Congress passes ‘Open Government Data Act’ to make open data part of the US Code

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Melisha Dsouza at Packt>: “22nd December marked a win for U.S. government in terms of efficiency, accountability, and transparency of open data. Following the Senate vote held on 19th December, Congress passed the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking (FEBP) Act (H.R. 4174, S. 2046). Title II of this package is the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act, which requires all non-sensitive government data to be made available in open and machine-readable formats by default.

The federal government possesses a huge amount of public data which should ideally be used to improve government services and promote private sector innovation. The open data proposal will mandate that federal agencies publish their information online, using machine-readable data formats.

Here are some of the key points that the Open Government Data Act seeks to do:

  • Define open data without locking in yesterday’s technology.
  • Create minimal standards for making federal government data available to the public.
  • Require the federal government to use open data for better decision making.
  • Ensure accountability by requiring regular oversight.
  • Establish and formalize Chief Data Officers (CDO) at federal agencies with data governance and implementation responsibilities.
  • Agencies need to maintain and publish a comprehensive data inventory of all data assets to help open data advocates identify key government information resources and transform them from documents and siloed databases into open data….(More)”.

For a more extensive discussion see: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States by Alex Howard.

The Datafication of Employment

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Sam Adler-Bell and Michelle Miller at the Century Foundation: “We live in a surveillance society. Our every preference, inquiry, whim, desire, relationship, and fear can be seen, recorded, and monetized by thousands of prying corporate eyes. Researchers and policymakers are only just beginning to map the contours of this new economy—and reckon with its implications for equity, democracy, freedom, power, and autonomy.

For consumers, the digital age presents a devil’s bargain: in exchange for basically unfettered access to our personal data, massive corporations like Amazon, Google, and Facebook give us unprecedented connectivity, convenience, personalization, and innovation. Scholars have exposed the dangers and illusions of this bargain: the corrosion of personal liberty, the accumulation of monopoly power, the threat of digital redlining,1 predatory ad-targeting,2 and the reification of class and racial stratification.3 But less well understood is the way data—its collection, aggregation, and use—is changing the balance of power in the workplace.

This report offers some preliminary research and observations on what we call the “datafication of employment.” Our thesis is that data-mining techniques innovated in the consumer realm have moved into the workplace. Firms who’ve made a fortune selling and speculating on data acquired from consumers in the digital economy are now increasingly doing the same with data generated by workers. Not only does this corporate surveillance enable a pernicious form of rent-seeking—in which companies generate huge profits by packaging and selling worker data in marketplace hidden from workers’ eyes—but also, it opens the door to an extreme informational asymmetry in the workplace that threatens to give employers nearly total control over every aspect of employment.

The report begins with an explanation of how a regime of ubiquitous consumer surveillance came about, and how it morphed into worker surveillance and the datafication of employment. The report then offers principles for action for policymakers and advocates seeking to respond to the harmful effects of this new surveillance economy. The final sections concludes with a look forward at where the surveillance economy is going, and how researchers, labor organizers, and privacy advocates should prepare for this changing landscape….(More)”

Democracy and Digital Technology

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Ted Piccone in the International Journal on Human Rights: “Democratic governments are facing unique challenges in maximising the upside of digital technology while minimizing its threats to their more open societies. Protecting fair elections, fundamental rights online, and multi-stakeholder approaches to internet governance are three interrelated priorities central to defending strong democracies in an era of rising insecurity, increasing restrictions, and geopolitical competition.

The growing challenges democracies face in managing the complex dimensions of digital technology have become a defining domestic and foreign policy issue with direct implications for human rights and the democratic health of nations. The progressive digitisation of nearly all facets of society and the inherent trans-border nature of the internet raise a host of difficult problems when public and private information online is subject to manipulation, hacking, and theft.

This article addresses digital technology as it relates to three distinct but interrelated subtopics: free and fair elections, human rights, and internet governance. In all three areas, governments and the private sector are struggling to keep up with the positive and negative aspects of the rapid diffusion of digital technology. To address these challenges, democratic governments and legislators, in partnership with civil society and media and technology companies, should urgently lead the way toward devising and implementing rules and best practices for protecting free and fair electoral processes from external manipulation, defending human rights online, and protecting internet governance from restrictive, lowest common denominator approaches. The article concludes by setting out what some of these rules and best practices should be…(More)”.

Selling Smartness: Corporate Narratives and the Smart City as a Sociotechnical Imaginary

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jathan Sadowski and Roy Bendor in Science, Technology and Human Values: “This article argues for engaging with the smart city as a sociotechnical imaginary. By conducting a close reading of primary source material produced by the companies IBM and Cisco over a decade of work on smart urbanism, we argue that the smart city imaginary is premised in a particular narrative about urban crises and technological salvation. This narrative serves three main purposes: (1) it fits different ideas and initiatives into a coherent view of smart urbanism, (2) it sells and disseminates this version of smartness, and (3) it crowds out alternative visions and corresponding arrangements of smart urbanism.

