business

To serve a free society, social media must evolve beyond data mining

Curated on April 11, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Barbara Romzek and Aram Sinnreich at The Conversation: “…For years, watchdogs have been warning about sharing information with data-collecting companies, firms engaged in the relatively new line of business called some academics have called “surveillance capitalism.” Most casual internet users are only now realizing how easy – and common – it is for unaccountable and unknown organizations to assemble detailed digital profiles of them. They do this by combining the discrete bits of information consumers have given up to e-tailers, health sites, quiz apps and countless other digital services.

As scholars of public accountability and digital media systems, we know that the business of social media is based on extracting user data and offering it for sale. There’s no simple way for them to protect data as many users might expect. Like the social pollution of fake news, bullying and spam that Facebook’s platform spreads, the company’s privacy crisis also stems from a power imbalance: Facebook knows nearly everything about its users, who know little to nothing about it.

It’s not enough for people to delete their Facebook accounts. Nor is it likely that anyone will successfully replace it with a nonprofit alternativecentering on privacy, transparency and accountability. Furthermore, this problem is not specific just to Facebook. Other companies, including Google and Amazon, also gather and exploit extensive personal data, and are locked in a digital arms race that we believe threatens to destroy privacy altogether….

Governments need to be better guardians of public welfare – including privacy. Many companies using various aspects of technology in new ways have so far avoided regulation by stoking fears that rules might stifle innovation. Facebook and others have often claimed that they’re better at regulating themselves in an ever-changing environment than a slow-moving legislative process could be….

To encourage companies to serve democratic principles and focus on improving people’s lives, we believe the chief business model of the internet needs to shift to building trust and verifying information. While it won’t be an immediate change, social media companies pride themselves on their adaptability and should be able to take on this challenge.

The alternative, of course, could be far more severe. In the 1980s, when federal regulators decided that AT&T was using its power in the telephone market to hurt competition and consumers, they forced the massive conglomerate to break up. A similar but less dramatic change happened in the early 2000s when cellphone companies were forced to let people keep their phone numbers even if they switched carriers.

Data, and particularly individuals’ personal data, are the precious metals of the internet age. Protecting individual data while expanding access to the internet and its many social benefits is a fundamental challenge for free societies. Creating, using and protecting data properly will be crucial to preserving and improving human rights and civil liberties in this still young century. To meet this challenge will require both vigilance and vision, from businesses and their customers, as well as governments and their citizens….(More).

Managing Public Trust

Curated on April 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Barbara Kożuch, Sławomir J. Magala and Joanna Paliszkiewicz: “This book brings together the theory and practice of managing public trust. It examines the current state of public trust, including a comprehensive global overview of both the research and practical applications of managing public trust by presenting research from seven countries (Brazil, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey) from three continents. The book is divided into five parts, covering the meaning of trust, types, dimension and the role of trust in management; the organizational challenges in relation to public trust; the impact of social media on the development of public trust; the dynamics of public trust in business; and public trust in different cultural contexts….(More)”.

The Power Of The Wikimedia Movement Beyond Wikimedia

Curated on April 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Michael Bernick at Forbes: “In January 2017, we the constituents of Wikimedia, started an ambitious discussion about our collective future. We reflected on our past sixteen years together and imagined the impact we could have in the world in the next decades. Our aim was to identify a common strategic direction that would unite and inspire people across our movement on our way to 2030, and help us make decisions.”…

The final documents included a strategic direction and a research report: “Wikimedia 2030: Wikimedia’s Role in Shaping the Future of the Information Commons”: an expansive look at Wikimedia, knowledge, technologies, and communications in the next decade. It includes thoughtful sections on Demographics (global population trends, and Wikimedia’s opportunities for growth) Emerging Platforms (how Wikimedia platforms will be accessed), Misinformation (how content creators and technologists can work toward a product that is trustworthy), Literacy (changing forms of learning that can benefit from the Wikimedia movement) and the core Wikimedia issues of Open Knowledge and knowledge as a service.

Among its goals, the document calls for greater outreach to areas outside of Europe and North America (which now account for 63% of Wikimedia’s total traffic), and widening the knowledge and experiential bases of contributors. It urges greater access through mobile devices and other emerging hardware; and expanding partnerships with libraries, museums, galleries and archives.

