Europe

An AI That Reads Privacy Policies So That You Don’t Have To

Curated on February 14, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Andy Greenberg at Wired: “…Today, researchers at Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan announced the release of Polisis—short for “privacy policy analysis”—a new website and browser extension that uses their machine-learning-trained app to automatically read and make sense of any online service’s privacy policy, so you don’t have to.

In about 30 seconds, Polisis can read a privacy policy it’s never seen before and extract a readable summary, displayed in a graphic flow chart, of what kind of data a service collects, where that data could be sent, and whether a user can opt out of that collection or sharing. Polisis’ creators have also built a chat interface they call Pribot that’s designed to answer questions about any privacy policy, intended as a sort of privacy-focused paralegal advisor. Together, the researchers hope those tools can unlock the secrets of how tech firms use your data that have long been hidden in plain sight….

Polisis isn’t actually the first attempt to use machine learning to pull human-readable information out of privacy policies. Both Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia have made their own attempts at similar projects in recent years, points out NYU Law Professor Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, who has focused her own research on user interactions with terms of service contracts online. (One of her own studies showed that only .07 percent of users actually click on a terms of service link before clicking “agree.”) The Usable Privacy Policy Project, a collaboration that includes both Columbia and CMU, released its own automated tool to annotate privacy policies just last month. But Marotta-Wurgler notes that Polisis’ visual and chat-bot interfaces haven’t been tried before, and says the latest project is also more detailed in how it defines different kinds of data. “The granularity is really nice,” Marotta-Wurgler says. “It’s a way of communicating this information that’s more interactive.”…(More)”.

Is full transparency good for democracy?

Curated on February 8, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Austin Sarat at The Conversation: “Public knowledge about what government officials do is essential in a representative democracy. Without such knowledge, citizens cannot make informed choices about who they want to represent them or hold public officials accountable.

Political theorists have traced arguments about publicity and democracy back to ancient Greece and Rome. Those arguments subsequently flowered in the middle of the 19th century.

For example, writing about British parliamentary democracy, the famous philosopher Jeremy Bentham urged that legislative deliberation be carried out in public. Public deliberation, in his view, would be an important factor in “constraining the members of the assembly to perform their duty” and in securing “the confidence of the people.”

Moreover, Bentham noted that “suspicion always attaches to mystery.”

Even so, Bentham did not think the public had an unqualified “right to know.” As he put it, “It is not proper to make the law of publicity absolute.” Bentham acknowledged that publicity “ought to be suspended” when informing the public would “favor the projects of an enemy.”

Well into the 20th century, the U.S. and other democracies existed with far less public transparency than Bentham advocated.

Push for transparency

The authors of a 2016 U.S. Congressional report on access to government information observed that, “Throughout the first 150 years of the federal government, access to government information does not appear to have been a major issue for the federal branches or the public.” In short, the public generally did not demand more information than the government provided….

For at least the last 50 years, American legal and political institutions have tried to find a balance between publicity and secrecy. The courts have identified limits to claims of executive privilege like those made by President Nixon during Watergate. Watergate also led Congress in 1978 to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. That act created a special court, whose procedures were highlighted in the Nunes memo. The FISA court authorizes collection of intelligence information between foreign powers and “agents of foreign powers.”

Finding the proper balance between making information public in order to foster accountability and the government’s concern for national security is not easy. Just look to the heated debates that accompanied passage of the Patriot Act and what WikiLeaks did in 2010 when it published more than 300,000 classified U.S. Army field reports.

Americans can make little progress in resolving such debates until they can get beyond the cynical, partisan use of slogans like “the public’s right to know” and “full transparency” by President Trump’s loyalists. Now more than ever, Americans must understand how and when transparency contributes to the strength and vitality of our democratic institutions and how and when the invocation of the public’s right to know is being used to erode them….(More)”.

Crowdfunding site aims to get homeless back into work

Curated on January 31, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “Beam is a new crowdfunding website that has been launched to try and help homeless people based in London get back into work. The idea behind the website is that people donate money online to homeless individuals, which will then be used to give them the qualifications and training that they will need to become fully employed and therefore able to also get themselves secure in their own accommodation.

