Driving Policy at the Intersection of Data & Ethics.

The mission of the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law is to devise solutions to the novel ethical and legal questions accompanying scientific and technological advancements in healthcare, particularly as they relate to privacy and information.

The Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law works at the intersection of three critically-important human values – data ethics, promoting health, and protecting people. Technologies powered by human data offer the promise of improving our health and lives in many ways, from treatments for cancer and Covid-19, to access to the world’s knowledge and instantaneous global communication, to artificial intelligence and search engines. In building these human-centered technologies, we cannot let misunderstandings of the science by lawmakers and judges hamper their deployment in ethical ways.

But at the same time, these technologies present numerous risks and complexities, from issues of equality in access to misinformation, manipulation and serious threats to democracy. We have to chart a reasonable, science-informed, ethical pathway that takes advantage of the promise of these technologies while avoiding their perils.

Charting such a path will require more science than a lawyer can know, more law and policy than a doctor can know and more ethics than an engineer can know on their own. The Cordell Institute team brings together all of these areas of expertise and more as part of its novel, trans-disciplinary approach to the problems of human information policy in health and beyond.