Data science research in sub-Saharan Africa: Ethical considerations in crowdsourcing for community engagement

The growth in data science research in sub-Saharan Africa raises important ethical questions for the collection and use of 'big data' in this context, with particularly disparate implications for the most vulnerable and marginalised populations. While enhanced public involvement may be able to mitigate some of these risks, data science presents some unique barriers to community engagement efforts, including limited data literacy, lack of transparency in data collection and use, and little opportunity to 'opt out' from participation. The participatory approach of crowdsourcing offers a promising solution to address the critical need for community engagement. Crowdsourcing involves inviting a group to contribute solutions to a problem, and then publicly sharing the results for implementation. By crowdsourcing stakeholder ideas for innovative ways to enhance public involvement in data science research, the Research for Ethical Data Science in Southern Africa (REDSSA) project is leading the efforts to close the community engagement gap. Promising strategies that emerge from these efforts will ultimately help to shape more ethical and equitable data science research in Africa as this field continues to grow.