Dubai Data Releases Findings of ‘The Dubai Data Economic Impact Report’

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Press Release: “the ‘Dubai Data Economic Impact Report’…provides the Dubai Government with insights into the potential economic impacts of opening and sharing data and includes a methodology for more rigorous measurement of the economic impacts of open and shared data, to allow regular assessment of the actual impacts in the future.

The study estimates that the opening and sharing of government and private sector data will potentially add a total of 10.4 billion AED Gross Value Added (GVA) impact to Dubai’s economy annually by 2021. Opening government data alone will result in a GVA impact of 6.6 billion AED annually as of 2021. This is equivalent to approximately 0.8% to 1.2% of Dubai’s forecasted GDP for 2021. Transport, storage, and communications are set to be the highest contributor to this potential GVA of opening government data, accounting for (27.8% or AED1.85 bn) of the total amount, followed by public administration (23.6% or AED 1.57 bn); wholesale, retail, restaurants, and hotels (13.7% or AED 908 million); real estate (9.6% or AED 639 million); and professional services (8.9% or AED 588 million). Finance and insurance, meanwhile, is calculated to make up 6.5% (AED 433 million) of the GVA, while mining, manufacturing, and utilities (6% or AED 395 million); construction (3.5% or AED 230 million); and entertainment and arts (0.4% or AED27 million) account for the remaining proportion.

This economic impact will be realized through the publication, exchange, use and reuse of Dubai data. The Dubai Data Law of 2015 mandates that data providers publish open data and exchange shared data. It defines open data as any Dubai data which is published and can be downloaded, used and re-used without restrictions by all types of users, while shared data is the data that has been classified as either confidential, sensitive, or secret, and can only be accessed by other government entities or by other authorised persons. The law pertains to local government entities, federal government entities which have any data relating to the emirate, individuals and companies who produce, own, disseminate, or exchange any data relating to the emirate. It aims to realise Dubai’s vision of transforming itself into a smart city, manage Dubai Data in accordance with a clear and specific methodology that is consistent with international best practices, integrate the services provided by federal and local government entities, and optimise the use of the data available to data providers, among other objectives….

The study identifies several stakeholders  involved in the use and reuse of open and shared data. These stakeholders – some of whom are qualified as “data creators” – play an important role in the process of generating the economic impacts. They include: data enrichers, who combine open data with their own sources and/or knowledge; data enablers, who do not profit directly from the data, but do so via the platforms and technologies they are provided on; data developers, who design and build Application Programming Interfaces (APIs); and data aggregators, who collect and pool data, providing it to other stakeholders….(More)”

Updated N.Y.P.D. Anti-Crime System to Ask: ‘How We Doing?’

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Al Baker in the New York Times: “It was a policing invention with a futuristic sounding name — CompStat — when the New York Police Department introduced it as a management system for fighting crime in an era of much higher violence in the 1990s. Police departments around the country, and the world, adapted its system of mapping muggings, robberies and other crimes; measuring police activity; and holding local commanders accountable.

Now, a quarter-century later, it is getting a broad reimagining and being brought into the mobile age. Moving away from simple stats and figures, CompStat is getting touchy-feely. It’s going to ask New Yorkers — via thousands of questions on their phones — “How are you feeling?” and “How are we, the police, doing?”

Whether this new approach will be mimicked elsewhere is still unknown, but as is the case with almost all new tactics in the N.Y.P.D. — the largest municipal police force in the United States by far — it will be closely watched. Nor is it clear if New Yorkers will embrace this approach, reject it as intrusive or simply be annoyed by it.

The system, using location technology, sends out short sets of questions to smartphones along three themes: Do you feel safe in your neighborhood? Do you trust the police? Are you confident in the New York Police Department?

The questions stream out every day, around the clock, on 50,000 different smartphone applications and present themselves on screens as eight-second surveys.

