Selected Readings on Data Governance

Curated on Posted on by Jos Berens

Jos Berens (Centre for Innovation, Leiden University) and Stefaan G. Verhulst (GovLab)

The Living Library’s Selected Readings series seeks to build a knowledge base on innovative approaches for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance. This curated and annotated collection of recommended works on the topic of data governance was originally published in 2015.

Context
The field of Data Collaboratives is premised on the idea that sharing and opening-up private sector datasets has great – and yet untapped – potential for promoting social good. At the same time, the potential of data collaboratives depends on the level of societal trust in the exchange, analysis and use of the data exchanged. Strong data governance frameworks are essential to ensure responsible data use. Without such governance regimes, the emergent data ecosystem will be hampered and the (perceived) risks will dominate the (perceived) benefits. Further, without adopting a human-centered approach to the design of data governance frameworks, including iterative prototyping and careful consideration of the experience, the responses may fail to be flexible and targeted to real needs.

Selected Readings List (in alphabetical order)

Annotated Selected Readings List (in alphabetical order)

Better Place Lab, “Privacy, Transparency and Trust.” Mozilla, 2015. Available from: http://www.betterplace-lab.org/privacy-report.

  • This report looks specifically at the risks involved in the social sector having access to datasets, and the main risks development organizations should focus on to develop a responsible data use practice.
  • Focusing on five specific countries (Brazil, China, Germany, India and Indonesia), the report displays specific country profiles, followed by a comparative analysis centering around the topics of privacy, transparency, online behavior and trust.
  • Some of the key findings mentioned are:
    • A general concern on the importance of privacy, with cultural differences influencing conception of what privacy is.
    • Cultural differences determining how transparency is perceived, and how much value is attached to achieving it.
    • To build trust, individuals need to feel a personal connection or get a personal recommendation – it is hard to build trust regarding automated processes.

Montjoye, Yves Alexandre de; Kendall, Jake and; Kerry, Cameron F. “Enabling Humanitarian Use of Mobile Phone Data.” The Brookings Institution, 2015. Available from: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/11/12-enabling-humanitarian-use-mobile-phone-data.

  • Focussing in particular on mobile phone data, this paper explores ways of mitigating privacy harms involved in using call detail records for social good.
  • Key takeaways are the following recommendations for using data for social good:
    • Engaging companies, NGOs, researchers, privacy experts, and governments to agree on a set of best practices for new privacy-conscientious metadata sharing models.
    • Accepting that no framework for maximizing data for the public good will offer perfect protection for privacy, but there must be a balanced application of privacy concerns against the potential for social good.
    • Establishing systems and processes for recognizing trusted third-parties and systems to manage datasets, enable detailed audits, and control the use of data so as to combat the potential for data abuse and re-identification of anonymous data.
    • Simplifying the process among developing governments in regards to the collection and use of mobile phone metadata data for research and public good purposes.

Centre for Democracy and Technology, “Health Big Data in the Commercial Context.” Centre for Democracy and Technology, 2015. Available from: https://cdt.org/insight/health-big-data-in-the-commercial-context/.

  • Focusing particularly on the privacy issues related to using data generated by individuals, this paper explores the overlap in privacy questions this field has with other data uses.
  • The authors note that although the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has proven a successful approach in ensuring accountability for health data, most of these standards do not apply to developers of the new technologies used to collect these new data sets.
  • For non-HIPAA covered, customer facing technologies, the paper bases an alternative framework for consideration of privacy issues. The framework is based on the Fair Information Practice Principles, and three rounds of stakeholder consultations.

Center for Information Policy Leadership, “A Risk-based Approach to Privacy: Improving Effectiveness in Practice.” Centre for Information Policy Leadership, Hunton & Williams LLP, 2015. Available from: https://www.informationpolicycentre.com/uploads/5/7/1/0/57104281/white_paper_1-a_risk_based_approach_to_privacy_improving_effectiveness_in_practice.pdf.

  • This white paper is part of a project aiming to explain what is often referred to as a new, risk-based approach to privacy, and the development of a privacy risk framework and methodology.
  • With the pace of technological progress often outstripping the capabilities of privacy officers to keep up, this method aims to offer the ability to approach privacy matters in a structured way, assessing privacy implications from the perspective of possible negative impact on individuals.
  • With the intended outcomes of the project being “materials to help policy-makers and legislators to identify desired outcomes and shape rules for the future which are more effective and less burdensome”, insights from this paper might also feed into the development of innovative governance mechanisms aimed specifically at preventing individual harm.

