Dec. 6, 2013 — What are the ethics of collecting, managing and using big data? A panel of experts at the University of Utah will explore this topic, Friday, Dec. 13, 10:30 a.m. in the Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building, Room 3160. The panel is free and open to the public.

The panelists include James Bamford, best-selling author noted for writing about the National Security Agency; Pete Ashdown, founder of XMission; and Eric Denna, chief information officer at the U.

“Data collection issues affect us all,” said Harris Sondak, professor of ethics and business administration. “While big data, which is collected everyday by both the government and private companies,can provide significant amounts of information, there are ethical implications to its collection and use.”

Throughout the discussion, panelists will examine the enormous amount of data collected through the Internet, phones and social media and discuss the tension between the capabilities and the ethics of gathering and using big data.