Using location data responsibly in cities and local government

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Ben Hawes: “City and local governments increasingly recognise the power of location data to help them deliver more and better services, exactly where and when they are needed. The use of this data is going to grow, with more pressure to manage resources and emerging challenges including responding to extreme weather events and other climate impacts.

But using location data to target and manage local services comes with risks to the equitable delivery of services, privacy and accountability. To make the best use of these growing data resources, city leaders and their teams need to understand those risks and address them, and to be able to explain their uses of data to citizens.

The Locus Charter, launched earlier this year, is a set of common principles to promote responsible practice when using location data. The Charter could be very valuable to local governments, to help them navigate the challenges and realise the rewards offered by data about the places they manage….

Compared to private companies, local public bodies already have special responsibilities to ensure transparency and fairness. New sources of data can help, but can also generate new questions. Local governments have generally been able to improve services as they learned more about the people they served. Now they must manage the risks of knowing too much about people, and acting intrusively. They can also risk distorting service provision because their data about people in places is uneven or unrepresentative.

Many city and local governments fully recognise that data-driven delivery comes with risks, and are developing specific local data ethics frameworks to guide their work. Some of these, like Kansas City’s, are specifically aimed at managing data privacy. Others cover broader uses of data, like Greater Manchester’s Declaration for Intelligent and Responsible Data Practice (DTPR). DTPR is an open source communication standard that helps people understand how data is being used in public places.

London is engaging citizens on an Emerging Technology Charter, to explore new and ethically charged questions around data. Govlab supports an AI Localism repository of actions taken by local decision-makers to address the use of AI within a city or community. The EU Sherpa programme (Shaping the Ethical Dimensions of Smart Information Systems) includes a smart cities strand, and has published a case-study on the Ethics of Using Smart City AI and Big Data.

Smart city applications make it potentially possible to collect data in many ways, for many purposes, but the technologies cannot answer questions about what is appropriate. In The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future (2019), author Ben Green describes examples when some cities have failed and others succeeded in judging what smart applications should be used.

Attention to what constitutes ethical practice with location data can give additional help to leaders making that kind of judgement….(More)”

The Case For Exploratory Social Sciences

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Discussion Paper by Geoff Mulgan: “…Here I make the case for a new way of organising social science both in universities and beyond through creating sub-disciplines of ‘exploratory social science’ that would help to fill this gap. In the paper I show:
• how in the 18th and 19th centuries social sciences attempted to fuse interpretation and change
• how a series of trends – including quantification and abstraction – delivered advances but also squeezed out this capacity for radical design
• how these also encouraged some blind alleys for social science, including what I call ‘unrealistic realism’ and the futile search for eternal laws

I show some of the more useful counter-trends, including evolutionary thinking, systems models and complexity that create a more valid space for conscious design. I argue that now, at a time when we badly need better designs and strategies for the future, we face a paradoxical situation where the people with the deepest knowledge of fields are discouraged from systematic and creative exploration of the future, while those with the appetite and freedom to explore often lack the necessary knowledge…(More)”.

Empowering Local Communities Using Artificial Intelligence

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Yen-Chia Hsu et al: “Many powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques have been engineered with the goals of high performance and accuracy. Recently, AI algorithms have been integrated into diverse and real-world applications. It has become an important topic to explore the impact of AI on society from a people-centered perspective. Previous works in citizen science have identified methods of using AI to engage the public in research, such as sustaining participation, verifying data quality, classifying and labeling objects, predicting user interests, and explaining data patterns. These works investigated the challenges regarding how scientists design AI systems for citizens to participate in research projects at a large geographic scale in a generalizable way, such as building applications for citizens globally to participate in completing tasks. In contrast, we are interested in another area that receives significantly less attention: how scientists co-design AI systems “with” local communities to influence a particular geographical region, such as community-based participatory projects. Specifically, this article discusses the challenges of applying AI in Community Citizen Science, a framework to create social impact through community empowerment at an intensely place-based local scale. We provide insights in this under-explored area of focus to connect scientific research closely to social issues and citizen needs…(More)”.

