At Scotiabank, we are committed to delivering a best-in-class, seamless banking experience for our customers. Traditionally, that has involved physical locations, paper forms, and face-to-face meetings. As the world changes with the advancements in technology, these services have become increasingly digital. Now, our Bank is using data and analytics to provide more specialized and personalized services to offer our customers the best experience. These technologies give us the capability to innovate while better protecting our Bank and customers against fraud, financial crime, and risk. We recognize that new technology comes with opportunities and challenges, and we remain committed to ensuring the responsible and ethical use of technologies, data, and customer information.

That is why the Bank has moved beyond Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics and taken the broader focus of Data Ethics to ensure that we safeguard our customers’ data and use it for their benefit throughout the full data lifecycle – from the point of collection to the way we interact with our customers’ data - with AI or other methods. Scotiabank’s Data Ethics team has set up a framework-based practice that examines the Bank’s responsible use, management, protection, and sharing of data. As part of the Commitment, Scotiabank has set guidelines on data conduct, beyond what is regulated, and is implementing tools and processes to help practitioners proactively incorporate ethics into their work.

At the core of this endeavor are Scotiabank’s Data Ethics Principles, which guide our efforts to ensure that we are conducting the use of and access to data in a useful, adaptable, accountable, transparent, respectable, and safe manner.

1. Useful – At Scotiabank, we gather and use data to manage our business and deliver value for our customers and the communities that we serve.
2. Adaptable – At Scotiabank, we operate in a changing landscape where policy and social expectations are changing. We continually monitor global developments to ensure that our data practices and use of cutting-edge data and analytics are in line with global best practices and our core principles.
   
3. Accountable – At Scotiabank, as stewards of our customers’ data, our internal policies ensure that data owners are defined and accountable for every project.
4. Transparent – At Scotiabank, we clearly communicate to our customers and employees about how their data is collected, used, and stored.
5. Respectful – At Scotiabank, we believe that individuals have a right to be treated fairly and respectfully, and not to be discriminated against or exploited. Therefore, we take great care to control for and mitigate any potential historical bias as we collect, use, and disclose data to ensure fairness in decision outcomes.
6. Safe – At Scotiabank, we protect customer data with appropriate security controls to ensure we’re adhering to bank policies and to minimize the risk of breach. Our teams keep abreast of relevant laws and codes of practice that relate to the use of data and implement them as appropriate.