The document captures not only the idealism of the enterprise, and but also why Wikimedia can be described as a movement not only an enterprise. It calls into question conventional wisdoms of how our political and business structures should operate.

Consider the Wikimedia editing process that seeks to reach common ground on contentious issues. Lisa Gruwell, the Chief Advancement Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, notes that in the development of an article, often editors with diverging claims and views will weigh in. Rather than escalating divisions, the process of editing has been found to reduce these divisions. Gruwell explains,

Through the collaborative editing process, the editors have critical discussions about what reliable sources say about a topic. They have to engage and defend their own perspectives about how an article should be represented, and ultimately find some form of common ground with other editors.

A number of researchers at Harvard Business School led by Shane Greenstein, Yuan Gu and Feng Zhu actually set out to study this phenomenon. Their findings, published in 2017 as a Harvard Business School working paper found that editors with different political viewpoints tended to dialogue with each other, and over time reduce rather than increase partisanship….(More)”.

Selected Readings on Data Responsibility, Refugees and Migration

Curated on March 29, 2018December 15, 2020 by Andrew Young

By Kezia Paladina, Alexandra Shaw, Michelle Winowatan, Stefaan Verhulst, and Andrew Young

The Living Library’s Selected Readings series seeks to build a knowledge base on innovative approaches for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance. This curated and annotated collection of recommended works on the topic of Data Collaboration for Migration was originally published in 2018.

Special thanks to Paul Currion whose data responsibility literature review gave us a headstart when developing the below. (Check out his article listed below on Refugee Identity)

The collection below is also meant to complement our article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on Data Collaboration for Migration where we emphasize the need for a Data Responsibility Framework moving forward.

From climate change to politics to finance, there is growing recognition that some of the most intractable problems of our era are information problems. In recent years, the ongoing refugee crisis has increased the call for new data-driven approaches to address the many challenges and opportunities arising from migration. While data – including data from the private sector – holds significant potential value for informing analysis and targeted international and humanitarian response to (forced) migration, decision-makers often lack an actionable understanding of if, when and how data could be collected, processed, stored, analyzed, used, and shared in a responsible manner.

Data responsibility – including the responsibility to protect data and shield its subjects from harms, and the responsibility to leverage and share data when it can provide public value – is an emerging field seeking to go beyond just privacy concerns. The forced migration arena has a number of particularly important issues impacting responsible data approaches, including the risks of leveraging data regarding individuals fleeing a hostile or repressive government.

In this edition of the GovLab’s Selected Readings series, we examine the emerging literature on the data responsibility approaches in the refugee and forced migration space – part of an ongoing series focused on Data Responsibiltiy. The below reading list features annotated readings related to the Policy and Practice of data responsibility for refugees, and the specific responsibility challenges regarding Identity and Biometrics.

Data Responsibility and Refugees – Policy and Practice

International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2010) IOM Data Protection Manual. Geneva: IOM.

This IOM manual includes 13 data protection principles related to the following activities: lawful and fair collection, specified and legitimate purpose, data quality, consent, transfer to third parties, confidentiality, access and transparency, data security, retention and personal data, application of the principles, ownership of personal data, oversight, compliance and internal remedies (and exceptions).
For each principle, the IOM manual features targeted data protection guidelines, and templates and checklists are included to help foster practical application.

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre / OCHA (eds.) (2008) Guidance on Profiling Internally Displaced Persons. Geneva: Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

This NRC document contains guidelines on gathering better data on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), based on country context.
IDP profile is defined as number of displaced persons, location, causes of displacement, patterns of displacement, and humanitarian needs among others.
It further states that collecting IDPs data is challenging and the current condition of IDPs data are hampering assistance programs.

Chapter I of the document explores the rationale for IDP profiling. Chapter II describes the who aspect of profiling: who IDPs are and common pitfalls in distinguishing them from other population groups. Chapter III describes the different methodologies that can be used in different contexts and suggesting some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, what kind of information is needed and when it is appropriate to profile.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Model agreement on the sharing of personal data with Governments in the context of hand-over of the refugee status determination process. Geneva: UNHCR.

