CITIBEATS
Code of Ethics
As a team at Citibeats, we have the motivation and responsibility to ensure that Citibeats is used as a force for good in the world. While we believe that being ethical is something that must be practiced every day, in all our decisions, and requires a constant reflection and reaction to the context, we have distilled our principles fundamental to this code of ethics.
This code of ethics is read and accepted by all employees upon joining the Company and should be discussed at Townhall meetings at least once every three months.
1. The data we use
1.1 Representativeness
It is unlikely that the data we use are 100% representative of the population; we will do our best to make them as representative as possible, as well as being explicit and transparent about the limitations of these data. It is our responsibility to make it clear to the users of our data how much we representatives are the data; it is not their responsibility to ask.
1.2 Personal data and the right to privacy
We believe that people have the right to privacy; even if what we do is for "good impact", we will not invade people's privacy. No we will use data sources on which a person has a reasonable expectation that their views will not be analyzed.
1.3 Treatment of confidential and restricted information:
We respect all legal and customer requirements regarding the confidentiality and use of confidential information, and unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. We ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and the rights of individuals with regard to the protection of personal data.
2. How we analyze the data
2.1 Bias and representativeness
As we know that data in general, and especially the data that we analyze regularly, such as social networking sites and public online forums and blogs, have biases, we will continually work on challenging and uncovering biases, reducing these prejudices, and to be transparent and educational about these prejudices. These biases include: 1) demographic biases, such as gender bias (according to the data set, women are underrepresented); age bias; gender bias in the data set. urban/rural; income level bias; 2) inorganic content bias, such as people who publish a lot and receive a disproportionate amount of coverage.
2.2 Gender bias
We pay particular attention to the issue of gender bias. We believe that this is one of the most important social challenges worldwide, and data can play a role in reducing gender inequality. gender; if used incorrectly, it can be negative. Because data and algorithms are a reflection of our world, they are also a reflection of our world. a reflection of the biases contained in our world. Therefore, our aim is to is to make this visible and to give users of our tools the opportunity to information needed to challenge these biases. In our data, we calibrate for gender bias whenever possible and relevant to our projects, and we will make it visible to the client. In our algorithms, each new algorithm must go through a review process of gender bias, where 3 members of the team ask questions and evaluate possible gender biases in the algorithms (particularly important for the previously trained models).
2.3 Aggregation and anonymisation
In general, at Citibeats, we want our clients to understand the "what" of the social needs, but not the individual "who". Given the use cases in the we focus on, it should not be important for customers to know people who have said something; this will be rejected in our case review process of use. In addition, we never pass on customer lists with names of users who have commented. In general, our vision is to provide aggregated and anonymous results whenever possible. This already applies in cases where data is shared publicly (web sites, websites, etc.). public, reports). With our private control panel, this depends on the context of use, but in
In general we are working on cases where data are aggregated and anonymise. At the moment we do not implement this 100% as we sometimes it can be useful for clients in social welfare cases to get more context from who publishes (e.g., does this need come from someone with a disability or an elderly person?) We need to work to ensure that the relevant information is made available to the client, but without the need for the names of people.
3. What we use in the analysis:
Citibeats does not only intend to "do no harm"; it is our explicit aim to doing good. We are dedicated to working for customers, partners and investors aligned with our vision and continue to support them in doing so rather in the world using Citibeats. You can see in our previous impact reports the kind of use cases that we have been able to generate and share publicly. Citibeats Impact Report 2018 and Citibeats Impact Report 2019.
We also believe that the 'social good' is subjective, and we are always open to discuss it as a team. That said, there are some clear cases that we do not want to discuss:
3.1 No political campaigns
Citibeats is not for political use. Although we do not believe that our product is useful for political use or electoral engineering (cc. Cambridge Analytica) since it does not enable lists of individuals or user profiles, we do not want any customers using Citibeats for these purposes. This will be rejected in the use case review. which is necessary for every incoming project and goes against our T&Cs.
3.2 Non-military use
Citibeats is not for any use that may end up imprisoning people or putting them at risk. This means that we will not work with intelligence or military. The police may be considered as long as it is a case of use that does not put people at risk. This will be rejected in the review of the use case that is necessary for every incoming project and goes against our legal T&Cs.
3.3 No other use cases allowed
We will not use Citibeats for the following, which stems from the terms of use of Twitter is fairly standard. Do not "...monitor sensitive events (which include, including protests, rallies or community organizing meetings)", and not "segment, or profiling individuals on the basis of sensitive personal information, including their health (e.g., pregnancy), negative financial situation or condition, affiliation or politic, racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical affiliation or beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation or gender identity, sexual orientation, trade union affiliation, [content] related to any alleged or actual commission of a criminal offense, or any other sensitive categories of information prohibited by law".
3.4 Process for reviewing use cases
We recognise that whether a use case is sufficiently ethical is not always clear. For these cases, an "ethics review" meeting is established. The ethical review should consist of the following (until otherwise decided):
- For each use case, a meeting is set up with 4 Citibeats people.
- Usually: the relevant salesperson; Chief Product Officer and Chief Executive Officer; a person who would be involved in the delivery of the project
- The 4 debate the issue and vote at the end. If no veto is used, then 3 out of every 4th person must accept the motion in order for the project to be accepted.
- The meeting notes should be distributed to the entire Citibeats team.
