At a time of a global health emergency, the need for practical ethics could not be more important. As the world reels from the spiralling impact of the Coronavirus, understanding who to trust, which data to rely on and who is accountable for data-derived decisions, has never been greater.

This is not the first time that ethics has surged up the agenda, however. Indeed, the study of ethics goes back to Plato’s thought experiments with the Ring of Gyges through to modern day questions such as whether power will inevitably corrupt without due restraint, and is the spectre of surveillance capitalism(1) understated or overblown?