Enhancing Business Process Models with Ethical Considerations

Beatrice Amico, Carlo Combi, Anna Dalla Vecchia, Sara Migliorini, Barbara Oliboni, Elisa Quintarelli

Abstract: Fairness has recently emerged as a challenging topic in many areas of computer science, as it is related to algorithms supporting decision-making, experimental research, and information access and processing. As (decision-intensive) business processes are inherently using information to reach their goals, their fairness possibly depends on the kind of information they are allowed to access. In this paper, we deal with this aspect and propose some criteria to consider when conceptually specifying business activities and their related information seamlessly through a recently proposed approach based on the concept of Activity View. More specifically, we distinguish equality and equity as two aspects of fairness and discuss how to enforce them in business process design. Their expression according to the specification of Activity Views is formally proposed and discussed in the paper.