Centre for Information Policy Leadership, “Data Governance for the Evolving Digital Market Place”, Centre for Information Policy Leadership, Hunton & Williams LLP, 2011. Available from: http://www.huntonfiles.com/files/webupload/CIPL_Centre_Accountability_Data_Governance_Paper_2011.pdf.

  • This paper argues that as a result of the proliferation of large scale data analytics, new models governing data inferred from society will shift responsibility to the side of organizations deriving and creating value from that data.
  • It is noted that, with the reality of the challenge corporations face of enabling agile and innovative data use “In exchange for increased corporate responsibility, accountability [and the governance models it mandates, ed.] allows for more flexible use of data.”
  • Proposed as a means to shift responsibility to the side of data-users, the accountability principle has been researched by a worldwide group of policymakers. Tailing the history of the accountability principle, the paper argues that it “(…) requires that companies implement programs that foster compliance with data protection principles, and be able to describe how those programs provide the required protections for individuals.”
  • The following essential elements of accountability are listed:
    • Organisation commitment to accountability and adoption of internal policies consistent with external criteria
    • Mechanisms to put privacy policies into effect, including tools, training and education
    • Systems for internal, ongoing oversight and assurance reviews and external verification
    • Transparency and mechanisms for individual participation
    • Means of remediation and external enforcement

Crawford, Kate; Schulz, Jason. “Big Data and Due Process: Toward a Framework to Redress Predictive Privacy Harm.” NYU School of Law, 2014. Available from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2325784&download=yes.

  • Considering the privacy implications of large-scale analysis of numerous data sources, this paper proposes the implementation of a ‘procedural data due process’ mechanism to arm data subjects against potential privacy intrusions.
  • The authors acknowledge that some privacy protection structures already know similar mechanisms. However, due to the “inherent analytical assumptions and methodological biases” of big data systems, the authors argue for a more rigorous framework.

Letouze, Emmanuel, and; Vinck, Patrick. “The Ethics and Politics of Call Data Analytics”, DataPop Alliance, 2015. Available from: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/531a2b4be4b009ca7e474c05/t/54b97f82e4b0ff9569874fe9/1421442946517/WhitePaperCDRsEthicFrameworkDec10-2014Draft-2.pdf.

  • Focusing on the use of Call Detail Records (CDRs) for social good in development contexts, this whitepaper explores both the potential of these datasets – in part by detailing recent successful efforts in the space – and political and ethical constraints to their use.
  • Drawing from the Menlo Report Ethical Principles Guiding ICT Research, the paper explores how these principles might be unpacked to inform an ethics framework for the analysis of CDRs.

Data for Development External Ethics Panel, “Report of the External Ethics Review Panel.” Orange, 2015. Available from: http://www.d4d.orange.com/fr/content/download/43823/426571/version/2/file/D4D_Challenge_DEEP_Report_IBE.pdf.

  • This report presents the findings of the external expert panel overseeing the Orange Data for Development Challenge.
  • Several types of issues faced by the panel are described, along with the various ways in which the panel dealt with those issues.

Federal Trade Commission Staff Report, “Mobile Privacy Disclosures: Building Trust Through Transparency.” Federal Trade Commission, 2013. Available from: www.ftc.gov/os/2013/02/130201mobileprivacyreport.pdf.

  • This report looks at ways to address privacy concerns regarding mobile phone data use. Specific advise is provided for the following actors:
    • Platforms, or operating systems providers
    • App developers
    • Advertising networks and other third parties
    • App developer trade associations, along with academics, usability experts and privacy researchers

Mirani, Leo. “How to use mobile phone data for good without invading anyone’s privacy.” Quartz, 2015. Available from: http://qz.com/398257/how-to-use-mobile-phone-data-for-good-without-invading-anyones-privacy/.

  • This paper considers the privacy implications of using call detail records for social good, and ways to mitigate risks of privacy intrusion.
  • Taking example of the Orange D4D challenge and the anonymization strategy that was employed there, the paper describes how classic ‘anonymization’ is often not enough. The paper then lists further measures that can be taken to ensure adequate privacy protection.

Bernholz, Lucy. “Several Examples of Digital Ethics and Proposed Practices” Stanford Ethics of Data conference, 2014, Available from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/237527226/Several-Examples-of-Digital-Ethics-and-Proposed-Practices.