The department believes it will get a more diverse measure of community satisfaction, and allow it to further drive down crime. For now, Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill is calling the tool a “sentiment meter,” though he is open to suggestions for a better name….(More)”.

Going Digital: Restoring Trust In Government In Latin American Cities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Carlos Santiso at The Rockefeller Foundation Blog: “Driven by fast-paced technological innovations, an exponential growth of smartphones, and a daily stream of big data, the “digital revolution” is changing the way we live our lives. Nowhere are the changes more sweeping than in cities. In Latin America, almost 80 percent of the population lives in cities, where massive adoption of social media is enabling new forms of digital engagement. Technology is ubiquitous in cities. The expectations of Latin American “digital citizens” have grown exponentially as a result of a rising middle class and an increasingly connected youth.

This digital transformation is recasting the relation between states and citizens. Digital citizens are asking for better services, more transparency, and meaningful participation. Their rising expectations concern the quality of the services city governments ought to provide, but also the standards of integrity, responsiveness, and fairness of the bureaucracy in their daily dealings. A recent study shows that citizens’ satisfaction with public services is not only determined by the objective quality of the service, but also their subjective expectations and how fairly they consider being treated….

New technologies and data analytics are transforming the governance of cities. Digital-intensive and data-driven innovations are changing how city governments function and deliver services, and also enabling new forms of social participation and co-creation. New technologies help improve efficiency and further transparency through new modes of open innovation. Tech-enabled and citizen-driven innovations also facilitate participation through feedback loops from citizens to local authorities to identify and resolve failures in the delivery of public services.

Three structural trends are driving the digital revolution in governments.

  1. The digital transformation of the machinery of government. National and city governments in the region are developing digital strategies to increase connectivity, improve services, and enhance accountability. According to a recent report, 75 percent of the 23 countries surveyed have developed comprehensive digital strategies, such as Uruguay Digital, Colombia’s Vive Digital or Mexico’s Agenda Digital, that include legally recognized digital identification mechanisms. “Smart cities” are intensifying the use of modern technologies and improve the interoperability of government systems, the backbone of government, to ensure that public services are inter-connected and thus avoid having citizens provide the same information to different entities. An important driver of this transformation is citizens’ demands for greater transparency and accountability in the delivery of public services. Sixteen countries in the region have developed open government strategies, and cities such as Buenos Aires in Argentina, La Libertad in Peru, and Sao Paolo in Brazil have also committed to opening up government to public scrutiny and new forms of social participation. This second wave of active transparency reforms follows a first, more passive wave that focused on facilitating access to information.
  1. The digital transformation of the interface with citizens. Sixty percent of the countries surveyed by the aforementioned report have established integrated service portals through which citizens can access online public services. Online portals allow for a single point of access to public services. Cities, such as Bogotá and Rio de Janeiro, are developing their own online service platforms to access municipal services. These innovations improve access to public services and contribute to simplifying bureaucratic processes and cutting red-tape, as a recent study shows. Governments are resorting to crowdsourcing solutions, open intelligence initiatives, and digital apps to encourage active citizen participation in the improvement of public services and the prevention of corruption. Colombia’s Transparency Secretariat has developed an app that allows citizens to report “white elephants” — incomplete or overbilled public works. By the end of 2015, it identified 83 such white elephants, mainly in the capital Bogotá, for a total value of almost $500 million, which led to the initiation of criminal proceedings by law enforcement authorities. While many of these initiatives emerge from civic initiatives, local governments are increasingly encouraging them and adopting their own open innovation models to rethink public services.
  1. The gradual mainstreaming of social innovation in local government. Governments are increasingly resorting to public innovation labs to tackle difficult problems for citizens and businesses. Governments innovation labs are helping address “wicked problems” by combining design thinking, crowdsourcing techniques, and data analytics tools. Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Uruguay, have developed such social innovation labs within government structures. As a recent report notes, these mechanisms come in different forms and shapes. Large cities, such as Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, and Montevideo, are at the forefront of testing such laboratory mechanisms and institutionalizing tech-driven and citizen-centered approaches through innovation labs. For example, in 2013, Mexico City created its Laboratorio para la Ciudad, as a hub for civic innovation and urban creativity, relying on small-case experiments and interventions to improve specific government services and make local government more transparent, responsive, and receptive. It spearheaded an open government law for the city that encourages residents to participate in the design of public policies and requires city agencies to consider those suggestions…..(More)”.

