Paper by Daniel Kondor, Behrooz Hashemian, Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye and Carlo Ratti: “The problem of unicity and reidentifiability of records in large-scale databases has been studied in different contexts and approaches, with focus on preserving privacy or matching records from different data sources. With an increasing number of service providers nowadays routinely collecting location traces of their users on unprecedented scales, there is a pronounced interest in the possibility of matching records and datasets based on spatial trajectories. Extending previous work on reidentifiability of spatial data and trajectory matching, we present the first large-scale analysis of user matchability in real mobility datasets on realistic scales, i.e. among two datasets that consist of several million people’s mobility traces, coming from a mobile network operator and transportation smart card usage. We extract the relevant statistical properties which influence the matching process and analyze their impact on the matchability of users. We show that for individuals with typical activity in the transportation system (those making 3-4 trips per day on average), a matching algorithm based on the co-occurrence of their activities is expected to achieve a 16.8% success only after a one-week long observation of their mobility traces, and over 55% after four weeks. We show that the main determinant of matchability is the expected number of co-occurring records in the two datasets. Finally, we discuss different scenarios in terms of data collection frequency and give estimates of matchability over time. We show that with higher frequency data collection becoming more common, we can expect much higher success rates in even shorter intervals….(More)”.
Bad Landlord? These Coders Are Here to Help
Luis Ferré-Sadurní in the New York Times: “When Dan Kass moved to New York City in 2013 after graduating from college in Boston, his introduction to the city was one that many New Yorkers are all too familiar with: a bad landlord….
Examples include an app called Heatseek, created by students at a coding academy, that allows tenants to record and report the temperature in their homes to ensure that landlords don’t skimp on the heat. There’s also the Displacement Alert Project, built by a coalition of affordable housing groups, that maps out buildings and neighborhoods at risk of displacement.
Now, many of these civic coders are trying to band together and formalize a community.
For more than a year, Mr. Kass and other housing-data wonks have met each month at a shared work space in Brooklyn to exchange ideas about projects and talk about data sets over beer and snacks. Some come from prominent housing advocacy groups; others work unrelated day jobs. They informally call themselves the Housing Data Coalition.
“The real estate industry has many more programmers, many more developers, many more technical tools at their disposal,” said Ziggy Mintz, 30, a computer programmer who is part of the coalition. “It never quite seems fair that the tenant side of the equation doesn’t have the same tools.”
“Our collaboration is a counteracting force to that,” said Lucy Block, a research and policy associate at the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, the group behind the Displacement Alert Project. “We are trying to build the capacity to fight the displacement of low-income people in the city.”
This week, Mr. Kass and his team at JustFix.nyc, a nonprofit technology start-up, launched a new database for tenants that was built off ideas raised during those monthly meetings.
The tool, called Who Owns What, allows tenants to punch in an address and look up other buildings associated with the landlord or management company. It might sound inconsequential, but the tool goes a long way in piercing the veil of secrecy that shrouds the portfolios of landlords….(More)”.
Welcome to ShareTown
Jenni Lloyd and Alice Casey at Nesta: “Today, we’re pleased to welcome you to ShareTown. Our fictional town and its cast of characters
In this future, government plays a plurality of roles, working closely with local people to understand their needs, how these can best be met and by whom. Provided with new opportunities to connect and collaborate with others, individuals and households are free to navigate, combine and contribute to different services as they see fit
…the ShareLab team wanted to find a route by which we could explore how people’s needs can be put at the
Futures Cone from Nesta’s report ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: A modest defence of futurology’
ShareTown is not intended as a prediction, but a source of inspiration – and provocation. If, as theatre-maker Annette Mees says, the future is fictional and the fictions created about it help us set our direction of travel, then the making of stories about the future we want should be something we can all be involved in – not just the media, politicians, or brands…. (More)”.
