Letting the public decide is key to Big Tech regulation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Rana Foroohar: “Complexity is often used to obfuscate. Industries like finance, pharmaceuticals and particularly technology are rife with examples. Just as programmers can encrypt code or strip out metadata to protect the workings of their intellectual property, so insiders — from technologists to economists to lawyers — can defend their business models by using industry jargon and Byzantine explanations of simple concepts in order to obscure things they may not want the public to understand.

That’s why it’s so important that in its second major antitrust case filed against Google, the US Department of Justice last month asked not only that the company break up its advertising business, but that a jury of the people decide whether it must do so. This is extremely unusual for antitrust cases, which are usually decided by a judge.

It is a risky move, since it means that the DoJ’s antitrust division head, Jonathan Kanter, will have to deconstruct the online advertising auction business for lay people. But it’s also quite smart. The federal judges who hear such complex antitrust cases tend to be older, conservative types who are historically more likely to align themselves with large corporations.

As one legal scholar pointed out to me, such judges are reluctant to be seen as people who don’t understand complexity, even when it’s in a realm far outside their own. This may make them more likely to agree with the arguments put forward by expert witnesses — the Nobel laureates who construct auction models, for example — than average people who are willing to admit they simply don’t get it…

There are, of course, risks to policy by populism. Look at Britain’s departure from the EU after the 2016 referendum, which has left the country poorer. But that’s how democracy works. Allowing important decisions over key issues like corporate power and the rules of surveillance capitalism to be made by technocrats behind closed doors also carries dangers. The justice department is quite right that ordinary people should be able to hear the arguments…(More)”.

The Power of Citizen Science

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Lauren Kirchner at ConsumerReport: “You’ve heard of Erin Brockovich, the law clerk without a science degree who exposed the existence of a dangerous contaminant polluting a town’s groundwater, a toxic hazard that otherwise might have stayed invisible.

She’s not the first person to practice “citizen science” to powerful effect, nor will she be the last.

Maybe you’ve wondered whether that plastic container you’re about to zap in the microwave is really safe to use or whether your favorite chipped coffee mug is exposing you to toxic paint. Some particularly enterprising people who’ve had similar concerns have also wondered—but then took the extra step of testing the chemical makeup of what they were concerned about and then publicized the results.

These citizen testers aren’t professional chemists or government regulators, but all of them were able to raise red flags and spark important conversations about the health hazards that can be hiding in our homes and lives…(More)”.

582,462 and Counting

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Series in The New York Times: “They go into the streets in search of data. Peeking behind dumpsters, shining flashlights under bridges, rustling a frosted tent to see if anyone was inside. This is what it takes to count the people in America who don’t have a place to live. To get a number, however flawed, that describes the scope of a deeply entrenched problem and the country’s progress toward fixing it.

Last year, the Biden administration laid out a goal to reduce homelessness by 25 percent by 2025. The problem increasingly animates local politics, with ambitious programs to build affordable housing getting opposition from homeowners who say they want encampments gone but for the solution to be far from their communities. Across the country, homelessness is a subject in which declarations of urgency outweigh measurable progress.

Officially called the Point-in-Time Count, the annual tally of those who live outside or in homeless shelters takes place in every corner of the country through the last 10 days of January, and over the past dozen years has found 550,000 to 650,000 people experiencing homelessness. The endeavor is far from perfect, advocates note, since it captures no more than a few days and is almost certainly a significant undercount. But it’s a snapshot from which resources flow, and creates a shared understanding of a common problem.

This year, reporters and photographers from The New York Times shadowed the count, using a sampling of four very different communities — warm and cold, big and small, rural and urban — to examine the same problem in vastly different places…(More)”.

Leveraging Data for Racial Equity in Workforce Opportunity

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by CODE: “Across many decades, obstacles to gainful employment have limited the ability of Black Americans and other people of color to obtain well-paying jobs that create wealth and contribute to health and well-being.