Furthermore, we argue that IBM and Cisco construct smart urbanism as both a reactionary and visionary force, plotting a model of the near future, but one that largely reflects and reinforces existing sociopolitical systems. We conclude by suggesting that breaking IBM’s and Cisco’s discursive dominance over the smart city imaginary requires us to reimagine what smart urbanism means and create counter-narratives that open up space for alternative values, designs, and models….(More)”.

It’s time for a Bill of Data Rights

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Martin Tisne: “…The proliferation of data in recent decades has led some reformers to a rallying cry: “You own your data!” Eric Posner of the University of Chicago, Eric Weyl of Microsoft Research, and virtual-reality guru Jaron Lanier, among others, argue that data should be treated as a possession. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and head of Facebook, says so as well. Facebook now says that you “own all of the contact and information you post on Facebook” and “can control how it is shared.” The Financial Times argues that “a key part of the answer lies in giving consumers ownership of their own personal data.” In a recent speech, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, agreed, saying, “Companies should recognize that data belongs to users.”

This essay argues that “data ownership” is a flawed, counterproductive way of thinking about data. It not only does not fix existing problems; it creates new ones. Instead, we need a framework that gives people rights to stipulate how their data is used without requiring them to take ownership of it themselves….

The notion of “ownership” is appealing because it suggests giving you power and control over your data. But owning and “renting” out data is a bad analogy. Control over how particular bits of data are used is only one problem among many. The real questions are questions about how data shapes society and individuals. Rachel’s story will show us why data rights are important and how they might work to protect not just Rachel as an individual, but society as a whole.

Tomorrow never knows

To see why data ownership is a flawed concept, first think about this article you’re reading. The very act of opening it on an electronic device created data—an entry in your browser’s history, cookies the website sent to your browser, an entry in the website’s server log to record a visit from your IP address. It’s virtually impossible to do anything online—reading, shopping, or even just going somewhere with an internet-connected phone in your pocket—without leaving a “digital shadow” behind. These shadows cannot be owned—the way you own, say, a bicycle—any more than can the ephemeral patches of shade that follow you around on sunny days.

Your data on its own is not very useful to a marketer or an insurer. Analyzed in conjunction with similar data from thousands of other people, however, it feeds algorithms and bucketizes you (e.g., “heavy smoker with a drink habit” or “healthy runner, always on time”). If an algorithm is unfair—if, for example, it wrongly classifies you as a health risk because it was trained on a skewed data set or simply because you’re an outlier—then letting you “own” your data won’t make it fair. The only way to avoid being affected by the algorithm would be to never, ever give anyone access to your data. But even if you tried to hoard data that pertains to you, corporations and governments with access to large amounts of data about other people could use that data to make inferences about you. Data is not a neutral impression of reality. The creation and consumption of data reflects how power is distributed in society. …(More)”.

Seven design principles for using blockchain for social impact

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Stefaan Verhulst at Apolitical: “2018 will probably be remembered as the bust of the blockchain hype. Yet even as crypto currencies continue to sink in value and popular interest, the potential of using blockchain technologies to achieve social ends remains important to consider but poorly understood.

In 2019, business will continue to explore blockchain for sectors as disparate as finance, agriculture, logistics and healthcare. Policymakers and social innovators should also leverage 2019 to become more sophisticated about blockchain’s real promise, limitations  and current practice.

In a recent report I prepared with Andrew Young, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, we looked at the potential risks and challenges of using blockchain for social change — or “Blockchan.ge.” A number of implementations and platforms are already demonstrating potential social impact.

The technology is now being used to address issues as varied as homelessness in New York City, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and government corruption around the world.

In an illustration of the breadth of current experimentation, Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation recently analysed and mapped nearly 200 organisations and projects trying to create positive social change using blockchain. Likewise, the GovLab is developing a mapping of blockchange implementations across regions and topic areas; it currently contains 60 entries.

All these examples provide impressive — and hopeful — proof of concept. Yet despite the very clear potential of blockchain, there has been little systematic analysis. For what types of social impact is it best suited? Under what conditions is it most likely to lead to real social change? What challenges does blockchain face, what risks does it pose and how should these be confronted and mitigated?

These are just some of the questions our report, which builds its analysis on 10 case studies assembled through original research, seeks to address.

While the report is focused on identity management, it contains a number of lessons and insights that are applicable more generally to the subject of blockchange.

In particular, it contains seven design principles that can guide individuals or organisations considering the use of blockchain for social impact. We call these the Genesis principles, and they are outlined at the end of this article…(More)”.

Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato: “Global in scope, this original and thought-provoking collection applies new theory on legitimacy and legitimation to urban life. An informed reflection on this comparatively new topic in anthropology in relation to morality, action, law, politics and governance is both timely and innovative, especially as worldwide discontent among ordinary people grows.

