CDEF study guide
CDEF · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Certified Data Ethics Fundamentals (CDEF) credential is aimed at practitioners who need to reason about the ethical dimensions of data work rather than simply comply with a checklist. It suits data analysts, data scientists, product managers, privacy and compliance staff, AI reviewers, and governance leads who make or influence decisions about collecting, sharing, modelling, and deploying data. The CDEF study guide has 9 sections and about 4,198 words.
01Foundations of Data Ethics and Ethical Theory
Foundations tests your ability to name and apply ethical theory to data practice, and to separate ethical reasoning from legal compliance. Expect items that ask which framework best justifies a decision, or that ask you to spot an argument that is really a compliance argument in disguise.
464 words, about 2 min02Privacy, Data Protection, and Individual Rights
Privacy items test whether you can separate privacy (a broad interest in controlling access to oneself) from data protection (the regulatory regime for processing personal data), and whether you can apply the mechanics correctly. Contextual integrity (Nissenbaum): flows are appropriate when they match the norms of the context in which data was shared.
476 words, about 2 min03Fairness, Bias, and Non-Discrimination in Data and Algorithms
Fairness items test whether you can locate bias in a pipeline, choose a defensible metric, and recognise when two fairness criteria cannot hold at once. Historical bias : the world the data reflects is already unjust.
442 words, about 2 min04Transparency, Explainability, and Accountability
This domain tests the distinctions between transparency, interpretability, explainability and accountability, and your ability to match the disclosure to the audience and the stakes of the decision. Transparency : information about the system's existence, purpose, data and logic is available.
445 words, about 2 min05Data Governance, Stewardship, and Security Ethics
This domain tests the structures that make ethical commitments operational: who owns data, who may use it, how it is protected and destroyed, and what you owe people when protection fails. Ownership versus stewardship versus custody : the organisation may hold rights, but stewardship is a duty of care exercised on behalf of data subjects, and custody is operational control.
456 words, about 2 min06Regulatory and Legal Landscape for Data Ethics
Regulatory items test whether you can identify which regime applies to a processing activity, what it actually requires, and where regimes overlap or conflict. GDPR : applies to personal data and reaches non-EU organisations under Art 3; fines reach EUR 20 million or 4% of global turnover.
494 words, about 2 min07Ethical Decision-Making Frameworks and Case Analysis
This domain tests process: can you structure an ethical decision reproducibly, surface the right stakeholders, and justify a recommendation without collapsing into intuition? Principlism as a balancing checklist (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice) - it does not rank the principles for you.
453 words, about 2 min08Emerging Technologies and Societal Impact
Emerging-technology items ask you to apply existing principles to systems whose risks are novel in degree or in kind, and to resist the claim that novelty suspends obligation. Hallucination makes outputs unreliable in high-stakes advice; grounding, retrieval and evaluation sets are mitigations, not guarantees.
441 words, about 2 min09Organizational Culture, Professional Conduct, and Whistleblowing
This domain tests the organisational conditions for ethical behaviour and the professional obligations that apply when an organisation will not correct itself. Compliance culture versus ethical culture : the first asks whether the rule was followed; the second asks whether people felt able to raise the problem and were heard.
527 words, about 3 min