A dearth of opportunity in the job market is related to inequalities in education, bias in hiring, and other forms of systemic inequality in the U.S.

Over time, federal efforts have addressed the need to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the government workforce, and promoted similar changes in the broader society. While these efforts have brought progress, they have not been entirely effective. At the same time, federal action has made new kinds of data available—data that can shed light on some of the historic drivers of workforce inequity and help inform solutions to their ongoing impact.

This report explores a number of current opportunities to strengthen longstanding data-driven tools to address workforce inequity. The report shows how the effects of workforce discrimination and other historic practices are still being felt today. At the same time, it outlines opportunities to apply data to increase equity in many areas related to the workforce gap, including disparities in health and wellbeing, socioeconomic status, and housing insecurity…(More)”.

Because Data Can’t Speak for Itself

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

“A Practical Guide to Telling Persuasive Policy Stories” by David Chrisinger and Lauren Brodsky: “People with important evidence-based ideas often struggle to translate data into stories their readers can relate to and understand. And if leaders can’t communicate well to their audience, they will not be able to make important changes in the world.

Why do some evidence-based ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Because Data Can’t Speak for Itself, accomplished educators and writers David Chrisinger and Lauren Brodsky tackle these questions head-on. They reveal the parts and functions of effective data-driven stories and explain myriad ways to turn your data dump into a narrative that can inform, persuade, and inspire action.

Chrisinger and Brodsky show that convincing data-driven stories draw their power from the same three traits, which they call people, purpose, and persistence. Writers need to find the real people behind the numbers and share their stories. At the same time, they need to remember their own purpose and be honest about what data says—and, just as importantly, what it does not.

Compelling and concise, this fast-paced tour of success stories—and several failures—includes examples on topics such as COVID-19, public diplomacy, and criminal justice…(More)”

Data Free Disney

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Janet Vertesy: “…Once upon a time, you could just go to Disneyland. You could get tickets at the gates, stand in line for rides, buy food and tchotchkes, even pick up copies of your favorite Disney movies at a local store. It wasn’t even that long ago. The last time I visited, in 2010, the company didn’t record what I ate for dinner or detect that I went on Pirates of the Caribbean five times. It was none of their business.

But sometime in the last few years, tracking and tracing became their business. Like many corporations out there, Walt Disney Studios spent the last decade transforming into a data company.

The theme parks alone are a data scientist’s dream. Just imagine: 50,000 visitors a day, most equipped with cell phones and a specialized app. Millions of location traces, along with rides statistics, lineup times, and food-order preferences. Thousands and thousands of credit card swipes, each populating a database with names and addresses, each one linking purchases across the park grounds.1 A QR-code scavenger hunt that records the path people took through Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Hotel keycards with entrance times, purchases, snack orders, and more. Millions of photos snapped on rides and security cameras throughout the park, feeding facial-recognition systems. Tickets with names, birthdates, and portraits attached. At Florida’s Disney World, MagicBands—bracelets using RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology—around visitors’ wrists gather all that information plus fingerprints in one place, while sensors ambiently detect their every move. What couldn’t you do with all that data?…(More)”.

Secondary data for global health digitalisation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Anatol-Fiete Näher, et al: “Substantial opportunities for global health intelligence and research arise from the combined and optimised use of secondary data within data ecosystems. Secondary data are information being used for purposes other than those intended when they were collected. These data can be gathered from sources on the verge of widespread use such as the internet, wearables, mobile phone apps, electronic health records, or genome sequencing. To utilise their full potential, we offer guidance by outlining available sources and approaches for the processing of secondary data. Furthermore, in addition to indicators for the regulatory and ethical evaluation of strategies for the best use of secondary data, we also propose criteria for assessing reusability. This overview supports more precise and effective policy decision making leading to earlier detection and better prevention of emerging health threats than is currently the case…(More)”.

How can health data be used for public benefit? 3 uses that people agree on

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Alison Papricia et al: “Health data can include information about health-care services, health status and behaviours, medications and genetic data, in addition to demographic information like age, education and neighbourhood.

