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Dr Sara Helen Wilford

Job: Associate Professor

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: School of Computer Science and Informatics

Research group(s): Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR)

Address: De Montfort University, GH5.77 The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)116 250 6294

E: sara@dmu.ac.uk

W: https://www.dmu.ac.uk

 

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Personal profile

Dr Wilford is Associate Professor and Interim Co-Director of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. She is an ethics expert and project evaluator for the European Commission, and was Science Technology Public Policy fellow in the Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University. She led on a number of research projects whilst a research fellow at the University of Warwick. Her background is multi-disciplinary with expertise in computer ethics, surveillance, privacy, responsible research and innovation and public policy. Dr Wilford is currently leading a three-year EU project focusing on Social Media narratives: addressing extremism in middle age. She is also an experienced teacher and lecturer, and is programme leader for three Information systems undergraduate degrees at De Montfort University.She has a degree in Public Administration and Management, and a PhD in Computing Ethics and Public Policy.

Research group affiliations

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR)

Media Discourse Centre

Publications and outputs

  • Middle-aged radicalisation: why are so many of Britain’s rioters in their 40s and 50s?
    dc.title: Middle-aged radicalisation: why are so many of Britain’s rioters in their 40s and 50s? dc.contributor.author: Wilford, S. dc.description.abstract: NA
  • PRECEPT-4-Justice: A bias-neutralising framework for digital forensics investigations
    dc.title: PRECEPT-4-Justice: A bias-neutralising framework for digital forensics investigations dc.contributor.author: Renaud, Karen; Bongiovanni, Ivano; Wilford, S.; Irons, Alistair dc.description.abstract: Software invisibly permeates our everyday lives: operating devices in our physical world (traffic lights and cars), effecting our business transactions and powering the vast World Wide Web. We have come to rely on such software to work correctly and efficiently. The generally accepted narrative is that any software errors that do occur can be traced back to a human operator’s mistakes. Software engineers know that this is merely a comforting illusion. Software sometimes has bugs, which might lead to erratic performance: intermittently generating errors. The software, hardware and communication infrastructure can all introduce errors, which are often challenging to isolate and correct. Anomalies that manifest are certainly not always due to an operator’s actions. When the general public and the courts believe the opposite, that errors are usually attributable to some human operator’s actions, it is entirely possible for some hapless innocent individual to be blamed for anomalies and discrepancies whose actual source is a software malfunction. This is what occurred in the Post Office Horizon IT case, where unquestioning belief in the veracity of software-generated evidence led to a decade of wrongful convictions. We will use this case as a vehicle to demonstrate the way biases can influence investigations, and to inform the development of a framework to guide and inform objective digital forensics investigations. This framework, if used, could go some way towards neutralising biases and preventing similar miscarriages of justice in the future. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • The Digital Network of Networks: Regulatory Risk and Policy Challenges of Vaccine Passports
    dc.title: The Digital Network of Networks: Regulatory Risk and Policy Challenges of Vaccine Passports dc.contributor.author: Wilford, S.; McBride, Neil; Brooks, Laurence; Eke, Damian; Akintoye, Sinmisola; Owoseni, Adebowale; Leach, Tonii; Flick, Catherine; Fisk, Malcolm; Stacey, Martin dc.description.abstract: The extensive disruption to and digital transformation of travel administration across borders largely due to COVID-19 mean that digital vaccine passports are being developed to resume international travel and kick-start the global economy. Currently, a wide range of actors are using a variety of different approaches and technologies to develop such a system. This paper considers the techno-ethical issues raised by the digital nature of vaccine passports and the application of leading-edge technologies such as blockchain in developing and deploying them. We briefly analyse four of the most advanced systems – IBM’s Digital Health Passport “Common Pass,” the International Air Transport Association’s Travel Pass, the Linux Foundation Public Health’s COVID-19 Credentials Initiative and the Vaccination Credential Initiative (Microsoft and Oracle) – and then consider the approach being taken for the EU Digital COVID Certificate. Each of these raises a range of issues, particularly relating to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the need for standards and due diligence in the application of innovative technologies (eg blockchain) that will directly challenge policymakers when attempting to regulate within the network of networks. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • PRECEPT: A Framework for Ethical Digital Forensics Investigations.