A new member of Beam is allocated a Member Manager, who works with them to find the best employment avenue for them to take based on their likes and experience. The Member Manager helps them prepare their fundraising campaign, and even helps members with childcare costs while they’re training.

Beam was founded by Alex Stephany, who is also board advisor of car parking app, JustPark, with a pilot scheme in September 2017 and has the full support of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, and the innovation promotors, Nesta.

There are many ways that technology is helping the homeless. Recently, blockchain tech has been used to connect the homeless in New York with valuable services. And new keycard-accessed vending machines are to be installed in safe spaces to provide the homeless with 24-hour access to essential items….(More)”.

U.S. soldiers are revealing sensitive and dangerous information by jogging

Curated on January 29, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Liz Sly at Washington Post: “An interactive map posted on the Internet that shows the whereabouts of people who use fitness devices such as Fitbit also reveals highly sensitive information about the locations and activities of soldiers at U.S. military bases, in what appears to be a major security oversight.

The Global Heat Map, published by the GPS tracking company Strava, uses satellite information to map the locations and movements of subscribers to the company’s fitness service over a two-year period, by illuminating areas of activity.

Strava says it has 27 million users around the world, including people who own widely available fitness devices such as Fitbit and Jawbone, as well as people who directly subscribe to its mobile app. The map is not live — rather, it shows a pattern of accumulated activity between 2015 and September 2017.

Most parts of the United States and Europe, where millions of people use some type of fitness tracker, show up on the map as blazes of light because there is so much activity.

In war zones and deserts in countries such as Iraq and Syria, the heat map becomes almost entirely dark — except for scattered pinpricks of activity. Zooming in on those areas brings into focus the locations and outlines of known U.S. military bases, as well as of other unknown and potentially sensitive sites — presumably because American soldiers and other personnel are using fitness trackers as they move around.

The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State said on Monday it is revising its guidelines on the use of all wireless and technological devices on military facilities as a result of the revelations….(More)”.

Is Social Media Good or Bad for Democracy?

Curated on January 28, 2018May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Cass R. Sunstein, as part of a series by Facebook on social media and democracy: “On balance, the question of whether social media platforms are good for democracy is easy. On balance, they are not merely good; they are terrific. For people to govern themselves, they need to have information. They also need to be able to convey it to others. Social media platforms make that tons easier.

There is a subtler point as well. When democracies are functioning properly, people’s sufferings and challenges are not entirely private matters. Social media platforms help us alert one another to a million and one different problems. In the process, the existence of social media can prod citizens to seek solutions.

Consider the remarkable finding, by the economist Amartya Sen, that in the history of the world, there has never been a famine in a system with a democratic press and free elections. A central reason is that famines are a product not only of a scarcity of food, but also a nation’s failure to provide solutions. When the press is free, and when leaders are elected, leaders have a strong incentive to help.

Mental illness, chronic pain, loss of employment, vulnerability to crime, drugs in the family – information about all these spread via social media, and they can be reduced with sensible policies. When people can talk to each other, and disclose what they know to public officials, the whole world might change in a hurry.

But celebrations can be awfully boring, so let’s hold the applause. Are automobiles good for transportation? Absolutely, but in the United States alone, over 35,000 people died in crashes in 2016.

Social media platforms are terrific for democracy in many ways, but pretty bad in others. And they remain a work-in-progress, not only because of new entrants, but also because the not-so-new ones (including Facebook) continue to evolve. What John Dewey said about my beloved country is true for social media as well: “The United States are not yet made; they are not a finished fact to be categorically assessed.”

For social media and democracy, the equivalents of car crashes include false reports (“fake news”) and the proliferation of information cocoons — and as a result, an increase in fragmentation, polarization and extremism. If you live in an information cocoon, you will believe many things that are false, and you will fail to learn countless things that are true. That’s awful for democracy. And as we have seen, those with specific interests — including politicians and nations, such as Russia, seeking to disrupt democratic processes — can use social media to promote those interests.

