Ethical Issues on the Use of Citizen Science Approaches

Citizen science is increasingly seen as an approach to gather information with an unprecedented time and territorial resolution, especially after the introduction of new IT solutions. This allows citizens to interact with researchers and provide detailed information about the scientific questions under appraisal in real time, and documented with extra information (e.g. photos, sound, videos), and be of high value for groundwater management. Nevertheless, these new approaches are flaw with problems and profound ethical significance—to start with, the Orwellian type of problems. By adhering to a citizen science activity, one may lose some of his/her privacy that becomes public domain. In addition, there is the risk of misuse, due to poor preparation or to evil behaviour. Also, there are ethical problems related to data property, and with the feedback of the results to the citizens, in a format that they can understand. Yet, citizen science bears the promise of a higher level of involvement and commitment of the commoners into subjects relevant to the society. This provides the context for higher levels of citizenship and democracy building that we need to pursue if we are aimed to create a better society.