How data can heal our oceans

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Nishan Degnarain and Steve Adler at WEF: “We have collected more data on our oceans in the past two years than in the history of the planet.

There has been a proliferation of remote and near sensors above, on, and beneath the oceans. New low-cost micro satellites ring the earth and can record what happens below daily. Thousands of tidal buoys follow currents transmitting ocean temperature, salinity, acidity and current speed every minute. Undersea autonomous drones photograph and map the continental shelf and seabed, explore deep sea volcanic vents, and can help discover mineral and rare earth deposits.

The volume, diversity and frequency of data is increasing as the cost of sensors fall, new low-cost satellites are launched, and an emerging drone sector begins to offer new insights into our oceans. In addition, new processing capabilities are enhancing the value we receive from such data on the biological, physical and chemical properties of our oceans.

Yet it is not enough.

We need much more data at higher frequency, quality, and variety to understand our oceans to the degree we already understand the land. Less than 5% of the oceans are comprehensively monitored. We need more data collection capacity to unlock the sustainable development potential of the oceans and protect critical ecosystems.

More data from satellites will help identify illegal fishing activity, track plastic pollution, and detect whales and prevent vessel collisions. More data will help speed the placement of offshore wind and tide farms, improve vessel telematics, develop smart aquaculture, protect urban coastal zones, and enhance coastal tourism.

Unlocking the ocean data market

But we’re not there yet.

This new wave of data innovation is constrained by inadequate data supply, demand, and governance. The supply of existing ocean data is locked by paper records, old formats, proprietary archives, inadequate infrastructure, and scarce ocean data skills and capacity.

The market for ocean observation is driven by science and science isn’t adequately funded.

To unlock future commercial potential, new financing mechanisms are needed to create market demand that will stimulate greater investments in new ocean data collection, innovation and capacity.

Efforts such as the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure have gone some way to raise awareness and create demand for such ocean-related climate risk data.

Much data that is produced is collected by nations, universities and research organizations, NGO’s, and the private sector, but only a small percentage is Open Data and widely available.

Data creates more value when it is widely utilized and well governed. Helping organize to improve data infrastructure, quality, integrity, and availability is a requirement for achieving new ocean data-driven business models and markets. New Ocean Data Governance models, standards, platforms, and skills are urgently needed to stimulate new market demand for innovation and sustainable development….(More)”.

Getting on the map: How to fix the problem with addresses

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Joshua Howgego at New Scientist: “Kwandengezi is a beguiling neighbourhood on the outskirts of Durban. Its ramshackle dwellings are spread over rolling green hills, with dirt roads winding in between. Nothing much to put it on the map. Until last year, that is, when weird signs started sprouting, nailed to doors, stapled to fences or staked in front of houses. Each consisted of three seemingly random words. Cutaway.jazz.wording said one; tokens.painted.enacted read another.

In a neighbourhood where houses have no numbers and the dirt roads no names, these signs are the fastest way for ambulances to locate women going into labour and who need ferrying to the nearest hospital. The hope is that signs like this will save lives and be adopted elsewhere. For the residents of KwaNdengezi in South Africa aren’t alone – recent estimates suggest that only 80 or so countries worldwide have an up-to-date addressing system. And even where one exists, it isn’t always working as well as it could.

Poor addresses aren’t simply confusing: they frustrate businesses and can shave millions of dollars off economic output. That’s why there’s a growing feeling that we need to reinvent the address – and those makeshift three-word signs are just the beginning.

“Poor addresses frustrate businesses and can shave millions of dollars off economic output”

In itself, an address is a simple thing: its purpose is to unambiguously identify a point on Earth’s surface. But, it also forms a crucial part of the way societies are managed. Governments use lists of addresses to work out how many people they need to serve; without an address by your name, you can’t apply for a passport…(More)”.

Personal finance questions elicit slightly different answers in phone surveys than online

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 and   at Pew Research: “People polled by telephone are slightly less likely than those interviewed online to say their personal finances are in “poor shape” (14% versus 20%, respectively), a Pew Research Center survey experiment has found.

The experiment, conducted in February and March, is part of a line of research at the Center looking into “mode effects” – in this case, whether findings from self-administered web surveys differ from those of interviewer-administered phone surveys.

In particular, survey researchers have long known that Americans may be more likely to give a “socially desirable” response (and less likely to give a stigmatized or undesirable answer) in an interviewer-administered survey than in one that is self-administered. Mode effects can also result from other differences in survey design, such as seeing the answer choices visually on the web versus hearing them over the phone.

The Center’s experiment randomly assigned respondents to a survey method (online or telephone). Although it found that political questions, such as whether respondents approve of President Donald Trump, don’t elicit significant mode effects, some other, more personal items clearly do. When asked whether or not they had received financial assistance from a family member in the past year, for instance, just 15% of phone respondents say yes. That share is significantly higher (26%) among web respondents….

