The Ethical Issues Surrounding Sections 175-178 of the UK's Data Protection Bill

Abstract

There is growing concern that a new data ethics regime that has been introduced into the current draft of the data protection bill may be ethically problematic. The changes are designed to be a framework for data processing but health data privacy advocacy group medconfidential has voiced their concerns at the development. The provider has claimed that the government is trying to push through the regime without first giving the public a chance to engage in discussions about how public-sector data should be stored and processed. This article will discuss ethical issues surrounding the proposed bill as well as big data analytics and will discuss the role played by government in data processing in the UK. It will discuss the arguments for and against the government's proposals. It will be important for the UK government along with all data processors and data controllers to ensure that large amounts of data from all UK citizens across all sectors is handled correctly.