EU negotiators agree on new rules for sharing of public sector data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

European Commission Press Release: “Negotiators from the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the Commission have reached an agreement on a revised directive that will facilitate the availability and re-use of public sector data.

Data is the fuel that drives the growth of many digital products and services. Making sure that high-quality, high-value data from publicly funded services is widely and freely available is a key factor in accelerating European innovation in highly competitive fields such as artificial intelligence requiring access to vast amounts of high-quality data.

In full compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the new Directive on Open Data and Public Sector Information (PSI) – which can be for example anything from anonymised personal data on household energy use to general information about national education or literacy levels – updates the framework setting out the conditions under which public sector data should be made available for re-use, with a particular focus on the increasing amounts of high-value data that is now available.

Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said: “Data is increasingly the lifeblood of today’s economy and unlocking the potential of public open data can bring significant economic benefits. The total direct economic value of public sector information and data from public undertakings is expected to increase from €52 billion in 2018 to €194 billion by 2030. With these new rules in place, we will ensure that we can make the most of this growth” 

Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel said: “Public sector information has already been paid for by the taxpayer. Making it more open for re-use benefits the European data economy by enabling new innovative products and services, for example based on artificial intelligence technologies. But beyond the economy, open data from the public sector is also important for our democracy and society because it increases transparency and supports a facts-based public debate.”

As part of the EU Open Data policy, rules are in place to encourage Member States to facilitate the re-use of data from the public sector with minimal or no legal, technical and financial constraints. But the digital world has changed dramatically since they were first introduced in 2003.

What do the new rules cover?

  • All public sector content that can be accessed under national access to documents rules is in principle freely available for re-use. Public sector bodies will not be able to charge more than the marginal cost for the re-use of their data, except in very limited cases. This will allow more SMEs and start-ups to enter new markets in providing data-based products and services.
  • A particular focus will be placed on high-value datasets such as statistics or geospatial data. These datasets have a high commercial potential, and can speed up the emergence of a wide variety of value-added information products and services.
  • Public service companies in the transport and utilities sector generate valuable data. The decision on whether or not their data has to be made available is covered by different national or European rules, but when their data is available for re-use, they will now be covered by the Open Data and Public Sector Information Directive. This means they will have to comply with the principles of the Directive and ensure the use of appropriate data formats and dissemination methods, while still being able to set reasonable charges to recover related costs.
  • Some public bodies strike complex data deals with private companies, which can potentially lead to public sector information being ‘locked in’. Safeguards will therefore be put in place to reinforce transparency and to limit the conclusion of agreements which could lead to exclusive re-use of public sector data by private partners.
  • More real-time data, available via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), will allow companies, especially start-ups, to develop innovative products and services, e.g. mobility apps. Publicly-funded research data is also being brought into the scope of the directive: Member States will be required to develop policies for open access to publicly funded research data while harmonised rules on re-use will be applied to all publicly-funded research data which is made accessible via repositories….(More)”.

The Digitalization of Public Diplomacy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Ilan Manor: “This book addresses how digitalization has influenced the institutions, practitioners and audiences of diplomacy. Throughout, the author argues that terms such as ‘digitalized public diplomacy’ or ‘digital public diplomacy’ are misleading, as they suggest that Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) are either digital or non-digital, when in fact digitalization should be conceptualized as a long-term process in which the values, norms, working procedures and goals of public diplomacy are challenged and re-defined. Subsequently, through case study examination, this book also argues that different MFAs are at different stages of the digitalization process. By adopting the term ‘the digitalization of public diplomacy’, this book will offer a new conceptual framework for investigating the impact of digitalization on the practice of public diplomacy….(More)”.

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer

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Press Release: “The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust has changed profoundly in the past year—people have shifted their trust to the relationships within their control, most notably their employers. Globally, 75 percent of people trust “my employer” to do what is right, significantly more than NGOs (57 percent), business (56 percent) and media (47 percent).

