Press Release: “The Governance Lab at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering announced the launch of the 100 Questions Initiative — an effort to identify the most important societal questions whose answers can be found in data and data science if the power of data collaboratives is harnessed. The initiative, launched with initial support from Schmidt Futures, seeks to address challenges on numerous topics, including migration, climate change, poverty, and the future of work. For each of these areas and more, the initiative will seek to identify questions that could help unlock the potential of data and data science... (More >)
Data Protection and Digital Agency for Refugees
Paper by Dragana Kaurin: “For the millions of refugees fleeing conflict and persecution every year, access to information about their rights and control over their personal data are crucial for their ability to assess risk and navigate the asylum process. While asylum seekers are required to provide significant amounts of personal information on their journey to safety, they are rarely fully informed of their data rights by UN agencies or local border control and law enforcement staff tasked with obtaining and processing their personal information. Despite recent improvements in data protection mechanisms in the European Union, refugees’ informed consent... (More >)
Opportunities and Challenges of Emerging Technologies for the Refugee System
Research Paper by Roya Pakzad: “Efforts are being made to use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to improve accountability in providing refugee aid. However, there remains a pressing need for increased accountability and transparency when designing and deploying humanitarian technologies. This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies, such as machine learning and blockchain, in the refugee system. The paper concludes by recommending the creation of quantifiable metrics for sharing information across both public and private initiatives; the creation of the equivalent of a “Hippocratic oath” for technologists working in the humanitarian field; the development of predictive... (More >)
How Technology Could Revolutionize Refugee Resettlement
Krishnadev Calamur in The Atlantic: “… For nearly 70 years, the process of interviewing, allocating, and accepting refugees has gone largely unchanged. In 1951, 145 countries came together in Geneva, Switzerland, to sign the Refugee Convention, the pact that defines who is a refugee, what refugees’ rights are, and what legal obligations states have to protect them. This process was born of the idealism of the postwar years—an attempt to make certain that those fleeing war or persecution could find safety so that horrific moments in history, such as the Holocaust, didn’t recur. The pact may have been far... (More >)
Seven design principles for using blockchain for social impact
Stefaan Verhulst at Apolitical: “2018 will probably be remembered as the bust of the blockchain hype. Yet even as crypto currencies continue to sink in value and popular interest, the potential of using blockchain technologies to achieve social ends remains important to consider but poorly understood. In 2019, business will continue to explore blockchain for sectors as disparate as finance, agriculture, logistics and healthcare. Policymakers and social innovators should also leverage 2019 to become more sophisticated about blockchain’s real promise, limitations and current practice. In a recent report I prepared with Andrew Young, with the support of the Rockefeller... (More >)
NHS Pulls Out Of Data-Sharing Deal With Home Office Immigration Enforcers
Jasmin Gray at Huffington Post: “The NHS has pulled out of a controversial data-sharing arrangement with the Home Office which saw confidential patients’ details passed on to immigration enforcers. In May, the government suspended the ‘memorandum of understanding’ agreement between the health service and the Home Office after MPs, doctors and health charities warned it was leaving seriously ill migrants too afraid to seek medical treatment. But on Tuesday, NHS Digital announced that it was cutting itself out of the agreement altogether. “NHS Digital has received a revised narrowed request from the Home Office and is discussing this request... (More >)
DNA databases are too white. This man aims to fix that.
Interview of Carlos D. Bustamante by David Rotman: “In the 15 years since the Human Genome Project first exposed our DNA blueprint, vast amounts of genetic data have been collected from millions of people in many different parts of the world. Carlos D. Bustamante’s job is to search that genetic data for clues to everything from ancient history and human migration patterns to the reasons people with different ancestries are so varied in their response to common diseases. Bustamante’s career has roughly spanned the period since the Human Genome Project was completed. A professor of genetics and biomedical data... (More >)
How data helped visualize the family separation crisis
Chava Gourarie at StoryBench: “Early this summer, at the height of the family separation crisis – where children were being forcibly separated from their parents at our nation’s border – a team of scholars pooled their skills to address the issue. The group of researchers – from a variety of humanities departments at multiple universities – spent a week of non-stop work mapping the immigration detention network that spans the United States. They named the project “Torn Apart/Separados” and published it online, to support the efforts of locating and reuniting the separated children with their parents. The project utilizes... (More >)
Information Asymmetries, Blockchain Technologies, and Social Change
Reflections by Stefaan Verhulst on “the potential (and challenges) of Distributed Ledgers for “Market for Lemons” Conditions: We live in a data age, and it has become common to extol the transformative power of data and information. It is now conventional to assume that many of our most pressing public problems—everything from climate change to terrorism to mass migration—are amenable to a “data fix.” The truth, though, is a little more complicated. While there is no doubt that data—when analyzed and used responsibly—holds tremendous potential, many factors affect whether, and to what extent, that potential will ultimately be fulfilled.... (More >)
Migration Data using Social Media
European Commission JRC Technical Report: “Migration is a top political priority for the European Union (EU). Data on international migrant stocks and flows are essential for effective migration management. In this report, we estimated the number of expatriates in 17 EU countries based on the number of Facebook Network users who are classified by Facebook as “expats”. To this end, we proposed a method for correcting the over- or under-representativeness of Facebook Network users compared to countries’ actual population. This method uses Facebook penetration rates by age group and gender in the country of previous residence and country of... (More >)