    dc.title: PRECEPT: A Framework for Ethical Digital Forensics Investigations. dc.contributor.author: Ferguson, Ian; Renaud, Karen; Irons, Alastair; Wilford, S. dc.description.abstract: Cyber-enabled crimes are on the increase, and law enforcement has had to expand many of their detecting activities into the digital domain. As such, the field of digital forensics has become far more sophisticated over the years and is now able to uncover even more evidence that can be used to support prosecution of cyber criminals in a court of law. Governments, too, have embraced the ability to track suspicious individuals in the online world. Forensics investigators are driven to gather data exhaustively, being under pressure to provide law enforcement with sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. Yet, there are concerns about the ethics and justice of untrammeled investigations on a number of levels. On an organizational level, unconstrained investigations could interfere with, and damage, the organization’s right to control the disclosure of their intellectual capital. On an individual level, those being investigated could easily have their legal privacy rights violated by forensics investigations. On a societal level, there might be a sense of injustice at the perceived inequality of current practice in this domain. This paper argues the need for a practical, ethically-grounded approach to digital forensic investigations, one that acknowledges and respects the privacy rights of individuals and the intellectual capital disclosure rights of organisations, as well as acknowledging the needs of law enforcement. We derive a set of ethical guidelines, then map these onto a forensics investigation framework. We subjected the framework to expert review in two stages, refining the framework after each stage. We conclude by proposing the refined ethically-grounded digital forensics investigation framework. Our treatise is primarily UK based, but the concepts presented here have international relevance and applicability. In this paper, the lens of justice theory is used to explore the tension that exists between the needs of digital forensic investigations into cybercrimes on the one hand, and, on the other, individuals’ rights to privacy and organizations’ rights to control intellectual capital disclosure. The investigation revealed a potential inequality between the practices of digital forensics investigators and the rights of other stakeholders. That being so, the need for a more ethically-informed approach to digital forensics investigations, as a remedy, is highlighted, and a framework proposed to provide this. Our proposed ethically-informed framework for guiding digital forensics investigations suggest a way of re-establishing the equality of the stakeholders in this arena, and ensuring that the potential for a sense of injustice is reduced. Justice theory is used to highlight the difficulties in squaring the circle between the rights and expectations of all stakeholders in the digital forensics arena. The outcome is the forensics investigation guideline, PRECEpt: Privacy-Respecting EthiCal framEwork, which provides the basis for a re-aligning of the balance between the requirements and expectations of digital forensic investigators on the one hand, and individual and organizational expectations and rights, on the other. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • Responsible Research and Innovation: Using the Requirements Tool for Stakeholder Engagement in Developing a Universal Design for Learning Guidelines for Practice
    dc.title: Responsible Research and Innovation: Using the Requirements Tool for Stakeholder Engagement in Developing a Universal Design for Learning Guidelines for Practice dc.contributor.author: Wilford, S. dc.description.abstract: Responsible research and innovation (RRI) is growing in importance, and alongside this growth is an acknowledgement that for research and innovation projects to be successful, stakeholders must be involved from the outset. When developing guidelines for practice, stakeholders will often be presented with a document to ratify rather than one to develop or revise. This gap in stakeholder engagement has been recognised and addressed by the development of the requirements tool. This tool was originally created to provide a systematic approach to the development of guidelines for the governance of RRI, but it was quickly recognised that the tool can bridge the gap and involve stakeholders from the outset, thereby increasing the likelihood of buy-in. This paper presents the second validated use of the tool that was used to inform the revision of guidelines for the introduction of a universal design for learning (UDL) at a UK University. The resulting revised guidelines for practice and their adoption by those tasked with producing them provide further evidence of the value and flexibility of the tool and its potential for its continued use in the future development or revision of guidelines. dc.description: open access article
  • First line steps in requirements identification for guidelines development in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