Human Agency and Behavioral Economics: Nudging Fast and Slow

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Cass R. Sunstein: “This Palgrave Pivot offers comprehensive evidence about what people actually think of “nudge” policies designed to steer decision makers’ choices in positive directions. The data reveal that people in diverse nations generally favor nudges by strong majorities, with a preference for educative efforts – such as calorie labels – that equip individuals to make the best decisions for their own lives. On the other hand, there are significant arguments for noneducational nudges – such as automatic enrollment in savings plans – as they allow people to devote their scarce time and attention to their most pressing concerns.  The decision to use either educative or noneducative nudges raises fundamental questions about human freedom in both theory and practice. Sunstein’s findings and analysis offer lessons for those involved in law and policy who are choosing which method to support as the most effective way to encourage lifestyle changes….(More)”.

When Crowdsourcing Works (And Doesn’t Work) In The Law

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

LawXLab: “Crowdsourcing has revolutionized several industries.  Wikipedia has replaced traditional encyclopedias.  Stack Overflow houses the collective knowledge of software engineering.  And genealogical information stretches back thousands of years.  All due to crowdsourcing.

These successes have led to several attempts to crowdsource the law.  The potential is enticing.  The law is notoriously difficult to access, especially for non-lawyers.  Amassing the collective knowledge of the legal community could make legal research easier for lawyers, and open the law to lay people, reshaping the legal industry and displacing traditional powers like Westlaw and Lexis. As one legal crowdsourcing site touted, “No lawyer is smarter than all lawyers.”

But crowdsourcing the law has proved difficult.  The list of failed legal crowdsourcing sites is long.  As one legal commentator noted, “The legal Web is haunted by the spirits of the many crowdsourced sites that have come and gone.” (Ambrogi http://goo.gl/ZPuXh8).  …

There are several aspects of the law that make crowdsourcing difficult.  First, the base of contributors is not large.  According to the ABA, there were only 1.3 million licensed lawyers in 2015. (http://goo.gl/kw6Kab).  Second, there is no ethos of sharing information, like there is in other fields.  To the contrary, there is a tradition of keeping information secret, enshrined in rules regarding privilege, work product protection, and trade secrets.  Legal professionals disclose information with caution.

Every attempt to crowdsource the law, however, has not been a failure.  And the successes chart a promising path forward.  While lawyers will not go out of their way to crowdsource the law, attempts to weave crowdsourcing into activities that legal professionals already perform have achieved promising results.

For example, Casetext’s WeCite initiative has proved immensely successful.  When a judge cites another case in a published opinion, WeCite asks the reader to characterize case references as (1) positive, (2) referencing, (3) distinguishing, or (4) negative.  In 9 months, Casetext’s community had crowdsourced “over 300,000 citator entries.” (CALI https://goo.gl/yT9mc4.)  CaseText used these entries to fuel its flagship product, CARA.  CARA uses those crowdsourced citation entries to suggest other cases for litigators to cite.

The key to WeCite’s success is that it weaved crowdsourcing into an activity that lawyers and law students were already doing–reading cases.  All the reader needed to do was click a button to signify how the case was cited–a minor detour.

Another example is CO/COUNSEL, a site that crowdsources visual maps of the law. The majority of CO/COUNSEL’s crowdsourced contributions come from law school classes.  Teachers use the site as a teaching tool.  Classes map the law during the course of a semester as a learning activity.  In a few months, CO/COUNSEL received over 10,000 contributions.  As with WeCite, using CO/COUNSEL was not a big detour for professors.  It fit into an activity they were performing already–teaching….(More)”.