Listening to Users and Other Ideas for Building Trust in Digital Trade

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Susan Ariel Aaronson: “This paper argues that if trade policymakers truly want to achieve data free flow with trust, they must address user concerns beyond privacy. Survey data reveals that users are also anxious about online harassment, malware, censorship and disinformation. The paper focuses on three such problems, specifically, internet shutdowns, censorship and ransomware (a form of malware), each of which can distort trade and make users feel less secure online. Finally, the author concludes that trade policymakers will need to rethink how they involve the broad public in digital trade policymaking if they want digital trade agreements to facilitate trust….(More)”.

A Vulnerable System: The History of Information Security in the Computer Age

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Andrew Stewart: “As threats to the security of information pervade the fabric of everyday life, A Vulnerable System describes how, even as the demand for information security increases, the needs of society are not being met. The result is that the confidentiality of our personal data, the integrity of our elections, and the stability of foreign relations between countries are increasingly at risk.

Andrew J. Stewart convincingly shows that emergency software patches and new security products cannot provide the solution to threats such as computer hacking, viruses, software vulnerabilities, and electronic spying. Profound underlying structural problems must first be understood, confronted, and then addressed.

A Vulnerable System delivers a long view of the history of information security, beginning with the creation of the first digital computers during the Cold War. From the key institutions of the so-called military industrial complex in the 1950s to Silicon Valley start-ups in the 2020s, the relentless pursuit of new technologies has come at great cost. The absence of knowledge regarding the history of information security has caused the lessons of the past to be forsaken for the novelty of the present, and has led us to be collectively unable to meet the needs of the current day. From the very beginning of the information age, claims of secure systems have been crushed by practical reality.

The myriad risks to technology, Stewart reveals, cannot be addressed without first understanding how we arrived at this moment. A Vulnerable System is an enlightening and sobering history of a topic that affects crucial aspects of our lives….(More)”.

Keeping labour data flowing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by ILO: “The availability of data tends to be taken for granted by the vast majority of people. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this vividly: estimates of case numbers and deaths have been widely quoted throughout and assumed by most to be available on demand.

However, those responsible for compiling official statistics know all too well that, even at the best of times, providing high-quality data to meet even just a small part of user needs is incredibly challenging and, on the whole, very resource-intensive. That said, the world has, in general, been steadily moving in the right direction, with more and better data being produced over time.

At the end of 2019, most users and producers of statistics would have predicted, with good reason, that the trend of increasing data availability would continue in the new decade, not least in the field of labour statistics. What no one could foresee then is that one of the cornerstones of data collection for surveys, namely the ability to visit and interview respondents, could be undermined so rapidly and drastically as was the case in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Various organizations and specialized agencies in the United Nations system, including the ILO and collectively through the Intersecretariat Working Group on Household Surveys, have sought to track the impact of COVID-19 on data collection. In March 2021, the ILO launched a global survey to understand better the extent to which the crisis had affected the compilation of official labour market statistics. Information was received from 110 countries, of which 97 had planned to complete a labour force survey (LFS) in 2020. The findings point to both the tremendous challenges faced and the remarkable efforts undertaken to provide information on the world of work during the pandemic.