This document from UNHCR provides a template of agreement guiding the sharing of data between a national government and UNHCR. The model agreement’s guidance is aimed at protecting the privacy and confidentiality of individual data while promoting improvements to service delivery for refugees.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015). Policy on the Protection of Personal Data of Persons of Concern to UNHCR. Geneva: UNHCR.

This policy outlines the rules and principles regarding the processing of personal data of persons engaged by UNHCR with the purpose of ensuring that the practice is consistent with UNGA’s regulation of computerized personal data files that was established to protect individuals’ data and privacy.
UNHCR require its personnel to apply the following principles when processing personal data: (i) Legitimate and fair processing (ii) Purpose specification (iii) Necessity and proportionality (iv) Accuracy (v) Respect for the rights of the data subject (vi) Confidentiality (vii) Security (viii) Accountability and supervision.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015) Privacy Impact Assessment of UNHCR Cash Based Interventions.

This impact assessment focuses on privacy issues related to financial assistance for refugees in the form of cash transfers. For international organizations like UNHCR to determine eligibility for cash assistance, data “aggregation, profiling, and social sorting techniques,” are often needed, leading a need for a responsible data approach.
This Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) aims to identify the privacy risks posed by their program and seek to enhance safeguards that can mitigate those risks.
Key issues raised in the PIA involves the challenge of ensuring that individuals’ data will not be used for purposes other than those initially specified.

Data Responsibility in Identity and Biometrics

Bohlin, A. (2008) “Protection at the Cost of Privacy? A Study of the Biometric Registration of Refugees.” Lund: Faculty of Law of the University of Lund.

This 2008 study focuses on the systematic biometric registration of refugees conducted by UNHCR in refugee camps around the world, to understand whether enhancing the registration mechanism of refugees contributes to their protection and guarantee of human rights, or whether refugee registration exposes people to invasions of privacy.
Bohlin found that, at the time, UNHCR failed to put a proper safeguards in the case of data dissemination, exposing the refugees data to the risk of being misused. She goes on to suggest data protection regulations that could be put in place in order to protect refugees’ privacy.

Currion, Paul. (2018) “The Refugee Identity.” Medium.

Developed as part of a DFID-funded initiative, this essay considers Data Requirements for Service Delivery within Refugee Camps, with a particular focus on refugee identity.
Among other findings, Currion finds that since “the digitisation of aid has already begun…aid agencies must therefore pay more attention to the way in which identity systems affect the lives and livelihoods of the forcibly displaced, both positively and negatively.”
Currion argues that a Responsible Data approach, as opposed to a process defined by a Data Minimization principle, provides “useful guidelines,” but notes that data responsibility “still needs to be translated into organisational policy, then into institutional processes, and finally into operational practice.”

Farraj, A. (2010) “Refugees and the Biometric Future: The Impact of Biometrics on Refugees and Asylum Seekers.” Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 42 (2010): 891.

This article argues that biometrics help refugees and asylum seekers establish their identity, which is important for ensuring the protection of their rights and service delivery.
However, Farraj also describes several risks related to biometrics, such as, misidentification and misuse of data, leading to a need for proper approaches for the collection, storage, and utilization of the biometric information by government, international organizations, or other parties.

GSMA (2017) Landscape Report: Mobile Money, Humanitarian Cash Transfers and Displaced Populations. London: GSMA.

This paper from GSMA seeks to evaluate how mobile technology can be helpful in refugee registration, cross-organizational data sharing, and service delivery processes.

One of its assessments is that the use of mobile money in a humanitarian context depends on the supporting regulatory environment that contributes to unlocking the true potential of mobile money. The examples include extension of SIM dormancy period to anticipate infrequent cash disbursements, ensuring that persons without identification are able to use the mobile money services, and so on.

Additionally, GMSA argues that mobile money will be most successful when there is an ecosystem to support other financial services such as remittances, airtime top-ups, savings, and bill payments. These services will be especially helpful in including displaced populations in development.

GSMA (2017) Refugees and Identity: Considerations for mobile-enabled registration and aid delivery. London: GSMA.

