#5 Policy Recommendation Area
Design a model for ethical cultural heritage practices
5.2 Revisit ethical strategies in cultural heritage institutions
Target Stakeholders
Policy makers at the EU and national level
Heritage Networks
Recommendation
Ethical questions and challenges need to be recognised as important elements of CHIs’ operations. As a first step, the task requires an overview of existing CH-led actions addressing broad ethical questions to define successful and efficient methods and strategies, but also to understand current gaps and barriers. In the context of reuse, the priority is to ensure the ethical management of digital cultural heritage collections, including the reviewing of the metadata language used to describe heritage, to ensure it does not use offensive or harmful terms. It should stress the relevance of an inclusive display and application of a technology (AI) where bias is mitigated, etc. CHIs must be transparent with users about possible sensitive issues in their collections,* and encourage good practice in their reuse activities, also by visually marking these as ‘sensitive content’ or by refraining from digitising this content entirely.
