Jayne Whyte's Portfolio

As an evaluator, I am always amazed at the things that inspire my work. One of the things I have learned during my time at Mellow Parenting and Save the Children UK is maintaining ethical practices in evaluation. Ethics is a big word in the data space, and it is worth the attention. Ethical application in evaluation is important in building trust with the community we work in, for and with, and maintaining ethical standards can drive positive social change and should not be taken with a wave of hand.

A major ethical concern is privacy and consent. In many cases, evaluators collect data either actively, with an individual’s consent or passively, without an individual’s explicit knowledge or consent. This raises questions about whether evaluators are ethically justified in using such data, especially when it involves sensitive personal information. Ensuring informed consent in the data collection process may be often complex and may require new models of transparency but ensuring that privacy and consent is completed makes the job well done.

Anonymisation is another area of concern. While it is often assumed that anonymising data protects privacy, advancements in data analytics make it easier to re-identify individuals, especially when data is combined from multiple sources. Evaluators must ensure that they handle data with the utmost care, continually assessing whether anonymisation methods are sufficient.

Bias and fairness are also major concerns in ethical evaluation. Data could perpetuate existing inequalities if the data used for evaluation is biased or unrepresentative. Algorithmic models built on biased data can produce misleading conclusions, reinforcing systemic issues rather than solving them. Evaluators have a responsibility to interrogate the data they work with and actively work to identify and mitigate bias.

Finally, data sovereignty and the rights of individuals or communities over their data is a growing ethical concern, particularly when working with vulnerable populations. Evaluators must balance the benefits of using big data with the need to protect the autonomy and dignity of those whose data is being analysed. The SEAD process at SCUK makes ethical considerations in the evaluation process very easy and comprehensive even though it can be time-consuming.

In the coming months, I’ll be working with the team at African Women in Evaluation (AfWEN) to launch a podcast on Evaluation and I am more than excited to be a part of it. Please watch out for it and encourage fellow evaluators and big data enthusiasts to follow the conversations.