While the findings from this experiment suggest that self-administered surveys may be more accurate than interviewer-administered approaches as a way to measure financial stress (all else being equal), this does not mean that past telephone-based research arrived at erroneous conclusions regarding financial stress – for example, what predicts it or how the likelihood varies across subgroups. That said, researchers studying financial stress should consider that phone surveys have, at least to some degree, been understating the share of Americans experiencing economic hardship….(More)”.

Note: Survey methodology can be found here, and the topline is available here.

Opportunities and risks in emerging technologies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

White Paper Series at the WebFoundation: “To achieve our vision of digital equality, we need to understand how new technologies are shaping society; where they present opportunities to make people’s lives better, and indeed where they threaten to create harm. To this end, we have commissioned a series of white papers examining three key digital trends: artificial intelligence, algorithms and control of personal data. The papers focus on low and middle-income countries, which are all too often overlooked in debates around the impacts of emerging technologies.

The series addresses each of these three digital issues, looking at how they are impacting people’s lives and identifying steps that governments, companies and civil society organisations can take to limit the harms, and maximise benefits, for citizens.

Download the white papers

We will use these white papers to refine our thinking and set our work agenda on digital equality in the years ahead. We are sharing them openly with the hope they benefit others working towards our goals and to amplify the limited research currently available on digital issues in low and middle-income countries. We intend the papers to foster discussion about the steps we can take together to ensure emerging digital technologies are used in ways that benefit people’s lives, whether they are in Los Angeles or Lagos….(More)”.

Why We Should Care About Bad Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Stefaan G. Verhulst: “At a time of open and big data, data-led and evidence-based policy making has great potential to improve problem solving but will have limited, if not harmful, effects if the underlying components are riddled with bad data.

Why should we care about bad data? What do we mean by bad data? And what are the determining factors contributing to bad data that if understood and addressed could prevent or tackle bad data? These questions were the subject of my short presentation during a recent webinar on  Bad Data: The Hobgoblin of Effective Government, hosted by the American Society for Public Administration and moderated by Richard Greene (Partner, Barrett and Greene Inc.). Other panelists included Ben Ward (Manager, Information Technology Audits Unit, California State Auditor’s Office) and Katherine Barrett (Partner, Barrett and Greene Inc.). The webinar was a follow-up to the excellent Special Issue of Governing on Bad Data written by Richard and Katherine….(More)”

Let the People Know the Facts: Can Government Information Removed from the Internet Be Reclaimed?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Susan Nevelow Mart: “…examines the legal bases of the public’s right to access government information, reviews the types of information that have recently been removed from the Internet, and analyzes the rationales given for the removals. She suggests that the concerted use of the Freedom of Information Act by public interest groups and their constituents is a possible method of returning the information to the Internet….(More)”.

How Can Blockchain Technology Help Government Drive Economic Activity?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Thomas Hardjono and Pete Teigen providing “A Blueprint Discussion on Identity“: Data breaches, identity theft, and trust erosion are all identity-related issues that citizens and government organizations face with increased frequency and magnitude. The rise of blockchain technology, and related distributed ledger technology, is generating significant interest in how a blockchain infrastructure can enable better identity management across a variety of industries.  Historically, governments have taken the primary role in issuing certain types of identities (e.g. social security numbers, driver licenses, and passports) based on strong authentication proofing of individuals using government-vetted documentation – a process often referred to as on-boarding. This identity proofing and on-boarding process presents a challenge to government because it is still heavily paper-based, making it cumbersome, time consuming and dependent on siloed, decades old, and inefficient systems.

Another aspect of the identity challenge is the risk of compromising an individual’s digital identifiers and government-issued credentials through identity theft. With so many vital services (e.g. banking, health services, transport, residency) dependent on trusted, government-vetted credentials, any compromise of that identity can result in a significant negative impact to the individual and be difficult to repair. Compounding the problem, many instances of identity theft go undetected and only discovered after damage is done.

Increasing the efficiency of the identity vetting process while also enhancing transparency would help mitigate those identity challenges.  Blockchain technology promises to do just that. Through the use of multiple computer systems (nodes) that are interconnected in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, a shared common view of the information in the network ensures synchronicity of agreed data. A trusted ledger then exists in a distributed manner across the network that inherently is accountable to all network participants, thereby providing transparency and trustworthiness.

Using that trusted distributed ledger, identity-related data vetted by one Government entity and including that data’s location (producing a link in the chain) can be shared with other members of the network as needed — allowing members to instantaneously accept an identity without the need to duplicate the identity vetting process.  The more sophisticated blockchain systems possess this “record-link-fetch” feature that  is inherent in  the blockchain system’s building blocks.  Additional efficiency enhancing features allow downstream processes using that identity assertion as automated input to enable “smart contracts”, discussed below.

Thus, the combination of Government vetting of individual data, together with the embedded transparency and accountability capabilities of blockchain systems, allow relying parties (e.g. businesses, online merchants, individuals, etc.) to obtain higher degrees of assurance regarding the identity of other parties with whom they are conducting transactions…..