Divided by Trust

There is a 16-point gap between the more trusting informed public and the far-more-skeptical mass population, marking a return to record highs of trust inequality. The phenomenon fueling this divide was a pronounced rise in trust among the informed public. Markets such as the U.S., UK, Canada, South Korea and Hong Kong saw trust gains of 12 points or more among the informed public. In 18 markets, there is now a double-digit trust gap between the informed public and the mass population.

2019 Edelman Trust Barometer - Trust Inequality

An Urgent Desire for Change

Despite the divergence in trust between the informed public and mass population the world is united on one front—all share an urgent desire for change. Only one in five feels that the system is working for them, with nearly half of the mass population believing that the system is failing them.

In conjunction with pessimism and worry, there is a growing move toward engagement and action. In 2019, engagement with the news surged by 22 points; 40 percent not only consume news once a week or more, but they also routinely amplify it. But people are encountering roadblocks in their quest for facts, with 73 percent worried about fake news being used as a weapon.

Trust Barometer - News Engagement

The New Employer-Employee Contract

Despite a high lack of faith in the system, there is one relationship that remains strong: “my employer.” Fifty-eight percent of general population employees say they look to their employer to be a trustworthy source of information about contentious societal issues.

Employees are ready and willing to trust their employers, but the trust must be earned through more than “business as usual.” Employees’ expectation that prospective employers will join them in taking action on societal issues (67 percent) is nearly as high as their expectations of personal empowerment (74 percent) and job opportunity (80 percent)….(More)”.

Crowdsourced mapping in crisis zones: collaboration, organisation and impact

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Amelia Hunt and Doug Specht in the Journal of International Humanitarian Action:  “Crowdsourced mapping has become an integral part of humanitarian response, with high profile deployments of platforms following the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes, and the multiple projects initiated during the Ebola outbreak in North West Africa in 2014, being prominent examples. There have also been hundreds of deployments of crowdsourced mapping projects across the globe that did not have a high profile.

This paper, through an analysis of 51 mapping deployments between 2010 and 2016, complimented with expert interviews, seeks to explore the organisational structures that create the conditions for effective mapping actions, and the relationship between the commissioning body, often a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and the volunteers who regularly make up the team charged with producing the map.

The research suggests that there are three distinct areas that need to be improved in order to provide appropriate assistance through mapping in humanitarian crisis: regionalise, prepare and research. The paper concludes, based on the case studies, how each of these areas can be handled more effectively, concluding that failure to implement one area sufficiently can lead to overall project failure….(More)”

A Study of the Implications of Advanced Digital Technologies (Including AI Systems) for the Concept of Responsibility Within a Human Rights Framework

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Karen Yeung: “This study was commissioned by the Council of Europe’s Committee of experts on human rights dimensions of automated data processing and different forms of artificial intelligence (MSI-AUT). It was prompted by concerns about the potential adverse consequences of advanced digital technologies (including artificial intelligence (‘AI’)), particularly their impact on the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. This draft report seeks to examine the implications of these technologies for the concept of responsibility, and this includes investigating where responsibility should lie for their adverse consequences. In so doing, it seeks to understand (a) how human rights and fundamental freedoms protected under the ECHR may be adversely affected by the development of AI technologies and (b) how responsibility for those risks and consequences should be allocated. 

Its methodological approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on concepts and academic scholarship from the humanities, the social sciences and, to a more limited extent, from computer science. It concludes that, if we are to take human rights seriously in a hyperconnected digital age, we cannot allow the power of our advanced digital technologies and systems, and those who develop and implement them, to be accrued and exercised without responsibility. Nations committed to protecting human rights must therefore ensure that those who wield and derive benefits from developing and deploying these technologies are held responsible for their risks and consequences. This includes obligations to ensure that there are effective and legitimate mechanisms that will operate to prevent and forestall violations to human rights which these technologies may threaten, and to attend to the health of the larger collective and shared socio-technical environment in which human rights and the rule of law are anchored….(More)”.

The UN Principles on Personal Data Protection and Privacy

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United Nations System: “The Principles on Personal Data Protection and Privacy set out a basic framework for the processing of personal data by, or on behalf of, the United Nations System Organizations in carrying out their mandated activities.

