FAIR: the SoBIgData free online course to become responsible data scientists
On May 25th SoBigData launched FAIR, a free online course to help orienting in the new European regulation on privacy.
The course is aimed at data scientists and all those who work with the data and provides them with the basic elements of the new regulation and suggests the ethical questions that every responsible data scientist should make.
The new general regulation on data protection, also known as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) changes the management of personal data relating to European citizens.
The main objective of the regulation is to protect people in their fundamental rights and freedoms and in particular requires that personal data are treated fairly and, above all, lawfully and transparently. All this even in the case where the data are managed by companies, such as the big giants of the web and social networks, which operate outside the European Community, under penalty of significant penalties.
"The question of transparency is fundamental. In practice, when we sign up for a site, this will provide us with clear and understandable information about how our personal data will be stored and used and guarantee our rights, including the ability to update data, to forget it on request, and portability, or the possibility of transferring them to a different operator ", explains Fosca Giannotti, research manager at the CNR and coordinator of SoBigData.
Ethics and privacy are among the founding pillars of SoBigData. Hence the idea of a concrete and freely accessible tool, aimed also at those who do not have technical skills.
"The course covers an overview of the main ethical issues of data science, presents the main news of the GDPR, including the obligation of a data controller and" privacy-by-design ", and the law on intellectual property" - explains Francesca Pratesi, researcher at the KDD Lab (University of Pisa and CNR) and among the curators of the FAIR course (First Aid for Responsible Data Scientist) - "In the next months we will extend the course with other specific modules, such as summary of the main techniques to manage data anonymously ".
At the moment, 3 modules are active, each accompanied by a final test that provides immediate feedback on the level of competence achieved.
"The GDPR is not an obstacle to the development of digital innovations based on user data, on the contrary it is a great opportunity for Europe to affirm its person-centered approach, and on his inalienable rights , in order to create trust online", concludes Fosca Giannotti.