  • This list of readings prepared for Stanford’s Ethics of Data conference lists some of the leading available literature regarding ethical data use.

Abrams, Martin. “A Unified Ethical Frame for Big Data Analysis.” The Information Accountability Foundation, 2014. Available from: http://www.privacyconference2014.org/media/17388/Plenary5-Martin-Abrams-Ethics-Fundamental-Rights-and-BigData.pdf.

  • Going beyond privacy, this paper discusses the following elements as central to developing a broad framework for data analysis:
    • Beneficial
    • Progressive
    • Sustainable
    • Respectful
    • Fair

Lane, Julia; Stodden, Victoria; Bender, Stefan, and; Nissenbaum, Helen, “Privacy, Big Data and the Public Good”, Cambridge University Press, 2014. Available from: http://www.dataprivacybook.org.

  • This book treats the privacy issues surrounding the use of big data for promoting the public good.
  • The questions being asked include the following:
    • What are the ethical and legal requirements for scientists and government officials seeking to serve the public good without harming individual citizens?
    • What are the rules of engagement?
    • What are the best ways to provide access while protecting confidentiality?
    • Are there reasonable mechanisms to compensate citizens for privacy loss?

Richards, Neil M, and; King, Jonathan H. “Big Data Ethics”. Wake Forest Law Review, 2014. Available from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2384174.

  • This paper describes the growing impact of big data analytics on society, and argues that because of this impact, a set of ethical principles to guide data use is called for.
  • The four proposed themes are: privacy, confidentiality, transparency and identity.
  • Finally, the paper discusses how big data can be integrated into society, going into multiple facets of this integration, including the law, roles of institutions and ethical principles.

OECD, “OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data”. Available from: http://www.oecd.org/sti/ieconomy/oecdguidelinesontheprotectionofprivacyandtransborderflowsofpersonaldata.htm.

  • A globally used set of principles to inform thought about handling personal data, the OECD privacy guidelines serve as one the leading standards for informing privacy policies and data governance structures.
  • The basic principles of national application are the following:
    • Collection Limitation Principle
    • Data Quality Principle
    • Purpose Specification Principle
    • Use Limitation Principle
    • Security Safeguards Principle
    • Openness Principle
    • Individual Participation Principle
    • Accountability Principle

The White House Big Data and Privacy Working Group, “Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values”, White House, 2015. Available from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/big_data_privacy_report_5.1.14_final_print.pdf.

  • Documenting the findings of the White House big data and privacy working group, this report lists i.a. the following key recommendations regarding data governance:
    • Bringing greater transparency to the data services industry
    • Stimulating international conversation on big data, with multiple stakeholders
    • With regard to educational data: ensuring data is used for the purpose it is collected for
    • Paying attention to the potential for big data to facilitate discrimination, and expanding technical understanding to stop discrimination

William Hoffman, “Pathways for Progress” World Economic Forum, 2015. Available from: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_DataDrivenDevelopment_Report2015.pdf.

  • This paper treats i.a. the lack of well-defined and balanced governance mechanisms as one of the key obstacles preventing particularly corporate sector data from being shared in a controlled space.
  • An approach that balances the benefits against the risks of large scale data usage in a development context, building trust among all stake holders in the data ecosystem, is viewed as key.
  • Furthermore, this whitepaper notes that new governance models are required not just by the growing amount of data and analytical capacity, and more refined methods for analysis. The current “super-structure” of information flows between institutions is also seen as one of the key reasons to develop alternatives to the current – outdated – approaches to data governance.

From Paint to Pixels

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jacoba Urist at the Atlantic: “A growing number of artists are using data from self-tracking apps in their pieces, showing that creative work is as much a product of its technology as of its time….A growing community of “data artists” is creating conceptual works using information collected by mobile apps, GPS trackers, scientists, and more.

Data artists generally fall into two groups: those who work with large bodies of scientific data and those who are influenced by self-tracking. The Boston-based artist Nathalie Miebach falls into the former category: She transforms weather patterns into complex sculptures and musical scores. Similarly, David McCandless, who believes the world suffers from a “data glut,” turns military spending budgets into simple, striking diagrams. On one level, the genre aims to translate large amounts of information into some kind of aesthetic form. But a number of artists, scholars, and curators also believe that working with this data isn’t just a matter of reducing human beings to numbers, but also of achieving greater awareness of complex matters in a modern world….

