Protecting young digital citizens

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Pascale Raulin-Serrier: “…As digital tools become more deeply embedded in children’s lives, many young users are unaware of the long-term consequences of sharing personal information online through apps, games, social media platforms and even educational tools. The large-scale collection of data related to their preferences, identity or lifestyle may be used for targeted advertising or profiling. This affects not only their immediate online experiences but can also have lasting consequences, including greater risks of discrimination and exclusion. These concerns underscore the urgent need for stronger safeguards, greater transparency and a child-centered approach to data governance.

CNIL’s initiatives to promote children’s privacy

In response to these challenges, the CNIL introduced eight recommendations in 2021 to provide practical guidance for children, parents and other stakeholders in the digital economy. These are built around several key pillars to promote and protect children’s privacy:

1. Providing specific safeguards

Children have distinct digital rights and must be able to exercise them fully. Under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), they benefit from special protections, including the right to be forgotten and, in some cases, the ability to consent to the processing of their data.In France, children can only register for social networks or online gaming platforms if they are over 15, or with parental consent if they are younger. CNIL helps hold platforms accountable by offering clear recommendations on how to present terms of service and collect consent in ways that are accessible and understandable to children.

2. Balancing autonomy and protection

The needs and capacities of a 6-year-old child differ greatly from those of a 16-year-old adolescent. It is essential to consider this diversity in online behaviour, maturity and the evolving ability to make informed decisions. The CNIL emphasizes  the importance of offering children a digital environment that strikes a balance between protection and autonomy. It also advocates for digital citizenship education to empower young people with the tools they need to manage their privacy responsibly…(More)”. See also Responsible Data for Children.

5 Ways AI Supports City Adaptation to Extreme Heat

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Urban AI: “Cities stand at the frontline of climate change, confronting some of its most immediate and intense consequences. Among these, extreme heat has emerged as one of the most pressing and rapidly escalating threats. As we enter June 2025, Europe is already experiencing its first major and long-lasting heatwave of the summer season with temperatures surpassing 40°C in parts of Spain, France, and Portugal — and projections indicate that this extreme event could persist well into mid-June.

This climate event is not an isolated incident. By 2050, the number of cities exposed to dangerous levels of heat is expected to triple, with peak temperatures of 48°C (118°F) potentially becoming the new normal in some regions. Such intensifying conditions place unprecedented stress on urban infrastructure, public health systems, and the overall livability of cities — especially for vulnerable communities.

In this context, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a vital tool in the urban climate adaptation toolbox. Urban AI — defined as the application of AI technologies to urban systems and decision-making — can help cities anticipate, manage, and mitigate the effects of extreme heat in more targeted and effective ways.

Cooling the Metro with AI-Driven Ventilation, in Barcelona

With over 130 stations and a century-old metro network, the city of Barcelona faces increasing pressure to ensure passenger comfort and safety — especially underground, where heat and air quality are harder to manage. In response, Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), in partnership with SENER Engineering, developed and implemented the RESPIRA® system, an AI-powered ventilation control platform. First introduced in 2020 on Line 1, RESPIRA® demonstrated its effectiveness by lowering ambient temperatures, improving air circulation during the COVID-19 pandemic, and achieving a notable 25.1% reduction in energy consumption along with a 10.7% increase in passenger satisfaction…(More)”

Spaces for democracy with generative artificial intelligence: public architecture at stake

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Ingrid Campo-Ruiz: “Urban space is an important infrastructure for democracy and fosters democratic engagement, such as meetings, discussions, and protests. Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems could affect democracy through urban space, for example, by breaching data privacy, hindering political equality and engagement, or manipulating information about places. This research explores the urban places that promote democratic engagement according to the outputs generated with ChatGPT-4o. This research moves beyond the dominant framework of discussions on AI and democracy as a form of spreading misinformation and fake news. Instead, it provides an innovative framework, combining architectural space as an infrastructure for democracy and the way in which generative AI tools provide a nuanced view of democracy that could potentially influence millions of people. This article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding AI for democracy from the perspective of architecture. For the first case study in Stockholm, Sweden, AI outputs were later combined with GIS maps and a theoretical framework. The research then analyzes the results obtained for Madrid, Spain, and Brussels, Belgium. This analysis provides deeper insights into the outputs obtained with AI, the places that facilitate democratic engagement and those that are overlooked, and the ensuing consequences.Results show that urban space for democratic engagement obtained with ChatGPT-4o for Stockholm is mainly composed of governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations for representative or deliberative democracy and the education of individuals in public buildings in the city centre. The results obtained with ChatGPT-40 barely reflect public open spaces, parks, or routes. They also prioritize organized rather than spontaneous engagement and do not reflect unstructured events like demonstrations, and powerful actors, such as political parties, or workers’ unions. The places listed by ChatGPT-4o for Madrid and Brussels give major prominence to private spaces like offices that house organizations with political activities. While cities offer a broad and complex array of places for democratic engagement, outputs obtained with AI can narrow users’ perspectives on their real opportunities, while perpetuating powerful agents by not making them sufficiently visible to be accountable for their actions. In conclusion, urban space is a fundamental infrastructure for democracy, and AI outputs could be a valid starting point for understanding the plethora of interactions. These outputs should be complemented with other forms of knowledge to produce a more comprehensive framework that adjusts to reality for developing AI in a democratic context. Urban space should be protected as a shared space and as an asset for societies to fully develop democracy in its multiple forms. Democracy and urban spaces influence each other and are subject to pressures from different actors including AI. AI systems should, therefore, be monitored to enhance democratic values through urban space…(More)”.

