Disentangling Ethics in Information Management Technologies Used in Public Safety

The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, facial recognition technology (FRT), and big data in the realm of public safety has raised a host of ethical concerns. At the core of many of these concerns is the role technology plays in how data is collected and stored and how this information is managed and used. There are also concerns that technologies are biased by design. In this chapter, we explore what we mean by ethics in the public safety space. This will entail an examination of the types of information and technologies utilized in public safety. We analyze existing ethical values that guide public safety professionals, as well as discuss how public safety personnel navigate ethical issues. Next, we draw on policing as an example to examine the benefits and concerns associated with information management (IM) technologies being acquired and used for public safety. This chapter makes the case for using ethical evaluation processes during the technology design phase, as well as before IM technologies are acquired and after they have been put into use. We also provide recommendations for some of the key ethical considerations that need to be incorporated into these ethical evaluation frameworks.