The Visual Imperative

Chapter 4

Navigating ethics in the big data democracy

Abstract

This chapter explores many new and emerging questions that we are only just beginning to consider regarding, how we can (or should) approach navigating ethics in the big data democracy, including with data visualization as a tool for communicating information.

Keywords

data democracy

data ethics

ethics

morality

big data

leadership

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”

—Potter Stewart

4.1. Introduction

This chapter begins, ironically as ethics could (and does, often) easily provide enough fodder for a book on its own, with one of the simplest introductions in this book.

With the arrival of big data, companies have a huge opportunity ...