DAT 607: Security, Privacy, and Ethics
Welcome to DAT 607 - Summer 2026
This Quarto book is the notes for DAT 607: Security, Privacy, and Ethics in the Business Analytics Program at Meehan School of Business within Stonehill College.
I am currently updating my course materials for 2026. As in previous years, I revise the materials to reflect current events and the most up‑to‑date information. However, this year requires significantly more changes than usual. As a result, I have taken down the 2025 materials and placed them on a separate archival website, consistent with how I handled the 2024 materials.
You can access earlier versions of the course by visiting the “Past versions of the course” section near the bottom of this page.
Course Meeting Time (EDT)
Tuesdays, Second Summer Semester: June 27, 2026 to August 12, 2026
- June 30th, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
- July 7th, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
- July 14th, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
- July 21st, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
- July 28th, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
- August 4th, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
- August 11th, Tuesday, 7:00 PM – to 9:30 PM
Course Description
At what point does the sacrifice to our personal information outweigh the public good?
In a data-driven world, researchers, analysts, and policymakers increasingly rely on personal and confidential data to inform evidence-based decisions. These data can help improve economic recovery efforts, allocate resources during natural disasters, advance public health initiatives, and address complex societal challenges. However, the use of confidential data raises important privacy concerns, particularly for vulnerable and underrepresented populations, including residents of rural communities. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence and increasingly sophisticated data-linkage techniques has further complicated the balance between innovation and privacy. Striking the appropriate balance between data use and privacy protection is essential to prevent harms that may not be immediately apparent, such as stalking enabled by location data, re-identification through linked datasets, or the disclosure of sensitive medical and genetic information.
This course examines the security, privacy, and ethical considerations that governments and private organizations must navigate throughout the data life cycle, including data collection, storage, sharing, analysis, dissemination, and destruction. Students will explore the legal, social, and ethical implications of data use and develop an understanding of data stewardship, governance, access controls, responsible data management practices, and emerging issues related to artificial intelligence and automated decision-making.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Explain the importance of data security, privacy, and ethics in research, policymaking, and organizational decision-making.
- Evaluate privacy-preserving methods and technologies used throughout the data life cycle.
- Analyze the laws, regulations, and policies that govern the collection, use, and protection of personal information.
- Assess emerging challenges and societal tradeoffs related to data security, privacy, ethics, and artificial intelligence.
Textbook (Bowen 2021)
Title: Protecting Your Privacy in a Data-Driven World
Author: Claire McKay Bowen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 978-0367640743
Citation
If you use my course materials, please use the following citation:
Bowen, Claire McKay. 2026. DAT 607 Course Materials. https://clairemckaybowen.github.io/dan607/
Past versions of the course
I began teaching this course in the summer of 2022, but I did not start publishing the course materials until the summer of 2024. Below are links to past materials, which serve as an archive reflecting how privacy, security, and ethics continue to evolve in our ever-changing digital world.
Acknowledgements
Thank you Aaron R. Williams for teaching me how to create a Quarto document/book for this course, which is what we use for all our teaching and training materials at the Urban Institute. Check out his Quarto book for his Data Science for Public Policy course in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Some of the material in this course is adapted from–and has also informed–the Data Governance and Privacy Training Materials for Data Practitioners developed by my team at the Urban Institute.
Bowen, Claire McKay, Rachel Lamb, Maddie Pickens, Jeremy Seeman, and Aaron R. Williams. 2026. Data Governance and Privacy Training Materials for Data Practitioners. Urban Institute. https://ui-research.github.io/dgp-trainings/