Identity and membership management solutions already exist and can be applied to private (permissioned) blockchain systems. Features within these solutions should be evaluated for their suitability for blockchain systems.  Specifically, these four steps can enable government to start in suing blockchain to address identity challenges:

  1. Evaluate existing identity and membership management solutions in order to identify features that apply to permissioned blockchain systems in the short term.
  2. Experiment with integrating these existing solutions with open source blockchain implementations.
  3. Create a roadmap (with a 2-3 year horizon) for identity and membership management for smart contracts within permissioned blockchains.
  4. Develop a long term plan (a 5 year horizon) for addressing identity and membership management for permissionless (public) blockchain systems. Here again, use open source blockchain implementations as the basis to understand the challenges in the identity space for permissionless blockchains….(More)”.

Open Participatory Security: Unifying Technology, Citizens, and the State

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Jesse Paul Lehrke: “Our modern security systems have recently come under a lot of criticism: as too bureaucratic and unadaptable, too secretive and untrustworthy, and too obsessed with information technology rather than human needs. Yet listing failures is easy; security is never perfect. The question is why current approaches fail and whether there are viable alternatives. The root of their shortcomings is in the interaction of the very pillars of our security system in the contemporary context. While our enemies have adopted the technologies of the Information Age, changing how they organize and fight, these same technologies have only created more vulnerabilities for states. Governments have been generally unwilling to maximize their use of these technologies because it would require the wider release of information and the opening of organizational structures to include society in security making. Yet countering diffuse modern threats striking deep into our states and across our economies requires mobilizing the diffuse skills and variation of modern society. Open approaches for mobilizing participation and coproduction have the capabilities needed to improve contemporary security policy making, problem solving, and provision. Moreover, open participatory security can be effective not only for technical security, but also for restoring trust among the citizens and rebuilding the legitimacy of the state….(More)”

Deadly Data Gaps: How Lack of Information Harms Refugee Policy Making

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Interview with Galen Englund by Charlotte Alfred: “The U.N. Refugee Agency recently released its annual estimate of the world’s displaced population: 65.6 million. This figure is primarily based on data provided by governments, each using their own definitions and data collection methods.

This leaves ample space for inconsistencies and data gaps. South Africa, for example, reported 463,900 asylum seekers in 2014, 1.1 million in 2015 and then just 218,300 last year. But the number of people had not fluctuated that wildly. What did change was how asylum seekers are counted.

National estimates can also obscure entire groups of people, like internally displaced groups that governments don’t want to acknowledge, notes Galen Englund, who analyzes humanitarian data at the ONE Campaign advocacy organization.

Over the past year, Englund has been digging into the data on refugees and displaced populations for the ONE Campaign. It was an uphill battle. He collected figures from 67 reports that used 356 differently worded metrics in order to identify the needs of displaced populations. “Frequently information is not there, or it’s siloed within organizations, or there’s too much bureaucratic red tape around it, or it just hasn’t been collected yet,” he said.

His research resulted in a displacement tracking platform called Movement, which compiles various U.N. data, and a briefing paper outlining displacement data gaps that concludes: “The information architecture of humanitarian aid is not fit for purpose.” We spoke to Englund about his findings….

Galen Englund: There’s several layers of massive data gaps that all coincide with each other. Probably the most troubling for me is not being able to understand at a granular level where refugees and displaced people are inside of countries, and the transition between when someone leaves their home and becomes displaced, and when they actually cross international borders and become refugees or asylum seekers. That’s an incredibly difficult transition to track, and one that there’s inadequate data on right now….(More)”.

Our digital journey: moving to electronic questionnaires

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jason Bradbury at the Office for National Statistics (UK): “Earlier this year we shared news about the Retail Sales Inquiry (RSI) – the monthly national survey of shops and shopping –  moving to digital data collection. ONS is transforming the way it collects data, improving the speed and quality of the information while reducing the burden on respondents. The past six months has seen a significant expansion of our digital survey availability. In January 5,000 retailers were invited to sign-up for an account giving them the option to send us their data  for one of our business surveys digitally.

Electronic questionnaires

The take-up of the electronic questionnaire (eQ) was incredible with over 80% of respondents choosing to supply their information for the RSI online. Overt the last six months, we have continued to see the appetite for online completion grow. Each month, an average of 300 new businesses opt to return their Retail Sales data digitally with many eager to move to digital methods for the other surveys they are required to complete….

Moving data collection from the phone and paper to online has been a huge success delivering improved quality, an ‘easy  to access’ online experience and when thinking about the impact this change could  have had on our core function as a statistical body, I am delighted to share that we have not witnessed any statistical issues and all of outputs have been compiled and produced as normal.

Put simply, the easier it is for someone to complete our surveys, the more likely they are to take the time to provide more detailed accurate data. It is worth noting that once a business has an account with ONS they often send back data to us quicker. The earlier and more detailed responses allow us more time to quality assure (QA) the information and reduce the need to re-contact the businesses.

Our digital journey

The digital world is a fast paced and an ever changing environment. We have found it challenging to match this pace in both our team’s skill base and our digital service. We are in the process of up-skilling our teams and updating our data collection service and infrastructure. This will enable us to improve our data collection service and move even more surveys online….(More)”