Current tools make self-tracking more efficient than ever, but data artists are hardly the first to express themselves through their daily activities—or to try to find meaning within life’s monotony. The Italian Mannerist painter Jacopo Pontormo kept records of his daily life from January 1554 to October 1556. In it, he detailed the amount of food he ate, the weather, symptoms of illness, friends he visited, even his bowel movements. In the 1970s, the Japanese conceptualistOn Kawara produced his self-observation series, I Got Up, I Went, and I Met(recently shown at the Guggenheim), in which he painstakingly records the rhythms of his day. Kawara stamped postcards with the time he awoke, traced his daily trips onto photocopied maps, and listed the names of people he encountered for nearly 12 years….(More)

How to Get People to Pitch In

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Erez Yoeli, Syon Bhanot, Gordon Kraft-Todd And David Rand in The New York Times: “…The “Pigouvian” approach to encouraging cooperation, named after the economist who first suggested it nearly a century ago, is to change the price — i.e., the personal cost of cooperating: Make water more expensive, tax carbon or pay people to vaccinate their kids.

But Californians are stubbornly unresponsive to higher water prices. Estimates suggest that a 10 percent increase in price would result in reductions in water use of 2 to 4 percent. That’s not nothing, but it implies that huge, politically infeasible price increases would be needed to address the state’s needs.

This problem isn’t unique to Californians and their effort to save water. In a recent review of field experiments that promote cooperation in the journal Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, we found that changing the material costs and benefits of cooperation often doesn’t work. Researchers have tried various forms of payments — paying cash, handing out T-shirts — and they’ve tried providing information on how to cooperate, with only limited success.

What does consistently work may be surprising: interventions based not on money, but on leveraging social concerns.

There are two ways to do this, both building on people’s desire for others to think highly of them. One is to make people’s cooperative (or selfish) choices more observable to others, like neighbors or co-workers. The second works in the opposite direction, providing people with information about how others around them are behaving (this is called a “descriptive social norm”).

To see how this might work, consider the California drought. The state could set up a website where homeowners pledge publicly to reduce their water consumption by 15 percent. Those who do would get a lawn sign that would say something like, “My lawn is yellow because I took a pledge to help California. Join me at yellowlawns.ca.gov.”

And what about norms? Innovative companies and public utilities are already on the case. A San Francisco-based firm, WaterSmart Software, sends mailers that allow homeowners to compare their water use to their neighbors’. Estimates suggest that these mailers reduce water use by 2 to 5 percent — the same as a 10 percent price increase.

Why do social interventions work? Research on the evolution of cooperation provides an answer. Beyond helping our families — the people to whom we’re genetically related — making others better off is not our main motivation to give. Instead, we cooperate because it makes us look good. This can be going on consciously or, more often, subconsciously (a gut feeling of guilt when your neighbor sees you turning on your sprinkler).

When your choices are observable by others, it makes it possible for good actions to benefit your reputation. Similarly, norms make you feel you’re expected to cooperate in a given situation, and that people may think poorly of you if they learn you are not doing your part….(More)”

Chicago uses new technology to solve this very old urban problem

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mehboob Jeelani at Fortune: “Chicago has spent 12 years collecting data on resident complaints. Now the city is harnessing that data to control the rat population, stopping infestations before residents spot rats in the first place.

For the past three years, Chicago police have been analyzing 911 calls to better predict crime patterns across the city and, in one case, actually forecasted a shootout minutes before it occurred.

Now, the city government is turning its big data weapons on the city’s rat population.

The city has 12 years of data on the resident complaints, ranging from calls about rodent sitting to graffiti. Those clusters of data lead the engineers to where the rats can potentially breed. The report is shared with the city’s sanitation team, which later cleans up the rat-infested areas.

“We discovered really interesting relationship that led to developing an algorithm about rodent prediction,” says Brenna Berman, Chicago’s chief information officer. “It involved 31 variables related to calls about overflowing trash bins and food poisoning in restaurants.”

The results, Berman says, are 20% more efficient versus the old responsive model.

Governing cities in the 21st century is a difficult task. It needs a political and economic support. In America, it was only in the early 1990s—when young adults started moving from the suburbs back to the cities—that the academic and policy consensus shifted back toward urban centers. Since then, cities are facing an influx of new residents, overwhelming the service providing agencies. To meet that demand amid the recent budget sequestration, cities like New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Chicago are constantly elevating the art of governance through innovative policies.

