The Role of the IT Business Analyst in Ensuring Ethics and Data Protection in the Context of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation has amplified the role of data as a strategic asset for organizations, while also intensifying the ethical, legal, and social risks associated with its use. In this context, the activities of IT business analysts—who define, structure, and formalize requirements for data-driven systems—gain particular significance. Despite the growing attention to digital ethics, the professional responsibilities of analysts in ensuring ethical, transparent, and confidential data processing remain insufficiently addressed in the scientific literature. The aim of this study is to analyze the ethical challenges faced by business analysts when designing IT systems and to develop practical approaches to minimizing risks related to data manipulation, algorithmic bias, and privacy breaches. Methodologically, the article is based on a comprehensive analysis of real-world cases, regulatory frameworks, and corporate practices of leading technology companies, complemented by elements of applied and comparative analysis. The findings highlight the most common scenarios of ethical conflicts in analytical practice and reveal their impact on organizational decision-making and data governance. The research systematizes technical, legal, and organizational measures for information protection and underlines the importance of early analyst involvement in system design, cross-functional cooperation, and continuous ethics training. The study contributes to the discourse on responsible data management and may serve as a methodological reference for IT business analysts, solution architects, information security experts, and policymakers engaged in developing ethical standards for sustainable digital transformation initiatives.