrams? To make best decisions, we must see the whole elephant!
4. 9:48Data Ethics: Change Mgmt + Peer Review • Does your data organization follow a change management process?
5. 11:59Data Ethics: Incident Response • Are there formal protocol and processes in place for data incidents?
6. 13:11Data Ethics: Definitions Signoff Receive stakeholder sign-off and consensuses on company definitions • Maintain consistent terminology and methodology Maintain company definition dictionary 'Yelp' Case Study Yelp is a tech platform that enables users to review local businesses • Yelp recently released a feature flaging businesses for potentially racist activity
7. 17:21Data Ethics: Whistleblowing Even if you use data ethically, you may encounter others' corporate abuse You may need to whistleblow against others' corporate abuse • Whistleblowing may be only option to stop abuse and save customers • Why whistleblow? . if you were able to prevent something but did not, you are legally liable and may face
8. 19:51What is Whistleblowing? Per National Whistleblower Center
9. 22:33My Corporate Whistleblowing Story • At a prior employer, I was directed to manipulate data and hide info But as Risk Data Analyst, my work guided company's regulatory efforts My role was to be arbiter of truth, so my work should have been honest First I complied with unethical directions
10. 23:41Avoid Whistleblowing by Preventing Scandals • Important to whistleblow, but better to prevent scandals in first place Scandals are not fires, earthquakes, or natural disasters/acts of God • Scandals are perpetuated by humans alone and are entirely preventable
11. 25:49Preventing Scandals: Regulatory Trainings • Educate your workforce on policies and regulations Most public companies have mandatory compliance training • Encourage your DRs and peers to take this training seriously . Finish modules by due date and encourage discussions on training takeaways
12. 29:59Preventing Scandals: Strict Employee Standards • Have rigorous new hire standards Just because one completes 8-week data science certificate doesn't mean they qualified Companies need to truly assess candidate background, knowledge, value system, etc • Hold current employees to rigorous standards • Per CEO Reed Hastings, Netflix measures employee value by productivity • Netflix attracts, retains, and promotes ONLY productive employees
13. 32:16Preventing Scandals: Internal Support • Implement internal fraud/malpractice hotline • Educate employees what to do and who to contact with their concerns • Have formal infrastructure to handle employee concerns
14. 33:31Preventing Scandals: Risk Management Tools Difficult to manually raise and track company regulatory deficiencies • Highly recommended every company utilise risk management tool Personal recommendation is AuditBoard • AuditBoard fully designed to manage internal controls and compliance
15. 37:11Followup Readings and Presentations • Cynthia Cooper book on World Com scandal (example of whistleblowing)
16. 39:55Closing • The 21st Century has made many things easier • But 21st Century also introduced new ways to harm the public These threats touch various parts of the data industry • You do have the power to prevent an Enron-level moment • Let's build a better and safer corporate world, for all of us