Due to this new model, in Chicago, you might not even spot a rat. The city’s Department of Innovation and Technology analyzes big chunks of data to an extent where the likelihood of a rodent infestation is thwarted seven days ahead of resident rat-sightings…(More)”

Detroit Revitalizes City with 311 App

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jason Shueh at Government Technology: “In the wake of the Detroit bankruptcy, blight sieged parts of the city as its populous exited. The fallouts were typical. There was a run of vandalism, thefts, arson and graffiti. Hard times pushed throngs of looters into scores of homes to scavenge for anything that wasn’t bolted down — and often, even for the things that were…. For solutions, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and DWSD’s CIO Dan Rainey partnered with SeeClickFix. The company, based in New Haven, Conn., is known for its mobile platform that’s embedded itself as a conduit between city service departments and citizen non-emergency — or 311 — requests. Duggan saw the platform as an opportune answer to address more than a single issue. Instead, the mayor asked how the app could be integrated throughout the city. Potholes, downed trees, graffiti, missing signage, streetlight outages — the mayor wanted a bundled solution to handle an array of common challenges.

Improve Detroit was his answer. The city app, officially available since April, allows citizens to report problems using photos, location data and by request type. Notifications on progress follow and residents can even pay utility bills through the app. For departments, it’s ingrained into work orders and workflows, while analytics provide data for planning, and filters permit a deep-dive analysis….

improve detroit app

Detroit now sits among many metropolitan cities pioneering such 311 apps. San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago are just a few of them. And there are a host of equally adroit tech providers supplying and supporting the apps — companies like Salesforce, CitySourced, PublicStuff, Fix 311 and others. Some cities have even developed their own apps through their internal IT departments.

What’s unique in Detroit is the city’s ambition to leverage a 311 app against major blight while the city works to demolish more than 20,000 abandoned homes — susceptible to fire, flooding, pest infestations and criminal activity. Beyond this, Lingholm said the initiative doubles as a tool to rejuvenate public trust. Data from the app is fed to the city’s new open data portal, and departments have set goals to ensure responsiveness….(More)

What’s gone wrong with democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay in The Economist: “Democracy was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. Why has it run into trouble, and what can be done to revive it?….

Even those lucky enough to live in mature democracies need to pay close attention to the architecture of their political systems. The combination of globalisation and the digital revolution has made some of democracy’s most cherished institutions look outdated. Established democracies need to update their own political systems both to address the problems they face at home, and to revitalise democracy’s image abroad. Some countries have already embarked upon this process. America’s Senate has made it harder for senators to filibuster appointments. A few states have introduced open primaries and handed redistricting to independent boundary commissions. Other obvious changes would improve matters. Reform of party financing, so that the names of all donors are made public, might reduce the influence of special interests. The European Parliament could require its MPs to present receipts with their expenses. Italy’s parliament has far too many members who are paid too much, and two equally powerful chambers, which makes it difficult to get anything done.

But reformers need to be much more ambitious. The best way to constrain the power of special interests is to limit the number of goodies that the state can hand out. And the best way to address popular disillusion towards politicians is to reduce the number of promises they can make. The key to a healthier democracy, in short, is a narrower state—an idea that dates back to the American revolution. “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men”, Madison argued, “the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” The notion of limited government was also integral to the relaunch of democracy after the second world war. The United Nations Charter (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) established rights and norms that countries could not breach, even if majorities wanted to do so.

These checks and balances were motivated by fear of tyranny. But today, particularly in the West, the big dangers to democracy are harder to spot. One is the growing size of the state. The relentless expansion of government is reducing liberty and handing ever more power to special interests. The other comes from government’s habit of making promises that it cannot fulfil, either by creating entitlements it cannot pay for or by waging wars that it cannot win, such as that on drugs. Both voters and governments must be persuaded of the merits of accepting restraints on the state’s natural tendency to overreach. Giving control of monetary policy to independent central banks tamed the rampant inflation of the 1980s, for example. It is time to apply the same principle of limited government to a broader range of policies. Mature democracies, just like nascent ones, require appropriate checks and balances on the power of elected government….

