Conducting Ethically Mindful Earth Observation Research: The Case of Slum Mapping

Ethical issues in Earth Observation (EO) research have not received much attention in academic research thus far. However, they are becoming centrally relevant as a result of increasing satellite image resolution, the use of Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning tools together with EO data, and an ever-expanding number of real-world use cases based on EO data or image analysis. In this short paper, we provide a summary of ethical issues linked to one key field of EO research, namely, slum mapping, to provide EO scientists some food for thought on how best to re-frame this field of research to avoid ethical pitfalls and maximize ethical opportunities.