    dc.title: First line steps in requirements identification for guidelines development in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) dc.contributor.author: Wilford, S. dc.description.abstract: Responsible research and innovation (RRI) considers the impact of research and development on those who are likely to be directly or indirectly impacted by those activities, and provides a direction for the future of research practices in science and technology for the greater good. In the practical world of the lab or research group therefore, guidelines to assist researchers and scientists in the application of those RRI principles are needed. However, this paper is not concerned with the creation of guidelines themselves, but presents an RRI approach to identifying the requirements for guidelines. This is a first step that is often overlooked or presented as a fait accompli and yet it provides an essential factor in the eventual success or failure of guidelines, created for any purpose. What is required in a set of guidelines however, is not only dictated by the preferred outcome, but is also reflected in the process of its creation. Therefore, an RRI approach to identifying those requirements should also practice what the resulting RRI guidelines preach. Whilst initially developed for the production of guidelines for researchers in an EU RRI project, these approaches and principles can be applied across all disciplines when a set of guidelines need to be developed. The approach taken here, utilized several steps in its implementation. Firstly, through a review of the literature and an examination of guideline development in several research projects, a set of indicative requirements were created. A workshop/focus group with researchers from a range of disciplines, career stages and institutions led to the production of the second iteration, which then received further input from both experts in the field of RRI, philosophy and ethics. This led to the creation of the table of requirements for guidelines. By utilizing the core principles of RRI and through a critical and reflexive approach, this work presents a new technique for identifying first line steps in the creation of guidelines. The practical and flexible nature of this approach means that researchers and policy-makers are invited to use this method in their own guideline development dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • Guidelines for Responsible Research and Innovation
    dc.title: Guidelines for Responsible Research and Innovation dc.contributor.author: Wilford, S.; Fisk, Malcolm; Stahl, Bernd Carsten, 1968- dc.description.abstract: Guidelines for Responsible Research and Innovation
  • Protecting of Children Online in Saudi Arabia.
    dc.title: Protecting of Children Online in Saudi Arabia. dc.contributor.author: Almogbel, A.; Begg, M.; Wilford, S. dc.description.abstract: Modern society is inundated with an array of attractive technological gadgets, most of which are used by young children. This information and technology revolution poses challenges to humanity, especially young people. However, the advent of this revolution means that people’s lives have been made easier in many different ways. Many countries and organizations in the world are concerned about the risks coming from the Internet on children, such as sexual harassment and exposure to inappropriate content like violence and sexual activities. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in the Middle East that experiences this rapid revolution of the internet. With the increase in the number of Internet users in Saudi Arabia, especially children, and the use of social networking sites like Facebook as well as the ease of sharing photos and inappropriate content all this continues to increase the chances of children's exposure to risk is increasing.
  • Responsible innovation across borders: tensions, paradoxes and possibilities
    dc.title: Responsible innovation across borders: tensions, paradoxes and possibilities dc.contributor.author: Macnaghten, P.; Owen, R.; Stilgoe, J.; Wynne, B.; Azevedo, A.; de Campos, A.; Chilvers, J.; Dagnino, R.; di Giulio, G.; Frow, E.; Garvey, B.; Groves, C.; Hartley, S.; Knobel, M.; Kobayashi, E.; Lehtonnen, M.; Lezaun, J.; Mello, L.; Monteiro, M.; Pamplona, J.; Rigolin, C.; Rondani, B.; Staykova, M.; Taddei, R.; Till, C.; Tyfield, D.; Wilford, S.; Velho, L. dc.description.abstract: In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.
  • A Normative Theory of the Information Society
    dc.title: A Normative Theory of the Information Society dc.contributor.author: Wilford, S. dc.description.abstract: This is a book review, no abstract.

Click here to view a full listing of Sara Wilford's publications and outputs

Research interests/expertise

Computer ethics, privacy, data protection, surveillance, social media and public policy, online extremism and misinformation

Areas of teaching

Computer ethics and privacy and data protection modules at undergraduate and postgraduate. Supervision at MSc and PhD

Qualifications

  • PhD in Information Systems & Public Policy - March 2004 De Montfort University, Leicester
  • Public Administration & Management Studies - BA (Hons) Awarded the KPMG prize for best final year student. De Montfort University, Leicester.

Courses taught

  • Programme Leader: Applied Computing BSc, Business Information Systems BSc, Business Data Analytics BSc.

Membership of professional associations and societies

 

 2015 - Current - Ethics expert and evaluator for the European Commission

01/01/17 – 31/12/19  - European Academy of Technology and Innovation Assessment GmbH Elected as member of the Scientific Advisory Board

 

Current research students

Aiden Morris

James Garratt

Anjela Mikhaylova

Tonii Leach

ORCID number

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8562-870X

sara-wilford