Several places are making progress towards getting this mixture right. The most encouraging example is California. Its system of direct democracy allowed its citizens to vote for contradictory policies, such as higher spending and lower taxes, while closed primaries and gerrymandered districts institutionalised extremism. But over the past five years California has introduced a series of reforms, thanks in part to the efforts of Nicolas Berggruen, a philanthropist and investor. The state has introduced a “Think Long” committee to counteract the short-term tendencies of ballot initiatives. It has introduced open primaries and handed power to redraw boundaries to an independent commission. And it has succeeded in balancing its budget—an achievement which Darrell Steinberg, the leader of the California Senate, described as “almost surreal”.

Similarly, the Finnish government has set up a non-partisan commission to produce proposals for the future of its pension system. At the same time it is trying to harness e-democracy: parliament is obliged to consider any citizens’ initiative that gains 50,000 signatures. But many more such experiments are needed—combining technocracy with direct democracy, and upward and downward delegation—if democracy is to zigzag its way back to health.

John Adams, America’s second president, once pronounced that “democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” He was clearly wrong. Democracy was the great victor of the ideological clashes of the 20th century. But if democracy is to remain as successful in the 21st century as it was in the 20th, it must be both assiduously nurtured when it is young—and carefully maintained when it is mature….(More)

Digital Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

“Digital Democracy is a product of the Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy. The new online platform features a searchable database of California state legislative committees hearings, allowing the user to search videos by keyword, topic, speaker or date. Digital Democracy is a first of its kind tool because it will transcribe all legislative hearing videos and will make the transcriptions available to users in their searchable entirety. These data rich transcripts represent an entirely new data set that is currently unavailable to the public. Additionally, sophisticated meta tags attached to the transcripts will enable users to run in depth analytics to identify trends and relationships. A robust database of all speakers will track individual participants’ testimony, positions, and donation and gift histories.

This project is pushing beyond the technical challenges of providing mere access to information, instead focusing on how this new data set can be meaningfully interpreted and acted upon. Tools within the system will allow a user to quickly and easily search, locate, view, clip, and share this information and opinions on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and other social media platforms. The video clips will provide dynamic content for grassroots mobilizers, online media outlets, bloggers, professional associations, and government watchdogs.

Digital Democracy has been deployed as a one year beta to provide searchable video files of available California state committee hearings for the 2015 legislative year….(More)”

Cops Increasingly Use Social Media to Connect, Crowdsource

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Sara E. Wilson at GovTech: “Law enforcement has long used public tip lines and missing persons bulletins to recruit citizens in helping solve crime and increasing public safety. Though the need for police departments to connect with their communities is nothing new, the array of technologies available to do so is growing all the time — as are the ways in which departments use those technologies.

In fact, 81 percent of law enforcement professionals use sites such as Facebook and Twitter on the job. And 25 percent use it daily.

Much of law enforcement is crowdsourced — Amber alerts are pushed to smartphones, seeking response from citizens; officers push wanted information and crime tips to users on Facebook and Twitter in the hopes they can help; and some departments create apps to streamline the information sharing.

Take the Johns Creek, Ga., Police Department, which has deployed a tool that allows additional citizen engagement and crowdsourcing…..Using a mobile app — the SunGard Public Sector P2C Converge app, which is branded specifically for Johns Creek PD as JCPD4Me — the department can more smoothly manage public safety announcements and other social media interactions….

Another tool cops use for communicating with citizens is Nixle, which lets agencies publish alerts, advisories, community information and traffic news. Citizens register for free and receive credible, neighborhood-level public safety information via text message and email in real time.

The Oakland, Calif., Police Department (OPD) uses the platform to engage with citizens — an April 17, 2015 post on Oakland PD’s Nixle Community feed informs readers that the department’s Special Victims Section, which is working to put an end to sex trafficking in the city, arrested five individuals for solicitation of prostitution. Since Jan. 1, 2015, OPD has arrested 70 individuals from 27 cities across the state for solicitation of prostitution.

Nixle allows two-way communication as well — the Tip Watch function allows anonymous tipsters to send information to Oakland PD in three ways (text, phone, Web). Now OPD can issue a passcode to tipsters for two-way, anonymous communication to help gather more information.

On the East Coast, the Peabody, Mass., Police Department has used the My Police Department (MyPD) app by WiredBlue, which lets citizens submit tips and feedback directly to the department, since its creation….

During the high-profile manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013, the FBI asked the public for eyewitness photo and video evidence. The response from the public was so overwhelming that the server infrastructure couldn’t handle the massive inflow of data.