This paper emphasizes the importance of registration in the context of humanitarian emergency, because being registered and having a document that proves this registration is key in acquiring services and assistance.

Studying cases of Kenya and Iraq, the report concludes by providing three recommendations to improve mobile data collection and registration processes: 1) establish more flexible KYC for mobile money because where refugees are not able to meet existing requirements; 2) encourage interoperability and data sharing to avoid fragmented and duplicative registration management; and 3) build partnership and collaboration among governments, humanitarian organizations, and multinational corporations.

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2015) “Experimentation in Humanitarian Locations: UNHCR and Biometric Registration of Afghan Refugees.” Security Dialogue, Vol 46 No. 2: 144–164.

In this article, Jacobsen studies the biometric registration of Afghan refugees, and considers how “humanitarian refugee biometrics produces digital refugees at risk of exposure to new forms of intrusion and insecurity.”

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2017) “On Humanitarian Refugee Biometrics and New Forms of Intervention.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1–23.

This article traces the evolution of the use of biometrics at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – moving from a few early pilot projects (in the early-to-mid-2000s) to the emergence of a policy in which biometric registration is considered a ‘strategic decision’.

Manby, Bronwen (2016) “Identification in the Context of Forced Displacement.” Washington DC: World Bank Group. Accessed August 21, 2017.

In this paper, Bronwen describes the consequences of not having an identity in a situation of forced displacement. It prevents displaced population from getting various services and creates higher chance of exploitation. It also lowers the effectiveness of humanitarian actions, as lacking identity prevents humanitarian organizations from delivering their services to the displaced populations.
Lack of identity can be both the consequence and and cause of forced displacement. People who have no identity can be considered illegal and risk being deported. At the same time, conflicts that lead to displacement can also result in loss of ID during travel.
The paper identifies different stakeholders and their interest in the case of identity and forced displacement, and finds that the biggest challenge for providing identity to refugees is the politics of identification and nationality.
Manby concludes that in order to address this challenge, there needs to be more effective coordination among governments, international organizations, and the private sector to come up with an alternative of providing identification and services to the displaced persons. She also argues that it is essential to ensure that national identification becomes a universal practice for states.

McClure, D. and Menchi, B. (2015). Challenges and the State of Play of Interoperability in Cash Transfer Programming. Geneva: UNHCR/World Vision International.

This report reviews the elements that contribute to the interoperability design for Cash Transfer Programming (CTP). The design framework offered here maps out these various features and also looks at the state of the problem and the state of play through a variety of use cases.
The study considers the current state of play and provides insights about the ways to address the multi-dimensionality of interoperability measures in increasingly complex ecosystems.

NRC / International Human Rights Clinic (2016). Securing Status: Syrian refugees and the documentation of legal status, identity, and family relationships in Jordan.

This report examines Syrian refugees’ attempts to obtain identity cards and other forms of legally recognized documentation (mainly, Ministry of Interior Service Cards, or “new MoI cards”) in Jordan through the state’s Urban Verification Exercise (“UVE”). These MoI cards are significant because they allow Syrians to live outside of refugee camps and move freely about Jordan.
The text reviews the acquirement processes and the subsequent challenges and consequences that refugees face when unable to obtain documentation. Refugees can encounter issues ranging from lack of access to basic services to arrest, detention, forced relocation to camps and refoulement.
Seventy-two Syrian refugee families in Jordan were interviewed in 2016 for this report and their experiences with obtaining MoI cards varied widely.

Office of Internal Oversight Services (2015). Audit of the operations in Jordan for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Report 2015/049. New York: UN.

This report documents the January 1, 2012 – March 31, 2014 audit of Jordanian operations, which is intended to ensure the effectiveness of the UNHCR Representation in the state.
The main goals of the Regional Response Plan for Syrian refugees included relieving the pressure on Jordanian services and resources while still maintaining protection for refugees.
The audit results concluded that the Representation was initially unsatisfactory, and the OIOS suggested several recommendations according to the two key controls which the Representation acknowledged. Those recommendations included:
- Project management:
  - Providing training to staff involved in financial verification of partners supervise management
  - Revising standard operating procedure on cash based interventions
  - Establishing ways to ensure that appropriate criteria for payment of all types of costs to partners’ staff are included in partnership agreements
- Regulatory framework:
  - Preparing annual need-based procurement plan and establishing adequate management oversight processes
  - Creating procedures for the assessment of renovation work in progress and issuing written change orders
  - Protecting data and ensuring timely consultation with the UNHCR Division of Financial and Administrative Management

UNHCR/WFP (2015). Joint Inspection of the Biometrics Identification System for Food Distribution in Kenya. Geneva: UNHCR/WFP.