4. Our culture as an ethical mechanism
We have processes in place to help embed this code into our form of work ('Terms of Use' contract for customers and review process) of use cases required for all customers and partner projects). That said, we believe that it is not enough to simply do "verification of what we want to be aware of ethics and continue to increase the number of our consciousness. If it is a culture, it had better be embedded.
These are the steps we will use to foster this culture:
4.1 Miscellaneous equipment
A diverse team means people with different points of view about ethics. This is a road on which we have a long way to go, but in 2020 we started with a focus on gender balance. At this point in time our team is 43% female, 57% male. We have improvements to make this 50/50, as well as having equal representation on the management team. This is an issue where we have more work to do, both in gender and other areas.
4.2 Ongoing discussion
Ethics is a topic of interest to all of us here; we bring it up continuously in our day-to-day work, as well as in City Council meetings, that is the responsibility of all of us.
4.3 Gender and Diversity Task Force
We have set up a group of Citibeats cross-team teams to work as the gender and diversity working group. They will define their own agenda on the issues. The most recent ones to focus on and should show results on a quarterly basis.
Ethical advisors
We believe that we will always have much to learn about.
We want to learn from external experts. In 2020, we conducted an ethical sprint with the world expert on online bias and representativeness, Ricardo Baeza. We will replicate this process on other themes in 2022 and transform it into a continuous process.
5. Measuring our impact
There are many reasons why we want to measure our impact. On the one hand, measuring helps us to see where we are having a tangible effect and attract more customers and resources to what we are doing; on the other hand, it also gives us tangible results to be proud of and keep us motivated.
Realistically, we know that measuring impact, and especially measuring impact as a data analytics company, is difficult. Often, our results are used as part of a decision-making process, and it is difficult to draw a straight line on our impact. That said, we will devote resources to making this a reality. measurable wherever possible. To be concrete, we plan to
a) Work with social impact consultancy firms to assess our more tangible cases;
b) Have the closest KPIs we can to the built-in impact metrics in our investor reports, as we currently do with the IDB.
The purpose of this paper has been to bring together what we see as the fundamentals of ethics: It is a starting point for all of us, it is a baseline and we hope to go further. From here, we can move forward together on this issue.
In addition, we subscribe unconditionally to the 10 principles published by the United Nations Global Compact, which apply to all employees at all levels of the company, as well as to partners, external personnel, suppliers, customers and distributors.
Principle 1.
Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights within their sphere of influence.
Principle 2.
Businesses should make sure that their companies are not complicit in human rights abuses
Principle 3.
Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.
Principle 4.
Businesses should support the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour.
Principle 5.
Businesses should support the elimination of child labour
Principle 6.
Businesses should support the abolition of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
Principle 7.
Businesses should maintain a precautionary approach that favors the environment.
Principle 8.
Businesses should encourage initiatives that promote greater environmental responsibility.
Principle 9.
Businesses should encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
We set out below our guidelines for action in this regard:
Use of corporate assets:
Corporate property must be used exclusively for work purposes and during working hours. Any unauthorized use or misuse is the responsibility of the user.
Communication systems, including telephone, e-mail and internet, are also the property of the company and may therefore only be used for business purposes. All information entered into the computer system remains the property of the company.
Conflicts of interest of staff and their family members:
Each person must refrain from any activity, direct or indirect, that may place a personal interest at odds with those of the company or that may interfere with or hinder the ability to make impartial and objective decisions in the interests of the organization.
The appearance of conflict of interest situations, in addition to being contrary to legal rules and the principles set out in this Code, is detrimental to the image and integrity of the company.
Each person is obliged to report to his or her line manager any specific situations in which he or she or, to the best of his or her knowledge, his or her family members or close relatives or partners have economic and financial interests in conflict with the interests of the company, in relation to customers, suppliers, competitors or third parties.
Hospitality, gifts and payments:
To ensure the independence of all our actions, we must not give or accept gifts, irregular payments or entertainment if doing so would compromise our ability to make objective decisions in the best interests of Citibeats. Such situations can lead to bribery or corruption.
Information and knowledge management:
We respect all legal and customer requirements regarding the confidentiality and use of confidential information, and unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Each person undertakes to keep secret any personal data to which he/she may have access due to his/her work, contractual or any other type of responsibility, and not to violate the aforementioned rules.
Ownership and shareholders:
We maintain a permanent and open dialogue with the owners, who set the strategy to be followed and to whom we inform in a transparent manner of all the company's activities and results.
We appoint directors and managers who have the appropriate qualifications and experience and who exercise their management professionally, ethically and responsibly.
Public administration:
We are committed to complying with all the legal requirements that apply to us in tax, economic, accounting, labour, environmental matters...
We maintain a lawful and respectful relationship with the different public administrations with which we interact. We do not offer gifts, donations or financial disbursements to representatives of public administrations, nor do we financially support any political party.
Clients:
We want to promote the expansion of our customer base with long-term partnerships.
We honor all commitments made to our customers and do not engage in misleading advertising of our products or services.
Suppliers:
Responsible sourcing, we only use suppliers whose business practices respect human dignity, do not break the law and do not jeopardize the company's reputation.
Competition:
We are committed to conducting all our activities in a context of fair and honest competition.
We do not engage in strategies aimed at determining prices or eliminating free competition, or at obtaining information from competitors in a fraudulent manner.
Whistleblowing:
It is mandatory for any person in the company, once they identify prohibited conduct, to report it confidentially to the compliance body through the organization's whistleblowing channel: denuncias@citibeats.com.