Artificial intelligence prevails at predicting Supreme Court decisions

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Matthew Hutson at Science: “See you in the Supreme Court!” President Donald Trump tweeted last week, responding to lower court holds on his national security policies. But is taking cases all the way to the highest court in the land a good idea? Artificial intelligence may soon have the answer. A new study shows that computers can do a better job than legal scholars at predicting Supreme Court decisions, even with less information.

Several other studies have guessed at justices’ behavior with algorithms. A 2011 project, for example, used the votes of any eight justices from 1953 to 2004 to predict the vote of the ninth in those same cases, with 83% accuracy. A 2004 paper tried seeing into the future, by using decisions from the nine justices who’d been on the court since 1994 to predict the outcomes of cases in the 2002 term. That method had an accuracy of 75%.

The new study draws on a much richer set of data to predict the behavior of any set of justices at any time. Researchers used the Supreme Court Database, which contains information on cases dating back to 1791, to build a general algorithm for predicting any justice’s vote at any time. They drew on 16 features of each vote, including the justice, the term, the issue, and the court of origin. Researchers also added other factors, such as whether oral arguments were heard….

From 1816 until 2015, the algorithm correctly predicted 70.2% of the court’s 28,000 decisions and 71.9% of the justices’ 240,000 votes, the authors report in PLOS ONE. That bests the popular betting strategy of “always guess reverse,” which has been the case in 63% of Supreme Court cases over the last 35 terms. It’s also better than another strategy that uses rulings from the previous 10 years to automatically go with a “reverse” or an “affirm” prediction. Even knowledgeable legal experts are only about 66% accurate at predicting cases, the 2004 study found. “Every time we’ve kept score, it hasn’t been a terribly pretty picture for humans,” says the study’s lead author, Daniel Katz, a law professor at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago…..Outside the lab, bankers and lawyers might put the new algorithm to practical use. Investors could bet on companies that might benefit from a likely ruling. And appellants could decide whether to take a case to the Supreme Court based on their chances of winning. “The lawyers who typically argue these cases are not exactly bargain basement priced,” Katz says….(More)”.

Beyond Networks – Interlocutory Coalitions, the European and Global Legal Orders

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Gianluca Sgueo: “….explores the activism promoted by organised networks of civil society actors in opening up possibilities for more democratic supranational governance. It examines the positive and negative impact that such networks of civil society actors – named “interlocutory coalitions” – may have on the convergence of principles of administrative governance across the European legal system and other supranational legal systems.

The book takes two main controversial aspects into account: the first relates to the convergence between administrative rules pertaining to different supranational regulatory systems. Traditionally, the spread of methods of administrative governance has been depicted primarily against the background of the interactions between the domestic and the supranational arena, both from a top-down and bottom-up perspective. However, the exploration of interactions occurring at the supranational level between legal regimes is still not grounded on adequate empirical evidence. The second controversial aspect considered in this book consists of the role of civil society actors operating at the supranational level. In its discussion of the first aspect, the book focuses on the relations between the European administrative law and the administrative principles of law pertaining to other supranational regulatory regimes and regulators, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Asian Development Bank, and the Council of Europe. The examination of the second aspect involves the exploration of the still little examined, but crucial, role of civil society organised networks in shaping global administrative law. These “interlocutory coalitions” include NGOs, think tanks, foundations, universities, and occasionally activists with no formal connections to civil society organisations. The book describes such interlocutory coalitions as drivers of harmonized principles of participatory democracy at the European and global levels. However, interlocutory coalitions show a number of tensions (e.g. the governability of coalitions, the competition among them) that may hamper the impact they have on the reconfiguration of individuals’ rights, entitlements and responsibilities in the global arena….(More)’

