VIRT-EU Service Package

The VIRT-EU TOOLKIT offers practical help in developing ethically informed technology

The Ethical Stack is a series of tools to support creators of new connected technology to reflect on their product’s ethical and social impacts.

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PESIA is a questionnaire that helps developers and designers assess their privacy, ethical, and social impacts.

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Our workshop materials are designed to convene difficult conversations about ethics in technology development.

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Ethical Approach

We approach ethics not only as a way of reflecting on technology but also as a way of building it. Our practical approach to ethics in action is based on a melding of three different ethical frameworks: virtue ethics, care ethics and capabilities approach. Our materials and resources can help you understand how these approaches can be useful in the development of connected technologies. Learn more on our ethical approach page.

For a brief and simple introduction to different ethical frameworks useful for thinking about the Internet of Things download our Ethics Primer!

DOWNLOAD ETHICS PRIMER

Interventions and Stories

mobile phone view and light reflections

Story

Concepts of privacy and data leakage themselves are too abstract to have enough relevance in daily practice.

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Workshop

Immerse participants in a group process to negotiate difficult decision-making when building connected devices.

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Ethical Review

The third video in the VIRT-EU Ethical Unboxing Series is about the smart technologies we bring into our bedrooms and our beds.

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Education and Resources

For the past three years, our team of researchers, have created educational material and published articles that are exploring interdisciplinary theoretical and practical engagements with ethics and data. Download our syllabi and learn more about our publications.

About us – Why we care

We are often exposed to news telling creepy stories about smart objects gathering people’s data, yet many suspect and unethical behaviors of our technologies are left unaddressed for the sake of technology-led economic-growth. The EU has made significant legislative and advocacy efforts to address societal concerns brought about by technological innovation in data processing. Nevertheless, we lack practical guidelines and assessment procedures to embed ethical, social and data protection values in the design and development of data-intensive technologies and services.

The VIRT-EU project brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, designers and policy professionals in order to create practical tools to help technology developers think and talk about ethics in new and hopefully more productive ways. Rather than providing yet-another-checklist, the VIRT-EU toolkit offers a way for technology developers to gain the necessary language, structure and authority to convene and engage in conversations about ethics.

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