Nearly half of countries had to suspend interviewing at some point in 2020

Close to half (46.4 per cent) of the countries with plans to conduct a LFS in 2020 had to suspend interviews at some point in the year.The highest levels of suspensions were reported by countries in Africa and the Arab States (70.6 per cent) and in the Americas (66.7 per cent). While some countries were able to attempt to recover those interviews later on, the majority were not, which means they completely lost data that had been expected to be available, creating a risk of gaps in data series for key labour market indicators, among others…(More)”

Licensure as Data Governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Frank Pasquale: “…A licensure regime for data and the AI it powers would enable citizens to democratically shape data’s scope and proper use, rather than resigning ourselves to being increasingly influenced and shaped by forces beyond our control.To ground the case for more ex ante regulation, Part I describes the expanding scope of data collection, analysis, and use, and the threats that that scope poses to data subjects. Part II critiques consent-based models of data protection, while Part III examines the substantive foundation of licensure models. Part IV addresses a key challenge to my approach: the free expression concerns raised by the licensure of large-scale personal data collection, analysis, and use. Part V concludes with reflections on the opportunities created by data licensure frameworks and potential limitations upon them….(More)”.

Global citizens’ assembly to be chosen for UN climate talks

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Fiona Harvey: “One hundred people from around the world are to take part in a citizens’ assembly to discuss the climate crisis over the next month, before presenting their findings at the UN Cop26 climate summit.

The Global Citizens’ Assembly will be representative of the world’s population, and will invite people chosen by lottery to take part in online discussions that will culminate in November, during the fortnight-long climate talks that open in Glasgow on 31 October.

Funded with nearly $1m, from sources including the Scottish government and the European Climate Foundation, the assembly is supported by the UN and UK and run by a coalition of more than 100 organisations…

A team of international scientists and other experts will explain details of the climate crisis and potential solutions, and members of the assembly will discuss how these might work in practice, seeking to answer the question: “How can humanity address the climate and ecological crisis in a fair and effective way?”. The key messages from their discussions will be presented at Cop26 and a report will be published in March.

Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister who will act as president of the Cop26 summit, said: “The Global Assembly is a fantastic initiative and was selected for representation in the green zone [of the Cop26 presentation hall] because we recognise just how important its work is and also because we are committed to bringing the voice of global citizens into the heart of Cop26. It creates that vital link between local conversation and a global conference.”…(More)”.

Pandora Papers & Data Journalism: how investigative journalists use tech

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article at Moonshot: “The Pandora Papers’s 11.9 million records arrived from 14 different offshore services firms; a 2.94 terabyte data trove exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories.

It contains data for 330 politicians and public officials, from more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 current and former country leaders, as well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world.

It involved more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.

It took ICIJ more than a year to structure, research and analyze the data, which will be incorporated into the Offshore Leaks database: The task involved three main elements: journalists, technology and time….(More)”

Building Consumer Confidence Through Transparency and Control

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Cisco 2021 Consumer Privacy Survey: “Protecting privacy continues to be a critical issue for individuals, organizations, and governments around the world. Eighteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, our health information and vaccination status are needed more than ever to understand the virus, control the spread, and enable safer environments for work, learning, recreation, and other activities. Nonetheless, people want privacy protections to be maintained, and they expect organizations and governments to keep their data safe and used only for pandemic response. Individuals are also increasingly taking action to protect themselves and their data. This report, our third annual review of consumer privacy, explores current trends, challenges, and opportunities in privacy for consumers.

The report draws upon data gathered from a June 2021 survey where respondents were not informed of who was conducting the study and respondents were anonymous to the researchers. Respondents included 2600 adults (over the age of 18) in 12 countries (5 Europe, 4 Asia Pacific, and 3 Americas). Participants were asked about their attitudes and activities regarding companies’ use of their personal data, level of support for COVID-19 related information sharing, awareness and reaction to privacy legislation, and attitudes regarding artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision making.

The findings from this research demonstrates the growing importance of privacy to the individual and its implications on the businesses and governments that serve them. Key highlights of this report

  1. Consumers want transparency and control with respect to business data practices – an increasing number will act to protect their data
  2. Privacy laws are viewed very positively around the world, but awareness of these laws remains low
  3. Despite the ongoing pandemic, most consumers want little or no reduction in privacy protections, while still supporting public health and safety efforts
  4. Consumers are very concerned about the use of their personal information in AI and abuse has eroded trust…(More)”.