Beyond Bureaucracy: Towards Sustainable Governance Informatisation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Alois A. Paulin, Leonidas G. Anthopoulos and Christopher Reddick: “… examines the role of bureaucracy in modern technologically advanced societies, the traditional models of governance, and the potential of information technology to fundamentally change and improve governance. In the area of public-domain governance, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have empowered public agencies to improve their activities and to strengthen the efficiency of their operations. Technology has enabled optimized transfer of knowledge and information between government agencies, more efficient supervision and control of relationships with citizens, and higher efficiency in law enforcement through better access to information. Throughout the last decades, technology has been used to strengthen the role of state bureaucracies and the relationship between the civil service and the citizens. We have witnessed the transformative powers of ICTs in private-sector enterprises in well-structured technological landscapes, which has produced new ecosystems comprised of software developers, providers, and consumers who provide and consume new products and services in ecosystems that are based on clear technological standards and shared modular generic artefacts, which allow for distributed peer production. ICTs will shape cultural and civic discourse and create products, services and tools, relying on the open toolsets, technologies and exchange of knowledge between peers. This book will be of particular interest to government CIOs, IT/IS managers, researchers, students, and practitioners in technical sciences, public administration, business management, public policy and IS management….(More)”.

Selected Readings on Blockchain Technology and Its Potential for Transforming Governance

Curated on Posted on by Prianka Srinivasan

By Prianka Srinivasan, Robert Montano, Andrew Young, and Stefaan G. Verhulst

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 blockchain and governance was originally published in 2017.

Introduction

In 2008, an unknown source calling itself Satoshi Nakamoto released a paper named Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System which introduced blockchain technology. Blockchain is a novel system that uses a distributed ledger to record transactions and ensure compliance. Blockchain technology relies on an ability to act as a vast, transparent, and secure public database.

It has since gained recognition as a tool to transform governance by creating a decentralized system to

  • manage and protect identity,
  • trace and track; and
  • incentivize smarter social and business contracts.

These applications cast blockchain as a tool to confront certain public problems in the digital age.

The readings below represent selected readings on the applications for governance. They have been categorized by theme – Governance Applications, Identity Protection and Management, Tracing and Tracking, and Smart Contracts.

Selected Reading List

Governance Applications

  • Atzori, Marcella – The Center for Blockchain Technologies (2015) Blockchain Technology and Decentralized Governance: Is the State Still Necessary? –  Aims to investigate the political applications of blockchain, particularly in encouraging government decentralization by considering to what extent blockchain can be viewed as “hyper-political tools.” The paper suggests that the domination of private bodies in blockchain systems highlights the continued need for the State to remain as a central point of coordination.
  • Boucher, Philip. – European Parliamentary Research Service (2017) How blockchain technology could change our lives – This report commissioned by the European Parliamentary Research Service provides a deep introduction to blockchain theory and its applications to society and political systems, providing 2 page briefings on currencies, digital content, patents, e-voting, smart contracts, supply chains, and blockchain states.
  • Boucher, Philip. – Euroscientist (2017) Are Blockchain Applications Guided by Social Values? – This report by a policy analyst at the European Parliament’s Scientific foresight unit, evaluates the social and moral contours of blockchain technology, arguing that “all technologies have value and politics,” and blockchain is no exception. Calls for greater scrutiny on the possibility for blockchain to act as a truly distributed and transparent system without a “middleman.”
  • Cheng, Steve;  Daub, Matthew; Domeyer, Axel; and Lundqvist, Martin –McKinsey & Company (2017)  Using Blockchain to Improve Data Management in the Public Sector–This essay considers the potential uses of blockchain technology for the public sector to improve the security of sensitive information collected by governments and as a way to simplify communication with specialists.
  • De Filippi, Primavera; and Wright, Aaron –Paris University & Cordoza School of Law (2015)  Decentralized Blockchain Technology and the Rise of Lex Cryptographia – Looks at how to regulate blockchain technology, particularly given its implications on governance and society. Argues that a new legal framework needs to emerge to take into account the applications of self-executing blockchain technology.
  • Liebenau, Jonathan and Elaluf-Calderwood, Silvia Monica. – London School of Economics & Florida International University (2016) Blockchain Innovation Beyond Bitcoin and Banking. – A paper that explores the potential of blockchain technology in financial services and in broader digital applications, considers regulatory possibility and frameworks, and highlights the innovative potential of blockchain.
  • Prpić, John – Lulea University of Technology (2017) Unpacking Blockchains – This short paper provides a brief introduction to the use of Blockchain outside monetary purposes, breaking down its function as a digital ledger and transaction platform.
  • Stark, Josh – Ledger Labs (2016) Making Sense of Blockchain Governance Applications –This CoinDesk article discusses, in simple terms, how blockchain technology can be used to accomplish what is called “the three basic functions of governance.”
  • UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser (2016)  Distributed Ledger Technology: Beyond Blockchain – A report from the UK Government that investigates the use of blockchain’s “distributed leger” as a database for governments and other institutions to adopt.