This report outlines the partnership between the WFP and UNHCR in its effort to promote its biometric identification checking system to support food distribution in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya.
Both entities conducted a joint inspection mission in March 2015 and was considered an effective tool and a model for other country operations.
Still, 11 recommendations are proposed and responded to in this text to further improve the efficiency of the biometric system, including real-time evaluation of impact, need for automatic alerts, documentation of best practices, among others.

How the government will operate in 2030

Curated on March 26, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Darrell West at the Hill: “Imagine it is 2030 and you are a U.S. government employee working from home. With the assistance of the latest technology, you participate in video calls with clients and colleagues, augment your job activities through artificial intelligence and a personal digital assistant, work through collaboration software, and regularly get rated on a one-to-five scale by clients regarding your helpfulness, follow-through, and task completion.

How did you — and the government — get here? The sharing economy that unfolded in 2018 has revolutionized the public-sector workforce. The days when federal employees were subject to a centrally directed Office of Personnel and Management that oversaw permanent, full-time workers sitting in downtown office buildings are long gone. In their place is a remote workforce staffed by a mix of short- and long-term employees. This has dramatically improved worker productivity and satisfaction.

In the new digital world that has emerged, the goal is to use technology to make employees accountable. Gone are 20- or 30-year careers in the federal bureaucracy. Political leaders have always preached the virtue of running government like a business, and the success of Uber, Airbnb, and WeWork has persuaded them to focus on accountability and performance.

Companies such as Facebook demonstrated they could run large and complex organizations with less than 20,000 employees, and the federal government followed suit in the late 2020s. Now, workers deploy the latest tools of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, data analytics, robots, driverless cars, and digital assistants to improve the government. Unlike the widespread mistrust and cynicism that had poisoned attitudes in the decades before, the general public now sees government as a force for achieving positive results.

Many parts of the federal government are decentralized and mid-level employees are given greater authority to make decisions — but are subject to digital ratings that keep them accountable for their performance. The U.S. government borrowed this technique from China, where airport authorities in 2018 installed digital devices that allowed visitors to rate the performance of individual passport officers after every encounter. The reams of data have enabled Chinese authorities to fire poor performers and make sure foreign visitors see a friendly and competent face at the Beijing International Airport.

Alexa-like devices are given to all federal employees. The devices are used to keep track of leave time, file reimbursement requests, request time off, and complete a range of routine tasks that used to take employees hours. Through voice-activated commands, they navigate these mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. No one can believe the mountains of paperwork required just a decade ago….(More)”.

Can Social Media Help Build Communities?

Curated on March 21, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Eric Forbush and Nicol Turner-Lee: “In June 2017, Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed a new mission for Facebook, which was to “[g]ive people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” during the company’s first Community Summit. Yet, his declaration comes in the backdrop of a politically polarized America. While research has indicated that ideological polarization (the alignment and divergence of ideologies) has remained relatively unchanged, affective polarization (the degree to which Democrats and Republicans dislike each other) has skyrocketed (Gentzkow, 2016; Lelkes, 2016). This dislike for members of the opposite party may be amplified on social media platforms.
Social media have been accused of making our social networks increasingly insular, resulting in “echo chambers,” wherein individuals select information and friends who support their already held beliefs (Quattrociocchi, Scala, and Sunstein, 2016; Williams, McMurray, Kurz, and Lambert, 2015). However, the implicit message in Zuckerberg’s comments, and other leaders in this space, is that social media can provide users with a means for brokering relationships with other users that hold different values and beliefs from them. However, little is known on the extent to which social media platforms enable these opportunities.