The Principles aim to: (i) harmonize standards for the protection of personal data across the UN System; (ii) facilitate the accountable processing of personal data; and (iii) ensure respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals, in particular the right to privacy. These Principles apply to personal data, contained in any form, and processed in any manner. Where appropriate, they may also be used as a benchmark for the processing of non-personal data, in a sensitive context that may put certain individuals or groups of individuals at risk of harms. 
 
The High Level Committee on Management (HLCM) formally adopted the Principles at its 36th Meeting on 11 October 2018. The adoption followed the HLCM’s decision at its 35th Meeting in April 2018 to engage with the UN Data Privacy Policy Group (UN PPG) in developing a set of high-level principles on the cross-cutting issue of data privacy. Preceding the 36th HLCM meeting in October, the Principles were developed and unanimously endorsed by the organizations represented on the UN PPG….(More) (Download the Personal Data Protection and Privacy Principles)

Draft Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Working document by the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG): “…Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most transformative forces of our time, and is bound to alter the fabric of society. It presents a great opportunity to increase prosperity and growth, which Europe must strive to achieve. Over the last decade, major advances were realised due to the availability of vast amounts of digital data, powerful computing architectures, and advances in AI techniques such as machine learning. Major AI-enabled developments in autonomous vehicles, healthcare, home/service robots, education or cybersecurity are improving the quality of our lives every day. Furthermore, AI is key for addressing many of the grand challenges facing the world, such as global health and wellbeing, climate change, reliable legal and democratic systems and others expressed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Having the capability to generate tremendous benefits for individuals and society, AI also gives rise to certain risks that should be properly managed. Given that, on the whole, AI’s benefits outweigh its risks, we must ensure to follow the road that maximises the benefits of AI while minimising its risks. To ensure that we stay on the right track, a human-centric approach to AI is needed, forcing us to keep in mind that the development and use of AI should not be seen as a means in itself, but as having the goal to increase human well-being. Trustworthy AI will be our north star, since human beings will only be able to confidently and fully reap the benefits of AI if they can trust the technology.

Trustworthy AI has two components: (1) it should respect fundamental rights, applicable regulation and core principles and values, ensuring an “ethical purpose” and (2) it should be technically robust and reliable since, even with good intentions, a lack of technological mastery can cause unintentional harm.

These Guidelines therefore set out a framework for Trustworthy AI:

  • Chapter I deals with ensuring AI’s ethical purpose, by setting out the fundamental rights, principles and values that it should comply with.
  • From those principles, Chapter II derives guidance on the realisation of Trustworthy AI, tackling both ethical purpose and technical robustness. This is done by listing the requirements for Trustworthy AI and offering an overview of technical and non-technical methods that can be used for its implementation.
  • Chapter III subsequently operationalises the requirements by providing a concrete but nonexhaustive assessment list for Trustworthy AI. This list is then adapted to specific use cases. …(More)”

Advancing Sustainability Together: Launching new report on citizen-generated data and its relevance for the SDGs

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Danny Lämmerhirt at Open Knowledge Foundation: “Citizen-generated data (CGD) expands what gets measured, how, and for what purpose. As the collection and engagement with CGD increases in relevance and visibility, public institutions can learn from existing initiatives about what CGD initiatives do, how they enable different forms of sense-making and how this may further progress around the Sustainable Development Goals.

Our report, as well as a guide for governments (find the layouted version here, as well as a living document here) shall help start conversations around the different approaches of doing and organising CGD. When CGD becomes good enough depends on the purpose it is used for but also how CGD is situated in relation to other data.

As our work wishes to be illustrative rather than comprehensive, we started with a list of over 230 projects that were associated with the term “citizen-generated data” on Google Search, using an approach known as “search as research” (Rogers, 2013). Outgoing from this list, we developed case studies on a range of prominent CGD examples.

The report identifies several benefits CGD can bring for implementing and monitoring the SDGs, underlining the importance for public institutions to further support these initiatives.

