Description:
This book presents cutting edge research on the new ethical challenges posed by biomedical Big Data technologies and practices. 'Biomedical Big Data' refers to the analysis of aggregated, very large datasets to improve medical knowledge and clinical care. The book describes the ethical problems posed by aggregation of biomedical datasets and re-use/re-purposing of data, in areas such as privacy, consent, professionalism, power relationships, and ethical governance of Big Data platforms. Approaches and methods are discussed that can be used to address these problems to achieve the appropriate balance between the social goods of biomedical Big Data research and the safety and privacy of individuals. Seventeen original contributions analyse the ethical, social and related policy implications of the analysis and curation of biomedical Big Data, written by leading experts in the areas of biomedical research, medical and technology ethics, privacy, governance and data protection. The book advances our understanding of the ethical conundrums posed by biomedical Big Data, and shows how practitioners and policy-makers can address these issues going forward.
Review Quotes: "This substantial volume is a result of discussions about emerging types of data and their ethical, legal and social implications (ELSIs) in the biomedical sphere. ... The book does, in separate chapters, give an interesting contemporary framing to ethical concerns which the attentive reader will appreciate. ... the landscape is moving fast and this is now mostly a descriptive and theoretical text for bioethicists." (Thomas King, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A, May 23, 2019)