This large-scale crowdsourcing and data dilemma inspired a new product: the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Large Emergency Event Digital Information Repository (LEEDIR). Developed by CitizenGlobal Inc. and Amazon Web Services, LEEDIR pairs an app with cloud storage to help police use citizens’ smartphones as tools to gather and investigate evidence. Since its creation, the repository was used in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2014 to investigate riots in Isla Vista.

Proponents of LEEDIR say the crowdsourcing system gives authorities a secure, central repository for the countless electronic tips that can come in during a crisis. Critics, however, claim that privacy issues come into play with this kind of policing. …(More)”

Worldwide accessibility map is crowdsourced by users

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “There are a growing number of apps such as Handimap and Blue Badge Style which offer city guides for users in wheelchairs — informing them which venues are accessible and which do not have disabled facilities. AXS Map does the same, but utilizes crowdsourced information to cover a much wider range of places and venues.

AXS Map is a free app, hailing from Canada, which aims to make the world a more accessible place for those with mobility problems. Users can access the platform via smartphone or desktop: they can browse any given area for accessible restaurants, shops, public restrooms or anything else via the searchable map. The database is made up of crowdsourced reviews submitted by the users themselves and includes ratings and information about entryways and restrooms.

The organization also host Mapathons, which aim to get new communities in towns and cities which are not yet covered involved: participants are encouraged to form teams and compete to see who can rate the most venues in a given area. Mapathons have taken place all over the USA and there are upcoming events in New York and Istanbul. Where should the AXS Mappers head next?” (More: AXS Map)

Nepal Aid Workers Helped by Drones, Crowdsourcing

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst
Shirley Wang et al in the Wall Street Journal: “….It is too early to gauge the exact impact of the technology in Nepal relief efforts, which have just begun amid chaos on the ground. Aid organizations have reported hospitals are overstretched, a shortage of capacity at Katmandu’s airport is crippling aid distribution and damaged roads and the mountainous country’s difficult terrain make reaching villages difficult.

Still, technology is playing an increasing role in the global response to humanitarian crises. Within hours of Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude temblor, U.S. giants such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. were offering their networks for use in verifying survivors and helping worried friends and relatives locate their loved ones.

Advances in online mapping—long used to calculate distances and plot driving routes—and the ability of camera-equipped drones are playing an increasingly important role in coordinating emergency responses at ground zero of any disaster.

A community of nonprofit groups uses satellite images, private images and open-source mapping technology to remap areas affected by the earthquake. They mark damaged buildings and roads so rescuers can identify the worst-hit areas and assess how accessible different areas are. The technology complements more traditional intelligence from aircraft.

Such crowdsourced real-time mapping technologies were first used in the 2010 Haiti earthquake, according to Chris Grundy, a professor in Geographical Information Systems at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The technology “has been advancing a little bit every time [every situation where it is used] as we start to see what works,” said Prof. Grundy.

The American Red Cross supplied its relief team on the Wednesday night flight to Nepal from Washington, D.C. with 50 digital maps and an inch-thick pile of paper maps that help identify where the needs are. The charity has a mapping project with the British Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, a crowdsourced data-sharing group.

Almost a week after the Nepal earthquake, two more people have been pulled from the rubble in Katmandu by teams of international rescuers. But hope for finding more survivors is waning. Photo: Sean McLain/The Wall Street Journal.

Mapping efforts have grown substantially since Haiti, according to Dale Kunce, head of the geographic information systems team at the American Red Cross. In the two months after the Haiti temblor, 600 mapping contributors made 1.5 million edits, while in the first 48 hours after the Nepal earthquake, 2,000 mappers had already made three million edits, Mr. Kunce said.

Some 3,400 volunteers from around the world are now inspecting images of Nepal online to identify road networks and conditions, to assess the extent of damage and pinpoint open spaces where displaced persons tend to congregate, according to Nama Budhathoki, executive director of a nonprofit technology company called Katmandu Living Labs.

His group is operating from a cramped but largely undamaged meeting room in a central-Katmandu office building to help coordinate the global effort of various mapping organizations with the needs of agencies like Doctors Without Borders and the international Red Cross community.

In recent days the Nepal Red Cross and Nepalese army have requested and been supplied with updated maps of severely damaged districts, said Dr. Budhathoki….(More)”