This problem is linked to the phenomenon of group polarization — which takes hold when like-minded people talk to one another and end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk. In fact that’s a common outcome. At best, it’s a problem. At worst, it’s dangerous….(More)”.

Is There Something Wrong with Democracy?

Curated on January 25, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Max Fisher and Amanda Taub at The New York Times: “After 200 years of expansion, democracy’s growth in the world has stalled. A handful of democracies like Venezuela and Hungary are backsliding into authoritarianism. And even in established Western democracies, voters are losing faith in democratic institutions and norms.

That has left us and scholars who study democracy obsessed with a set of questions. Is this all just a blip, or is democracy in real trouble? Are the oldest and sturdiest democracies, like those of Europe and the United States, really as safe as they seem? And why would people voluntarily dismantle their own democracy from within?

No one knows the answers for sure. But we’re starting to figure them out and it’s not all good news. Here, in the first of what will become a regular series of videos exploring big questions and ideas about the world, we explain what we know about democracy’s troubles, what’s causing them and where it leads….(See VIDEO)”.

People Power

Curated on January 23, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report from the Commission on the Future of Localism (UK): “…When we think about power we tend to look upwards – towards Westminster-based institutions and elected politicians. Those who wish to see greater localism often ask politicians to give it away and push power downwards. But this is looking at things the wrong way round. Instead, we need to start with the power of community. The task of our political system should be to support this, harness it, and reflect it in our national debate.

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Our Commission has heard evidence about what makes a powerful community. While different communities build and experience power in different ways, there are common sources. We heard how the power of any community lies with its people, their collective ideas, innovation, creativity and local knowledge, as well as their sense of belonging, connectedness and shared identity. We need to bring this into political life much more effectively via a renewed effort to foster localism in future.

However, our Commission has also heard about a fundamental imbalance of power that is preventing this power of community from coming to life and restricting collective agency: top-down decisions leaving community groups and local councils unable to make the change they know their neighbourhood needs; a lack of trust and risk aversion from public bodies, dampening community energy; a lack of control and access to local resources, limiting the scope of local action….(More)”.

Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment

Curated on January 23, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Kirk Bansak, et al in Science Magazine: “Developed democracies are settling an increased number of refugees, many of whom face challenges integrating into host societies. We developed a flexible data-driven algorithm that assigns refugees across resettlement locations to improve integration outcomes. The algorithm uses a combination of supervised machine learning and optimal matching to discover and leverage synergies between refugee characteristics and resettlement sites.

The algorithm was tested on historical registry data from two countries with different assignment regimes and refugee populations, the United States and Switzerland. Our approach led to gains of roughly 40 to 70%, on average, in refugees’ employment outcomes relative to current assignment practices. This approach can provide governments with a practical and cost-efficient policy tool that can be immediately implemented within existing institutional structures….(More)”.

Connected migrants: Encapsulation and cosmopolitanization

Curated on January 23, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Koen Leurs & Sandra Ponzanesi at Special Issue on Connected Migrants of Popular Communications: “Taking a cue from Dana Diminescu’s seminal manifesto on “the connected migrant,” this special issue introduces the notions of encapsulation and cosmopolitanism to understand digital migration studies. The pieces here present a nonbinary, integrated notion of an increasingly digitally mediated cosmopolitanism that accommodates differences within but also recognizes Europe’s colonial legacy and the fraught postcolonial present.

Of special interest is an essay by the late Zygmunt Bauman, who argues that the messy boundaries of Europe require a renewed vision of cosmopolitan Europe, based on dialogue and aspirations, rather than on Eurocentrism and universal values.

In this article, we focus on three overarching discussions informing this special issue: (a) an appreciation of the so-called “refugee crisis” and the articulation of conflicting Europeanisms, (b) an understanding of the relationships between the concepts of cosmopolitanization and encapsulation, and (c) a recognition of the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of digital migration studies….(More)”.