Track 1: Society, Trust and Ethics in ISD

Information Systems (IS) are contributing to transformative changes in business, society, environment and everyday life of people. The exponential increases in technological capacity has been argued to distribute control and locus of innovation. Digital technologies enable new types of innovation processes, and offer unprecedented opportunities for adding, recombining and integrating resources in services and products. Developments in Information Systems Development (ISD) can potentially increase citizen participation in democratic processes, standards of living, and transparency. Simultaneously, further advances in technology developments poses new challenges. Increased sophistication of information systems and creation of systems of systems makes difficult to predict the final outcome is the one that was imagined at the beginning. In case things go wrong, it raises the question of responsibility and trust in the whole value chain of the creation of a system of systems. Hyper-connectivity (social media, connected devices) raise privacy concerns. If primary use of data collected from connected devices is “for good”, secondary use of data can produce negative outcome. This raises the question whether transparency of systems and accessibility of data can be efficient in all situations. Also, too much transparency of systems in terms of data use can create a potential to cybersecurity threats. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming one of the virtual stakeholders. But how can one trust the output of the design process of AI? While new technological capabilities in IS are an important enabler of societal progress, technology alone does not create economic growth and social progress. Relationships are critical to beneficial interactions between technology, its users and the wider society. Taking into account the impact of IS on quality of people's lives, environment, employment, education, business and public organizations implies in fact shifting the logic from technology design to design of socio-technical systems. Governance of such complex systems also needs to be understood in order to benefit from technology while offsetting its risks. This track welcomes all contributions that consider intertwining between technology and society; conditions under which technology is designed “for good”, trust in complex IS and ethical considerations related to ISD.