Upgrading Democracies with Fairer Voting Methods

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Evangelos Pournaras, et al: “Voting methods are instrumental design element of democracies. Citizens use them to express and aggregate their preferences to reach a collective decision. However, voting outcomes can be as sensitive to voting rules as they are to people’s voting choices. Despite the significance and inter-disciplinary scientific progress on voting methods, several democracies keep relying on outdated voting methods that do not fit modern, pluralistic societies well, while lacking social innovation. Here, we demonstrate how one can upgrade real-world democracies, namely by using alternative preferential voting methods such as cumulative voting and the method of equal shares designed for a proportional representation of voters’ preferences. By rigorously assessing a new participatory budgeting approach applied in the city of Aarau, Switzerland, we unravel the striking voting outcomes of fair voting methods: more winning projects with the same budget and broader geographic and preference representation of citizens by the elected projects, in particular for voters who used to be under-represented, while promoting novel project ideas. We provide profound causal evidence showing that citizens prefer proportional voting methods, which possess strong legitimacy without the need of very technical specialized explanations. We also reveal strong underlying democratic values exhibited by citizens who support fair voting methods such as altruism and compromise. These findings come with a global momentum to unleash a new and long-awaited participation blueprint of how to upgrade democracies…(More)”.

How Being Watched Changes How You Think

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Simon Makin: “In 1785 English philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed the perfect prison: Cells circle a tower from which an unseen guard can observe any inmate at will. As far as a prisoner knows, at any given time, the guard may be watching—or may not be. Inmates have to assume they’re constantly observed and behave accordingly. Welcome to the Panopticon.

Many of us will recognize this feeling of relentless surveillance. Information about who we are, what we do and buy and where we go is increasingly available to completely anonymous third parties. We’re expected to present much of our lives to online audiences and, in some social circles, to share our location with friends. Millions of effectively invisible closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and smart doorbells watch us in public, and we know facial recognition with artificial intelligence can put names to faces.

So how does being watched affect us? “It’s one of the first topics to have been studied in psychology,” says Clément Belletier, a psychologist at University of Clermont Auvergne in France. In 1898 psychologist Norman Triplett showed that cyclists raced harder in the presence of others. From the 1970s onward, studies showed how we change our overt behavior when we are watched to manage our reputation and social consequences.

But being watched doesn’t just change our behavior; decades of research show it also infiltrates our mind to impact how we think. And now a new study reveals how being watched affects unconscious processing in our brain. In this era of surveillance, researchers say, the findings raise concerns about our collective mental health…(More)”.

Future design in the public policy process: giving a voice to future generations

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Marij Swinkels, Olivier de Vette & Victor Toom: “Long-term public issues face the intergenerational problem: current policy decisions place a disproportionate burden on future generations while primarily benefitting those in the present. The interests of present generations trump those of future generations, as the latter play no explicit part as stakeholders in policy making processes. How can the interests of future generations be voiced in the present? In this paper, we explore an innovative method to incorporate the interests of future generations in the process of policymaking: future design. First, we situate future design in the policy process and relate it to other intergenerational policymaking initiatives that aim to redeem the intergenerational problem. Second, we show how we applied future design and provide insights into three pilots that we organized on two long-term public issues in the Netherlands: housing shortages and water management. We conclude that future design can effectively contribute to representing the interests of future generations, but that adoption of future design in different contexts also requires adaptation of the method. The findings increase our understanding of the value of future design as an innovative policymaking practice to strengthen intergenerational policymaking. As such, it provides policymakers with insights into how to use this method…(More)”.

How Media Ownership Matters

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Rodney Benson, Mattias Hessérus, Timothy Neff, and Julie Sedel: “Does it matter who owns and funds the media? As journalists and management consultants set off in search of new business models, there’s a pressing need to understand anew the economic underpinnings of journalism and its role in democratic societies.

