Ellis Parry has recently joined the ICO as Data Ethics Adviser, Technology and Innovation. This is a new, fixed-term post at the ICO and perhaps unique within the world of data protection supervisory authorities. Parry said that the role fits in perfectly with the ICO’s information rights strategy, which aims at increasing the public’s trust and confidence in how data is used and made available.

Data ethics is a bit of a buzz word just now but it was the late European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli who was one of the first to promote this concept through the creation of the EDPS Ethics Advisory Group in 2016. Now, some larger companies have appointed ethics boards, and there is a real momentum among the data protection regulators globally – their 2018 annual conference organised by the EDPS debated data ethics. The ICO’s guidance Big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data protection also discusses ethical approaches.