Ethical considerations relating to the creation and use of synthetic data

This guidance document explores ethical considerations in the use of synthetic data for research, analysis, and statistics.

From:
Government Digital Service
Published
29 January 2025
Ethical theme:
Safety, Security and Robustness, Appropriate Transparency and Explainability and Societal Wellbeing
Organisation:
UK Statistics Authority
Project phase:
Across Lifecycle
Technology area:
Research and Statistics and Data

Description

This guidance document explores ethical considerations in the use of synthetic data for research, analysis, and statistics. The guidance can be used as a practical resource to help researchers identify and mitigate different ethical issues when using synthetic data.

The guidance is divided into several parts.

  • An introduction to synthetic data, and why ethics matters in this space.
  • An overview of some of the ethical considerations associated with synthetic data, and some potential mitigations for these issues.
  • An ethics checklist which summarises the main points covered in this guidance.
  • A list of helpful links to further resources, should you wish to read about particular aspects in more detail.


Read Ethical considerations relating to the creation and use of synthetic data

Updates to this page

Published 29 January 2025
Contents