Speaker(s):
Professor Eric Meslin, Director of Center for Bioethics, Associate Dean for Bioethics and Professor of Medicine, Indiana University

Abstract:
In 1969 Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan said: “The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.” McLuhan’s words may have been prescient coming decades before the sequenced human genome and the surge in use of ‘big data’ analytics raised profound ethical issues for science and society. But it would be a mistake to conclude that collecting and sharing data is always dangerous and dehumanizing. This talk will first review some of the current data on data sharing from why researchers resist sharing data, to what patients say they want shared and then discuss some promising approaches for getting the balance right between protecting personal privacy and promoting public health.