Identity Protection and Management

  • Baars, D.S. – University of Twente (2016) Towards Self-Sovereign Identity Using Blockchain Technology. – A study exploring self-sovereign identity – i.e. the ability of users to control their own digital identity – that led to the creation of a new architecture designed for users to manage their digital ID. Called the Decentralized Identity Management System, it is built on blockchain technology and is based on the concept of claim-based identity.
  • Burger, Eric and Sullivan, Clare Linda. – Georgetown University (2016) E-Residency and Blockchain. – A case study focused on an Estonian commercial initiative that allows for citizens of any nation to become an “Estonian E-Resident.” This paper explores the legal, policy, and technical implications of the program and considers its impact on the way identity information is controlled and authenticated.
  • Nathan, Oz; Pentland, Alex ‘Sandy’; and Zyskind, Guy – Security and Privacy Workshops (2015) Decentralizing Privacy: Using Blockchain to Protect Personal Data – Describes the potential of blockchain technology to create a decentralized personal data management system, making third-party personal data collection redundant.
  • De Filippi, Primavera – Paris University (2016) The Interplay Between Decentralization and Privacy: The Case of Blockchain Technologies – A journal entry that weighs the radical transparency of blockchain technology against privacy concerns for its users, finding that the apparent dichotomy is not as at conflict with itself as it may first appear.

Tracing and Tracking

  • Barnes, Andrew; Brake, Christopher; and Perry, Thomas – Plymouth University (2016) Digital Voting with the use of Blockchain Technology – A report investigating the potential of blockchain technology to overcome issues surrounding digital voting, from voter fraud, data security and defense against cyber attacks. Proposes a blockchain voting system that can safely and robustly manage these challenges for digital voting.
  • The Economist (2015), “Blockchains The Great Chain of Being Sure About Things.” – An exploratory article that explores the potential usefulness of a blockchain-based land registry in places like Honduras and Greece, transaction registries for trading stock, and the creation of smart contracts.
  • Lin, Wendy; McDonnell, Colin; and Yuan, Ben – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2015)  Blockchains and electronic health records. – Suggests the “durable transaction ledger” fundamental to blockchain has wide applicability in electronic medical record management. Also, evaluates some of the practical shortcomings in implementing the system across the US health industry.

Smart Contracts

  • Iansiti, Marco; and Lakhani, Karim R. – Harvard Business Review (2017) The Truth about Blockchain – A Harvard Business Review article exploring how blockchain technology can create secure and transparent digital contracts, and what effect this may have on the economy and businesses.
  • Levy, Karen E.C. – Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (2017) Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts and The Social Workings of Law. – Article exploring the concept of blockchain-based “smart contracts” – contracts that securely automate and execute obligations without a centralized authority – and discusses the tension between law, social norms, and contracts with an eye toward social equality and fairness.