These facts and statistics are valuable because they offer insights and information about population health and well-being. However, they can also be sensitive, and there are legitimate public concerns about how these data are used, and by whom. The term “social licence” describes uses of health data that have public support.

Studies performed in Canada, the United Kingdom and internationally have all found public support and social licence for uses of health data that produce public benefits.

However, this support is conditional. Public concerns related to privacy, commercial motives, equity and fairness must be addressed.

Our team of health policy researchers set out to build upon prior studies with actionable advice from a group of 20 experienced public and patient advisers. Studies have shown that health data use, sharing and reuse is a complex topic. So we recruited people who already had some knowledge of potential uses of health data through their roles advising research institutions, hospitals, community organizations and governments.

We asked these experienced advisers to exchange views about uses of health data that they supported or opposed. We also gathered participants’ views about requirements for social licence, such as privacy, security and transparency.

Consensus views: After hours of facilitated discussion and weeks of reflection, all 20 participants agreed on some applications and uses of health data that are within social licence, and some that are not.

Participants agreed it is within social licence for health data to be used by:

  • health-care practitioners — to directly improve the health-care decisions and services provided to a patient.
  • governments, health-care facilities and health-system administrators — to understand and improve health care and the health-care system.
  • university-based researchers — to understand the drivers of disease and well-being.

Participants agreed that it is not within social licence for:

  • an individual or organization to sell (or re-sell) another person’s identified health data.
  • health data to be used for a purpose that has no patient, public or societal benefit.

Points of disagreement: Among other topics, the participants discussed uses of health data about systemically marginalized populations and companies using health data. Though some participants saw benefits from both practices, there was not consensus support for either.

For example, participants were concerned that vulnerable populations could be exploited, and that companies would put profit ahead of public benefits. Participants also worried that if harms were done by companies or to marginalized populations, they could not be “undone.” Several participants expressed skepticism about whether risks could be managed, even if additional safeguards are in place.

The participants also had different views about what constitutes an essential requirement for social licence. This included discussions about benefits, governance, patient consent and involvement, equity, privacy and transparency.

Collectively, they generated a list of 85 essential requirements, but 38 of those requirements were only seen as essential by one person. There were also cases where some participants actively opposed a requirement that another participant thought was essential…(More)”

Social media is too important to be so opaque with its data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Alex González Ormerod: “Over 50 people were killed by the police during demonstrations in Peru. Brazil is reeling from a coup attempt in its capital city. The residents of Culiacán, a city in northern Mexico, still cower in their houses after the army swooped in to arrest a cartel kingpin. Countries across Latin America have kicked off the year with turmoil. 

It is almost a truism to say that the common factor in these events has been the role of social media. Far-right radicals in Brazil were seen to be openly organizing and spreading fake news about electoral fraud on Twitter. Peruvians used TikTok to bear witness to police brutality, preserving it for posterity.

Dealing with the aftermath of the crises, in Culiacán, Sinaloans shared crucial info as to where roadblocks continued to burn, and warned about shootouts in certain neighborhoods. Brazilians opened up Instagram and other social channels to compile photos and other evidence that might help the police bring the Brasília rioters to justice.

These events could be said to have happened online as much as they did offline, yet we know next to nothing about the inner workings of the platforms they occurred on.

People covering these platforms face a common refrain: After reaching out for basic social media data, they will often get a reply saying, “Unfortunately we do not have the information you need at this time.” (This particular quote came from Alberto de Golin, a PR agency representative for TikTok Mexico)…(More)”

Civic Switchboard: Connecting Libraries and Community Information Networks

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

“Civic Switchboard is an Institute of Museum and Library Services supported effort that aims to develop the capacity of academic and public libraries in civic data ecosystems.

We encourage partnerships between libraries and local data intermediaries that will better serve data users, further democratize data, and support equitable access to information. Our project is created an online guide and toolkit for libraries interested in expanding (or beginning) their role around civic information…(More)”.