The ethnographically-based analyses offered here range from banking to neighbourhoods, from poverty to political action at the grassroots. They recognize the growing gap between the rulers and the ruled with particular attention to the morality of what is right as opposed to what is legal. This book is a unique contribution to social theory, fostering discussion across the many boundaries of anthropological and sociological studies….(More)”.

The Future of Government 2030+ : A Citizen Centric Perspective on New Government Models

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

EU Policy Lab: “The Future of Government scenarios were developed through a bottom-up process on the basis of open dialogue workshops in Europe with about 130 citizens and 25 civil society and think tank representatives. The Joint Research Centre then reviewed these discussions and synthesised them into four scenarios. Together they highlight some of the key uncertainties about the relationships between citizens, governments and business and explore, through the eyes of European citizens, how government will look in the future. The four scenarios are: 

Why Taking a Step Back From Social Impact Assessment Can Lead to Better Results

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by By Anita Fuzi, Lidia Gryszkiewicz, & Dariusz Sikora: “Over the years, many social sector leaders have written about the difficulties of measuring social impact. Over the past few decades, they’ve called for more skilled analysts, the embedding of impact measurement in the broader investment process, and the development of impact measurement roadmaps. Yet measurement remains a constant challenge for the sector.

For once, let’s take a step back instead of looking further forward.

Impact assessments are important tools for learning about effective solutions to social challenges, but do they really make sense when an organization is not fully leveraging its potential to address those challenges and deliver positive impact in the first place? Should well-done impact assessment remain the holy grail, or should we focus on organizations’ ability to deliver impact? We believe that before diving into measurement, organizations must establish awareness of and readiness for impact in every aspect of their operations. In other words, they need to assess their social impact capability system before they can even attempt to measure any impact they have generated. We call this the “capability approach to social impact,” and it rests on an evaluation of seven different organizational areas….

The Social Impact Capability Framework

When organizations do not have the right support system and resources in place to create positive social impact, it is unlikely that actual attempts at impact assessment will succeed. For example, measuring an organization’s impact on the local community will not bear much fruit if the organization’s strategy, mission, vision, processes, resources, and values are not designed to support local community involvement in the first place. It is better to focus on assessing impact readiness level—whether an organization is capable of delivering the impact it wishes to deliver—rather than jumping into the impact assessment itself.Examining these seven capability areas can help organizations determine their readiness for creating impact.

To help assess this, we created a diagnostic tool— based on extensive literature review and our advisory experience—that evaluates seven capability areas: strategic framework, process, culture and leadership, structure and system, resources, innovation, and the external environment. Organizations rate each area on a scale from one to five, with one being very low/not important and five being very high/essential. Ideally, representatives from all departments complete the assessment collectively to ensure that everyone is on the same page….(More)”.

Citizen science for environmental policy: Development of an EU-wide inventory and analysis of selected practices

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

EU Science Hub: “Citizen science is the non-professional involvement of volunteers in the scientific process, whether in the data collection phase or in other phases of the research.

It can be a powerful tool for environmental management that has the potential to inform an increasingly complex environmental policy landscape and to meet the growing demands from society for more participatory decision-making.

While there is growing interest from international bodies and national governments in citizen science, the evidence that it can successfully contribute to environmental policy development, implementation, evaluation or compliance remains scant.

Central to elucidating this question is a better understanding of the benefits delivered by citizen science, that is to determine to what extent these benefits can contribute to environmental policy, and to establish whether projects that provide policy support also co-benefit science and encourage meaningful citizen engagement.

EU-wide inventory 

In order to get an evidence base of citizen science activities that can support environmental policies in the European Union (EU), the European Commission (DG ENV, with the support of DG JRC) contracted Bio Innovation Service (FR), in association with Fundacion Ibercivis (ES) and The Natural History Museum (UK), to perform a “Study on an inventory of citizen science activities for environmental policies”.

The first objective was to develop an inventory of citizen science projects relevant for environmental policy and assess how these projects contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.

To this end, a desk-research and an EU-wide survey were used to identify 503 citizen science projects of relevance to environmental policy.

The study demonstrates the breadth of citizen science that can be of relevance to environmental policy....Three salient features were found:

  • Government support, not only in the funding, but also through active participation in the design and implementation of the project appears to be a key factor for the successful uptake of citizen science in environmental policy.
  • When there is easy engagement process for the citizens, that is, with projects requiring limited efforts and a priori skills, this facilitates their policy uptake.
  • Scientific aspects on the other hand did not appear to affect the policy uptake of the analysed projects, but they were a strong determinant of how well the project could serve policy: projects with high scientific standards and endorsed by scientists served more phases of the environmental policy cycle.

In conclusion, this study demonstrates that citizen science has the potential to be a cost-effective way to contribute to policy and highlights the importance of fostering a diversity of citizen science activities and their innovativeness….(More)”.