❓ About

Data Ethics Club is a discussion group that started in January 2020 and now meets reguarly to talk about new and enduring issues in the world of data ethics.

Everyone is welcome to get involved in Data Ethics Club, as much or as little as you’d like to! We would love to hear your point of view at our discussion groups, to have your support in organising or running a meeting, or to add your contributions to our reading list.

While most of our organisers are from Bristol, our attendees are from all over the world. Some people work in the government, in companies, or in academia. We have people join from the USA, Australia, Italy and India.

You don’t need to be a data ethicist (we’re not!), or a data scientist - having a variety of different people is how we learn from each other. It’s a friendly and welcoming group and we often have new people drop by, so why not try it?

If you’re looking for information on how to set up your own Data Ethics Club then you should head to our section about re-using our materials.

In 2022, with our community, we also wrote a paper about Data Ethics Club which was published in Patterns and why we think it’s great. Have a read here!.

How our meetings work

We meet every other week (Wednesdays, 1pm, UK time) to talk about something from the reading list. Our upcoming meeting dates are available here. They last one hour and are held on Zoom. We usually hear a short summary of the piece, split into breakout rooms to discuss some prompts, and then come back together to share our thoughts as a group.

If you’d like a flavour of what we usually discuss then click on any of the summaries from past meetings to read about our discussions.

We follow a Code of Conduct during Data Ethics Group which is designed to make sure everyone feels welcome and confortable sharing their experiences and take on the material. Please read it before attending.