Current course offerings

Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.

Course description

The collection and analysis of data gives rise to considerable ethical, legal and technical responsibilities related to maintaining privacy that are relevant to all data custodians, data users and data scientists. This course will introduce the typical processes associated with a data analytics project: obtaining consent for use at data collection, establishing agreements with data custodians, responsible use of data including privacy requirements for storage, management, analysis and reporting of results. This will include technical approaches to ensure that data and results are non-identifiable. Students will examine the ethical, legal and technical implications of decisions made at each stage of the process. This course will provide students with an introduction to the ethical and legal foundations of data science governance that are relevant to the technical processes of data collection, storage, exchange and access. Issues covered will include the ethical dimensions of data management, legal and regulatory frameworks in Australia and in relevant jurisdictions; data policy, data privacy; data ownership; legal liabilities regarding analytical decisions, and discrimination. The course will equip students to identify the ethical and legislative requirements that underpin the technical processes of data science and to apply ethical and legal considerations to the core processes of data analytics. It will also introduce algorithms and technical approaches to minimise the risk of data identifiability and disclosure. A range of case studies will be used to explore these issues in applications of data science, including the use of government administrative data for informing social policy, to integrate ethical, legal and technical considerations.

Archived offerings