Theories of prejudice reduction (Paluck and Green, 2009) partially explain an idealistic outcome of improved online relationships. In his seminal contact theory, Gordon Allport (1954) argued that under certain optimal conditions, all that is needed to reduce prejudice is for members of different groups to spend more time interacting with each other. However, contemporary social media platforms may not be doing enough to increase intergroup engagements, especially between politically polarized communities on issues of importance.

In this paper, we use Twitter data collected over a 20-day period, following the Day of Action for Net Neutrality on July 12, 2017. In support of a highly polarized regulatory issue, the Day of Action was organized by advocacy groups and corporations in support of an open internet, which does not discriminate against online users when accessing their preferred content. Analyzing 81,316 tweets about #netneutrality from 40,502 distinct users, we use social network analysis to develop network visualizations and conduct discrete content analysis of central tweets. Our research also divides the content by those in support and those opposed to any type of repeal of net neutrality rules by the FCC.

Our analysis of this particular issue reveals that social media is merely replicating, and potentially strengthening polarization on issues by party affiliations and online associations. Consequently, the appearance of mediators who are able to bridge online conversations or beliefs on charged issues appear to be nonexistent on both sides of the issue. Consequently, our findings suggest that social media companies may not be doing enough to bring communities together through meaningful conversations on their platforms….(More)”.

Lessons from Cambridge Analytica: one way to protect your data

Curated on March 21, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Julia Apostle in the Financial Times: “The unsettling revelations about how data firm Cambridge Analytica surreptitiously exploited the personal information of Facebook users is yet another demoralising reminder of how much data has been amassed about us, and of how little control we have over it.

Unfortunately, the General Data Protection Regulation privacy laws that are coming into force across Europe — with more demanding consent, transparency and accountability requirements, backed by huge fines — may improve practices, but they will not change the governing paradigm: the law labels those who gather our data as “controllers”. We are merely “subjects”.

But if the past 20 years have taught us anything, it is that when business and legislators have been too slow to adapt to public demand — for goods and services that we did not even know we needed, such as Amazon, Uber and bitcoin — computer scientists have stepped in to fill the void. And so it appears that the realms of data privacy and security are deserving of some disruption. This might come in the form of “self-sovereign identity” systems.

The theory behind self-sovereign identity is that individuals should control the data elements that form the basis of their digital identities, and not centralised authorities such as governments and private companies. In the current online environment, we all have multiple log-ins, usernames, customer IDs and personal data spread across countless platforms and stored in myriad repositories.

Instead of this scattered approach, we should each possess the digital equivalent of a wallet that contains verified pieces of our identities. We can then choose which identification to share, with whom, and when. Self-sovereign identity systems are currently being developed.

They involve the creation of a unique and persistent identifier attributed to an individual (called a decentralised identity), which cannot be taken away. The systems use public/private key cryptography, which enables a user with a private key (a string of numbers) to share information with unlimited recipients who can access the encrypted data if they possess a corresponding public key.

The systems also rely on decentralised ledger applications like blockchain. While key cryptography has been around for a long time, it is the development of decentralised ledger technology, which also supports the trading of cryptocurrencies without the involvement of intermediaries, that will allow self-sovereign identity systems to take off. The potential uses for decentralised identity are legion and small-scale implementation is already happening. The Swiss municipality of Zug started using a decentralised identity system called uPort last year, to allow residents access to certain government services. The municipality announced it will also use the system for voting this spring….

Decentralised identity is more difficult to access and therefore there is less financial incentive for hackers to try. Self-sovereign identity systems could eliminate many of our data privacy concerns while empowering individuals in the online world and turning the established data order on its head. But the success of the technology depends on its widespread adoption….(More)“

Cambridge Analytica scandal: legitimate researchers using Facebook data could be collateral damage

Curated on March 21, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Annabel Latham at The Conversation: “The scandal that has erupted around Cambridge Analytica’s alleged harvesting of 50m Facebook profiles assembled from data provided by a UK-based academic and his company is a worrying development for legitimate researchers.

Political data analytics company Cambridge Analytica – which is affiliated with Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) – reportedly used Facebook data, after it was handed over by Aleksandr Kogan, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s department of psychology.

