Doug Specht, Director of Teaching, Learning and Quality Assurance, was interviewed on the Royal Geography Society’s Ask the Geographer podcast about the responsible and ethical use of location data.
In the wide-ranging discussion on ethics, Specht discussed why the Society has joined the Locus Charter and how these kinds of frameworks can help support better use of data. The Locus Charter is a proposed set of common intellectual principles to support ethical and responsible practice when using location data.
Talking about the Locus Charter, he said: “I greatly welcome the Locus Charter, I think it’s something that is probably well overdue. I think it’s quite interesting that not only did the Locus Charter come out this year, but the Office for National Statistics also a few months later put out a whole load of information about ethical considerations for geographic data; so clearly 2021 is the year of saying let’s get our house in order around geographic data.”
In the interview, Specht also warned that these kinds of voluntary charters can only go so far, and while they offer a good starting point, there is more work to be done in this area.
Listen to the full podcast episode on Soundcloud.