How Media Ownership Matters provides a fresh approach to understanding news media power, moving beyond the typical emphasis on market concentration or media moguls. Through a comparative analysis of the US, Sweden, and France, as well as interviews of news executives and editors and an original collection of industry data, this book maps and analyzes four ownership models: market, private, civil society, and public. Highlighting the effects of organizational logics, funding, and target audiences on the content of news, the authors identify both the strengths and weaknesses various forms of ownership have in facilitating journalism that meets the democratic ideals of reasoned, critical, and inclusive public debate. Ultimately, How Media Ownership Matters provides a roadmap to understanding how variable forms of ownership are shaping the future of journalism and democracy…(More)”.

Technical Tiers: A New Classification Framework for Global AI Workforce Analysis

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Siddhi Pal, Catherine Schneider and Ruggero Marino Lazzaroni: “… introduces a novel three-tiered classification system for global AI talent that addresses significant methodological limitations in existing workforce analyses, by distinguishing between different skill categories within the existing AI talent pool. By distinguishing between non-technical roles (Category 0), technical software development (Category 1), and advanced deep learning specialization (Category 2), our framework enables precise examination of AI workforce dynamics at a pivotal moment in global AI policy.

Through our analysis of a sample of 1.6 million individuals in the AI talent pool across 31 countries, we’ve uncovered clear patterns in technical talent distribution that significantly impact Europe’s AI ambitions. Asian nations hold an advantage in specialized AI expertise, with South Korea (27%), Israel (23%), and Japan (20%) maintaining the highest proportions of Category 2 talent. Within Europe, Poland and Germany stand out as leaders in specialized AI talent. This may be connected to their initiatives to attract tech companies and investments in elite research institutions, though further research is needed to confirm these relationships.

Our data also reveals a shifting landscape of global talent flows. Research shows that countries employing points-based immigration systems attract 1.5 times more high-skilled migrants than those using demand-led approaches. This finding takes on new significance in light of recent geopolitical developments affecting scientific research globally. As restrictive policies and funding cuts create uncertainty for researchers in the United States, one of the big destinations for European AI talent, the way nations position their regulatory environments, scientific freedoms, and research infrastructure will increasingly determine their ability to attract and retain specialized AI talent.

The gender analysis in our study illuminates another dimension of competitive advantage. Contrary to the overall AI talent pool, EU countries lead in female representation in highly technical roles (Category 2), occupying seven of the top ten global rankings. Finland, Czechia, and Italy have the highest proportion of female representation in Category 2 roles globally (39%, 31%, and 28%, respectively). This gender diversity represents not merely a social achievement but a potential strategic asset in AI innovation, particularly as global coalitions increasingly emphasize the importance of diverse perspectives in AI development…(More)”

Meaningful public engagement in the context of open science: reflections from early and mid-career academics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Wouter Boon et al: “How is public engagement perceived to contribute to open science? This commentary highlights common reflections on this question from interviews with 12 public engagement fellows in Utrecht University’s Open Science Programme in the Netherlands. We identify four reasons why public engagement is an essential enabler of open science. Interaction between academics and society can: (1) better align science with the needs of society; (2) secure a relationship of trust between science and society; (3) increase the quality and impact of science; and (4) support the impact of open access and FAIR data practices (data which meet principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability). To be successful and sustainable, such public engagement requires support in skills training and a form of institutionalisation in a university-wide system, but, most of all, the fellows express the importance of a formal and informal recognition and rewards system. Our findings suggest that in order to make public engagement an integral part of open science, universities should invest in institutional support, create awareness, and stimulate dialogue among staff members on how to ‘do’ good public engagement….(More)”.

Citizen science and the potential for mobility policy – Introducing the Bike Barometer

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Tom Storme et al: “In this paper, we report on a citizen science pilot project involving adolescents who digitize and assess their daily home-to-school routes in different school neighborhoods in Flanders (Belgium). As part of this pilot project, a web-based platform, called the “Bike Barometer” (“Fietsbarometer” in Dutch) was developed. We introduce the tool in this paper and summarize the insights gained from the pilot. From the official launch of the platform in March until the end of the pilot in June 2020, 1,256 adolescents from 31 schools digitized 5657 km of roads, of which 3,750 km were evaluated for cycling friendliness and safety. The added value and potential of citizen science in general and the platform in particular are illustrated. The results offer detailed (spatial) insights into local safety conditions for Flanders and for specific school neighborhoods. The potential for mobility policy is twofold: (i) the cycling friendliness and traffic flows in school environments can be monitored over time and (ii) the platform has the potential to create local ecosystems of adolescents and teachers (both considered citizen scientists here) and policymakers. Two key pitfalls are identified as well: the need for a critical mass of citizen scientists and a minimum level of commitment required from local policymakers. By illustrating the untapped potential of citizen science, we argue that the intersection between citizen science and local policymaking in the domain of mobility deserves much more attention….(More)”.