Kogan, through his company Global Science Research (GSR) – separate from his university work – gleaned the data from a personality test app named “thisisyourdigitallife”. Roughly 270,000 US-based Facebook users voluntarily responded to the test in 2014. But the app also collected data on those participants’ Facebook friends without their consent.

This was possible due to Facebook rules at the time that allowed third-party apps to collect data about a Facebook user’s friends. The Mark Zuckerberg-run company has since changed its policy to prevent such access to developers….

Social media data is a rich source of information for many areas of research in psychology, technology, business and humanities. Some recent examples include using Facebook to predict riots, comparing the use of Facebook with body image concern in adolescent girls and investigating whether Facebook can lower levels of stress responses, with research suggesting that it may enhance and undermine psycho-social constructs related to well-being.

It is right to believe that researchers and their employers value research integrity. But instances where trust has been betrayed by an academic – even if it’s the case that data used for university research purposes wasn’t caught in the crossfire – will have a negative impact on whether participants will continue to trust researchers. It also has implications for research governance and for companies to share data with researchers in the first place.

Universities, research organisations and funders govern the integrity of research with clear and strict ethics proceduresdesigned to protect participants in studies, such as where social media data is used. The harvesting of data without permission from users is considered an unethical activity under commonly understood research standards.

The fallout from the Cambridge Analytica controversy is potentially huge for researchers who rely on social networks for their studies, where data is routinely shared with them for research purposes. Tech companies could become more reluctant to share data with researchers. Facebook is already extremely protective of its data – the worry is that it could become doubly difficult for researchers to legitimately access this information in light of what has happened with Cambridge Analytica….(More)”.

Artificial Intelligence and the Need for Data Fairness in the Global South

Curated on March 21, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Medium blog by Yasodara Cordova: “…The data collected by industry represents AI opportunities for governments, to improve their services through innovation. Data-based intelligence promises to increase the efficiency of resource management by improving transparency, logistics, social welfare distribution — and virtually every government service. E-government enthusiasm took of with the realization of the possible applications, such as using AI to fight corruption by automating the fraud-tracking capabilities of cost-control tools. Controversially, the AI enthusiasm has spread to the distribution of social benefits, optimization of tax oversight and control, credit scoring systems, crime prediction systems, and other applications based in personal and sensitive data collection, especially in countries that do not have comprehensive privacy protections.

There are so many potential applications, society may operate very differently in ten years when the “datafixation” has advanced beyond citizen data and into other applications such as energy and natural resource management. However, many countries in the Global South are not being given necessary access to their countries’ own data.

Useful data are everywhere, but only some can take advantage. Beyond smartphones, data can be collected from IoT components in common spaces. Not restricted to urban spaces, data collection includes rural technology like sensors installed in tractors. However, even when the information is related to issues of public importance in developing countries —like data taken from road mesh or vital resources like water and land — it stays hidden under contract rules and public citizens cannot access, and therefore take benefit, from it. This arrangement keeps the public uninformed about their country’s operations. The data collection and distribution frameworks are not built towards healthy partnerships between industry and government preventing countries from realizing the potential outlined in the previous paragraph.

The data necessary to the development of better cities, public policies, and common interest cannot be leveraged if kept in closed silos, yet access often costs more than is justifiable. Data are a primordial resource to all stages of new technology, especially tech adoption and integration, so the necessary long term investment in innovation needs a common ground to start with. The mismatch between the pace of the data collection among big established companies and small, new, and local businesses will likely increase with time, assuming no regulation is introduced for equal access to collected data….

Currently, data independence remains restricted to discussions on the technological infrastructure that supports data extraction. Privacy discussions focus on personal data rather than the digital accumulation of strategic data in closed silos — a necessary discussion not yet addressed. The national interest of data is not being addressed in a framework of economic and social fairness. Access to data, from a policy-making standpoint, needs to find a balance between the extremes of public, open access and limited, commercial use.

A final, but important note: the vast majority of social media act like silos. APIs play an important role in corporate business models, where industry controls the data it collects without reward, let alone user transparency. Negotiation of the specification of APIs to make data a common resource should be considered, for such an effort may align with the citizens’ interest….(More)”.