Figure 1: Illustration of tasks underpinning CGD initiatives and their workflows

Key findings:

  • Dealing with data is usually much more than ‘just producing’ data. CGD initiativesopen up new types of relationships between individuals, civil society and public institutions. This includes local development and educational programmes, community outreach, and collaborative strategies for monitoring, auditing, planning and decision-making.
  • Generating data takes many shapes, from collecting new data in the field, to compiling, annotating, and structuring existing data to enable new ways of seeing things through data. Accessing and working with existing (government) data is often an important enabling condition for CGD initiatives to start in the first place.
  • CGD initiatives can help gathering data in regions otherwise not reachable. Some CGD approaches may provide updated and detailed data at lower costs and faster than official data collections.
  • Beyond filling data gaps, official measurements can be expanded, complemented, or cross-verified. This includes pattern and trend identification and the creation of baseline indicators for further research. CGD can help governments detect anomalies, test the accuracy of existing monitoring processes, understand the context around phenomena, and initiate its own follow-up data collections.
  • CGD can inform several actions to achieve the SDGs. Beyond education, community engagement and community-based problem solving, this includes baseline research, planning and strategy development, allocation and coordination of public and private programs, as well as improvement to public services.
  • CGD must be ‘good enough’ for different (and varying) purposes. Governments already develop pragmatic ways to negotiate and assess the usefulness of data for a specific task. CGD may be particularly useful when agencies have a clear remit or responsibility to manage a problem.  
  • Data quality can be comparable to official data collections, provided tasks are sufficiently easy to conduct, tool quality is high enough, and sufficient training, resources and quality assurance are provided….(More)”.

Innovations In The Fight Against Corruption In Latin America

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog Post by Beth Noveck:  “…The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) has published an important, practical and prescriptive report with recommendations for every sector of society from government to individuals on innovative and effective approaches to combatting corruption. While focused on Latin America, the report’s proposals, especially those on the application of new technology in the fight against corruption, are relevant around the world….

IADB Anti-Corruption Report

The recommendations about the use of new technologies, including big data, blockchain and collective intelligence, are drawn from an effort undertaken last year by the Governance Lab at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering to crowdsource such solutions and advice on how to implement them from a hundred global experts. (See the Smarter Crowdsourcing against Corruption report here.)…

Big data, when published as open data, namely in a form that can be re-used without legal or technical restriction and in a machine-readable format that computers can analyze, is another tool in the fight against corruption. With machine readable, big and open data, those outside of government can pinpoint and measure irregularities in government contracting, as Instituto Observ is doing in Brazil.

Opening up judicial data, such as information about case processing times, judges’ and prosecutors’ salaries, information about selection processes, such as CV’s, professional and academic backgrounds, and written and oral exam scores provides activists and reformers with the tools to fight judicial corruption. The Civil Association for Equality and Justice (ACIJ) (a non-profit advocacy group) in Argentina uses such open justice data in its Concursos Transparentes (Transparent Contests) to fight judicial corruption. Jusbrasil is a private open justice company also using open data to reform the courts in Brazil….(More)”

Artificial Intelligence: Public-Private Partnerships join forces to boost AI progress in Europe

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

European Commission Press Release: “…the Big Data Value Association and euRobotics agreed to cooperate more in order to boost the advancement of artificial intelligence’s (AI) in Europe. Both associations want to strengthen their collaboration on AI in the future. Specifically by:

  • Working together to boost European AI, building on existing industrial and research communities and on results of the Big Data Value PPP and SPARC PPP. This to contribute to the European Commission’s ambitious approach to AI, backed up with a drastic increase investment, reaching €20 billion total public and private funding in Europe until 2020.
  • Enabling joint-pilots, for example, to accelerate the use and integration of big data, robotics and AI technologies in different sectors and society as a whole
  • Exchanging best practices and approaches from existing and future projects of the Big Data PPP and the SPARC PPP
  • Contributing to the European Digital Single Market, developing strategic roadmaps and  position papers

This Memorandum of Understanding between the PPPs follows the European Commission’s approach to AI presented in April 2018 and the Declaration of Cooperation on Artificial Intelligence signed by all 28 Member States and Norway. This Friday 7 December the Commission will present its EU coordinated plan….(More)”.