Annotated Selected Reading List

Cheng, Steve, Matthias Daub, Axel Domeyer, and Martin Lundqvist. “Using blockchain to improve data management in the public sector.” McKinsey & Company. Web. 03 Apr. 2017. http://bit.ly/2nWgomw

  • An essay arguing that blockchain is useful outside of financial institutions for government agencies, particularly those that store sensitive information such as birth and death dates or information about marital status, business licensing, property transfers, and criminal activity.
  • Blockchain technology would maintain the security of such sensitive information while also making it easier for agencies to use and access critical public-sector information.
  • Despite its potential, a significant drawback for use by government agencies is the speed with which blockchain has developed – there are no accepted standards for blockchain technologies or the networks that operate them; and because many providers are start-ups, agencies might struggle to find partners that will have lasting power. Additionally, government agencies will have to remain vigilant to ensure the security of data.
  • Although best practices will take some time to develop, this piece argues that the time is now for experimentation – and that governments would be wise to include blockchain in their strategies to learn what methods work best and uncover how to best unlock the potential of blockchain.

“The Great Chain of Being Sure About Things.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 31 Oct. 2015. Web. 03 Apr. 2017. http://econ.st/1M3kLnr

  • This is an exploratory article written in The Economist that examines the various potential uses of blockchain technology beyond its initial focus on bitcoin:
    • It highlights the potential of blockchain-based land registries as a way to curb human rights abuses and insecurity in much of the world (it specifically cites examples in Greece and Honduras);
    • It also highlights the relative security of blockchain while noting its openness;
    • It is useful as a primer for how blockchain functions as tool for a non-specialist;
    • Discusses “smart contracts” (about which we have linked more research above);
    • Analyzes potential risks;
    • And considers the potential future unlocked by blockchain
  • This article is particularly useful as a primer into the various capabilities and potential of blockchain for interested researchers who may not have a detailed knowledge of the technology or for those seeking for an introduction.

Iansiti, Marco and Lakhani, Karim R. “The Truth About Blockchain.” Harvard Business Review. N.p., 17 Feb. 2017. Web. 06 Apr. 2017. http://bit.ly/2hqo3FU

  • This entry into the Harvard Business Review discusses blockchain’s ability to solve the gap between emerging technological progress and the outdated ways in which bureaucracies handle and record contracts and transactions.
  • Blockchain, the authors argue, allows us to imagine a world in which “contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in transparent, shared databases, where they are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision”, allowing for the removal of intermediaries and facilitating direct interactions between individuals and institutions.
  • The authors compare the emergence of blockchain to other technologies that have had transformative power, such as TCP/IP, and consider the speed with which they have proliferated and become mainstream.
    • They argue that like TCP/IP, blockchain is likely decades away from maximizing its potential and offer frameworks for the adoption of the technology involving both single-use, localization, substitution, and transformation.
    • Using these frameworks and comparisons, the authors present an investment strategy for those interested in blockchain.

IBM Global Business Services Public Sector Team. “Blockchain: The Chain of Trust and its Potential to Transform Healthcare – Our Point of View.” IBM. 2016. http://bit.ly/2oBJDLw

  • This enthusiastic business report from IBM suggests that blockchain technology can be adopted by the healthcare industry to “solve” challenges healthcare professionals face. This is primarily achieved by blockchain’s ability to streamline transactions by establishing trust, accountability, and transparency.
  • Structured around so-called “pain-points” in the healthcare industry, and how blockchain can confront them, the paper looks at 3 concepts and their application in the healthcare industry:
    • Bit-string cryptography: Improves privacy and security concerns in healthcare, by supporting data encryption and enforces complex data permission systems. This allows healthcare professionals to share data without risking the privacy of patients. It also streamlines data management systems, saving money and improving efficiency.
    • Transaction Validity: This feature promotes the use of electronic prescriptions by allowing transactional trust and authenticated data exchange. Abuse is reduced, and abusers are more easily identified.
    • Smart contracts: This streamlines the procurement and contracting qualms in healthcare by reducing intermediaries. Creates a more efficient and transparent healthcare system.
  • The paper goes on to signal the limitations of blockchain in certain use cases (particularly in low-value, high-volume transactions) but highlights 3 use cases where blockchain can help address a business problem in the healthcare industry.
  • Important to keep in mind that, since this paper is geared toward business applications of blockchain through the lens of IBM’s investments, the problems are drafted as business/transactional problems, where blockchain primarily improves efficiency than supporting patient outcomes.

