The task is to formulate an ethical framework that can treat the infosphere as a new environment worthy of the moral attention and care of the human inforgs inhabiting it. Such an ethical framework must address and solve the unprecedented challenges arising in the new environment.

Ethical issues involving data may be more challenging than the ethical challenges of some other advanced technologies, partly because data and data science are so ubiquitous, having the potential to impact all aspects of life, and partly because of their intrinsic complexity … We must also recognize that we cannot expect to give simple answers to complex moral problems involving data. This will often be impossible, not least because the data environment is changing so rapidly. Instead, the aim must be to help focus on the issues and attempt to remove confusion and ambiguity, so as to provide principles that can help people come to a conclusion about what is the right way to act and the right thing to do in the circumstances in which they find themselves.

Information law issues dovetail together, creating a sophisticated, complex and delicate balance between facilitating open and free access to information – thus supporting open and accountable government, democratic freedom, and an uncensored press – simultaneously with the necessity for control and privacy. This balance is not always successfully achieved …