Article by Padmini Ray Murray: “All of our digital lives reside on servers – mostly in corporate server farms owned by the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. These farms contain machines that store massive volumes of data generated by every single user of the internet. These vast infrastructures allow people to store, connect, and exchange information on the internet. Consequently, there is a massive distance between users and where and how the data is stored, which means that individuals have very little control over how their data is stored and used. However, due to the huge reliance... (More >)
Breakthroughs in Smart City Implementation
Book edited by Leo P. Ligthart and Ramjee Prasad: “Breakthroughs in Smart City Implementation should give answers on a wide variety of present social, political and technological problems. Green and long-lasting solutions are needed in coming 10 years and beyond on areas as green and long lasting solutions for improving air quality, quality of life of residents in cities, traffic congestions and many more.Two Conasense branches, established in China and in India, report in six book chapters on initiatives needed to overcome the obvious shortcomings at present. Three more chapters complete this fifth Conasense book: an introductory chapter concerning... (More >)
The Low Threshold for Face Recognition in New Delhi
Article by Varsha Bansal: “Indian law enforcement is starting to place huge importance on facial recognition technology. Delhi police, looking into identifying people involved in civil unrest in northern India in the past few years, said that they would consider 80 percent accuracy and above as a “positive” match, according to documents obtained by the Internet Freedom Foundation through a public records request. Facial recognition’s arrival in India’s capital region marks the expansion of Indian law enforcement officials using facial recognition data as evidence for potential prosecution, ringing alarm bells among privacy and civil liberties experts. There are also... (More >)
China May Be Chasing Impossible Dream by Trying to Harness Internet Algorithms
Article by Karen Hao: “China’s powerful cyberspace regulator has taken the first step in a pioneering—and uncertain—government effort to rein in the automated systems that shape the internet. Earlier this month, the Cyberspace Administration of China published summaries of 30 core algorithms belonging to two dozen of the country’s most influential internet companies, including TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd., e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., owner of China’s ubiquitous WeChat super app. The milestone marks the first systematic effort by a regulator to compel internet companies to reveal information about the technologies powering their platforms, which... (More >)
Why Japan is building smart cities from scratch
Article by Tim Hornyak: “By 2050, nearly 7 out of 10 people in the world will live in cities, up from just over half in 2020. Urbanization is nothing new, but an effort is under way across many high-income countries to make their cities smarter, using data, instrumentation and more efficient resource management. In most of these nations, the vast majority of smart-city projects involve upgrades to existing infrastructure. Japan stands out for its willingness to build smart communities from scratch as it grapples with a rapidly ageing population and a shrinking workforce, meaning that there are fewer people... (More >)
Big, Open Data for Development: A Vision for India
Paper by Sam Asher, Aditi Bhowmick, Alison Campion, Tobias Lunt and Paul Novosad: “The government generates terabytes of data directly and incidentally in the operation of public programs. For intrinsic and instrumental reasons, these data should be made open to the public. Intrinsically, a right to government data is implicit in the right to information. Instrumentally, open government data will improve policy, increase accountability, empower citizens, create new opportunities for private firms, and lead to development and economic growth. A series of case studies demonstrates these benefits in a range of other contexts. We next examine how government can... (More >)
Inside India’s plan to train 3.1 million 21st century civil servants
Article by Anirudh Dinesh and Beth Simone Noveck: “Prime Minister Modi established the Government of India’s Capacity Building Commission (CBC) on April 1, 2021 to reimagine how the state can deliver high-quality citizen services. According to the Commission’s chairman, Adil Zainulbhai and its secretary, Hemang Jani, the Commission will work with 93 central government departments and more than 800 training institutions across India to train over three million central government employees. The competencies that civil servants are trained in should not be defined from the top down By training employees, especially those who interact with citizens on a daily... (More >)
Does public opinion shape public policy? Effect of citizen dissent on legislative outcomes
Paper by Nara Park and Jihyun Ham: “In South Korea, the Advance Notice Legislation (ANL) system requires by law that a public announcement be issued on any proposed bill that is likely to affect the fundamental rights, duties, and/or daily life of the general public. By investigating the effects of public dissent submitted via the online ANL system in South Korea, this study attempts to address the critical issue of how to increase citizen participation in the political process and to offer a possible strategy that modern democratic governments can employ in this regard. The findings suggest that citizens... (More >)
In India, your payment data could become evidence of dissent
Article by Nilesh Christopher: “Indian payments firm Razorpay is under fire for seemingly breaching customer privacy. Some have gone on to call the company a “sell out” for sharing users’ payment data with authorities without their consent. But is faulting Razorpay for complying with a legal request fair? On June 19, Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of fact-checking outlet Alt News, was arrested for hurting religious sentiments over a tweet he posted in 2018. Investigating authorities, through legal diktats, have now gained access to payment data of donors supporting Alt News from payments processor Razorpay. (Police are now probing Alt News... (More >)
How China uses search engines to spread propaganda
Blog by Jessica Brandt and Valerie Wirtschafter: “Users come to search engines seeking honest answers to their queries. On a wide range of issues—from personal health, to finance, to news—search engines are often the first stop for those looking to get information online. But as authoritarian states like China increasingly use online platforms to disseminate narratives aimed at weakening their democratic competitors, these search engines represent a crucial battleground in their information war with rivals. For Beijing, search engines represent a key—and underappreciated vector—to spread propaganda to audiences around the world. On a range of topics of geopolitical importance,... (More >)