Nathan, Oz; Pentland, Alex ‘Sandy’; and Zyskind, Guy “Decentralizing Privacy: Using Blockchain to Protect Personal Data” Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW). 2015. http://bit.ly/2nPo4r6

  • This technical paper suggests that anonymization and centralized systems can never provide complete security for personal data, and only blockchain technology, by creating a decentralized data management system, can overcome these privacy issues.
  • The authors identify 3 common privacy concerns that blockchain technology can address:
    • Data ownership: users want to own and control their personal data, and data management systems must acknowledge this.
    • Data transparency and auditability: users want to know what data is been collected and for what purpose.
    • Fine-grained access control: users want to be able to easily update and adapt their permission settings to control how and when third-party organizations access their data.
  • The authors propose their own system designed for mobile phones which integrates blockchain technology to store data in a reliable way. The entire system uses blockchain to store data, verify users through a digital signature when they want to access data, and creates a user interface that individuals  can access to view their personal data.
  • Though much of the body of this paper includes technical details on the setup of this blockchain data management system, it provides a strong case for how blockchain technology can be practically implemented to assuage privacy concerns among the public. The authors highlight that by using blockchain “laws and regulations could be programmed into the blockchain itself, so that they are enforced automatically.” They ultimately conclude that using blockchain in such a data protection system such as the one they propose is easier, safer, and more accountable.

Wright, Aaron, and Primavera De Filippi. “Decentralized blockchain technology and the rise of lex cryptographia.” 2015. Available at SSRN . http://bit.ly/2oujvoG

  • This paper proposes that the emergence of blockchain technology, and its various applications (decentralized currencies, self-executing contracts, smart property etc.), will necessitate the creation of a new subset of laws, termed by the authors as “Lex Cryptographia.”
  • Considering the ability for blockchain to “cut out the middleman” there exist concrete challenges to law enforcement faced by the coming digital revolution brought by the technology. These encompass the very benefits of blockchain; for instance, the authors posit that the decentralized, autonomous nature of blockchain systems can act much like “a biological virus or an uncontrollable force of nature” if the system was ill-intentioned. Though this same system can regulate the problems of corruption and hierarchy associated with traditional, centralized systems, their autonomy poses an obvious obstacle for law-enforcement.
  • The paper goes on to details all the possible benefits and societal impacts of various applications of blockchain, finally suggesting there exists a need to “rethink” traditional models of regulating society and individuals. They predict a rise in Lex Cryptographia “characterized by a set of rules administered through self-executing smart contracts and decentralized (and potentially autonomous) organizations.” Much of these regulations depend upon the need to supervise restrictions placed upon blockchain technology that may chill its application, for instance corporations who may choose to purposefully avoid including any blockchain-based applications in their search engines so as to stymie the adoption of this technology.

Killer Apps: Vanishing Messages, Encrypted Communications, and Challenges to Freedom of Information Laws When Public Officials ‘Go Dark’

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Daxton Stewart: “In the early weeks of the new presidential administration, White House staffers were communicating among themselves and leaking to journalists using apps such as Signal and Confide, which allow users to encrypt messages or to make them vanish after being received. By using these apps, government officials are “going dark” by avoiding detection of their communications in a way that undercuts freedom of information laws. In this paper, the author explores the challenges presented by encrypted and ephemeral messaging apps when used by government employees, examining three policy approaches – banning use of the apps, enhancing existing archiving and record-keeping practices, or legislatively expanding quasi-government body definitions – as potential ways to manage the threat to open records laws these “killer apps” present….(More)”.