All Data Are Local: Thinking Critically in a Data-Driven Society
Book by Yanni Alexander Loukissas: “In our data-driven society, it is too easy to assume the transparency of data. Instead, Yanni Loukissas argues in All Data Are Local, we should approach data sets with an awareness that data are created by humans and their dutiful machines, at a time, in a place, with the instruments at hand, for audiences that are conditioned to receive them. All data are local. The term data set implies something discrete, complete, and portable, but it is none of those things. Examining a series of data sources important for understanding the state of public life in the United States—Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, the Digital Public Library of America, UCLA’s Television News Archive, and the real estate marketplace Zillow—Loukissas shows us how to analyze data settings rather than data sets.
Loukissas sets out six principles: all data are local; data have complex attachments to place; data are collected from heterogeneous sources; data and algorithms are inextricably entangled; interfaces recontextualize data; and data are indexes to local knowledge. He then provides a set of practical guidelines to follow. To make his argument, Loukissas employs a combination of qualitative research on data cultures and exploratory data visualizations. Rebutting the “myth of digital universalism,” Loukissas reminds us of the meaning-making power of the local….(More)”.
Beijing to Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020
Bloomberg News: “China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.
The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government’s website on Monday. Those with better so-called social credit will get “green channel” benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.
The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be “unable to move even a single step,” according to the government’s plan. Xinhua reported on the proposal Tuesday, while the report posted on the municipal government’s website is dated July 18.
China has long experimented with systems that grade its citizens, rewarding good behavior with streamlined services while punishing bad actions with restrictions and penalties. Critics say such moves are fraught with risks and could lead to systems that reduce humans to little more than a report card.
Ambitious Plan
Beijing’s efforts represent the most ambitious yet among more than a dozen cities that are moving ahead with similar programs.
Hangzhou rolled out its personal credit system earlier this year, rewarding “pro-social behaviors” such as volunteer work and blood donations while punishing those who violate traffic laws and charge under-the-table fees. By the end of May, people with bad credit in China have been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
According to the Beijing government’s plan, different agencies will link databases to get a more detailed picture of every resident’s interactions across a swathe of services
Force Google, Apple and Uber to share mapping data, UK advised
Aliya Ram and Madhumita Murgia at the Financial Times: “The UK government should force Google, Apple, Uber and others to share their mapping data so that other companies can develop autonomous cars, drones and transport apps, according to an influential campaign group. The Open Data Institute, co-founded by Tim Berners-Lee at MIT and Nigel Shadbolt, artificial intelligence professor at the University of Oxford, warned on Tuesday that big tech companies had become “data monopolies”.
The group said the UK’s Geospatial Commission should ask the companies to share map data with rivals and the public sector in a collaborative database or else force them to do so with legislation.
“Google along with all of the other companies like Apple and Uber are trying to deliver an excellent service to their clients and customers,” said Jeni Tennison, chief executive of the Open Data Institute. “The status quo is not optimal because all of the
On Tuesday, the UK government said its Office for Artificial Intelligence had teamed up with the ODI to pilot two new “data trusts” — legal structures that allow multiple groups to share anonymised information. Data trusts have been described as a good way for small business to compete with large rivals that have lots of data, but only a handful have been set up so far.
The trusts will be designed over the next few months and could be used to share data, for example, about cities, the environment, biodiversity and transport. Ms Tennison said the ODI was also working on a data trust with the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and local authorities in Greenwich to see how real time data from the internet of things and sensors could be shared with start-ups to solve problems in the city. London’s transport authority has said ride hailing apps would be forced to turn over travel data to the government. Uber now provides public access to its data on traffic and travel conditions in the UK….(More) (Full Report)”.
It’s time to let citizens tackle the wickedest public problems
Gabriella Capone at apolitical (a winner of the 2018 Apolitical Young Thought Leaders competition): “Rain ravaged Gdańsk in 2016, taking the lives of two residents and causing millions of euros in damage. Despite its 700-year history of flooding the city was overwhelmed by these especially devastating floods. Also, Gdańsk is one of the European coasts most exposed to rising sea levels. It needed a new approach to avoid similar outcomes for the next, inevitable encounter with this worsening problem.
Bringing in citizens to tackle such a difficult issue was not the obvious course of action. Yet this was the proposal of Dr. Marcin Gerwin, an advocate from a neighbouring town who paved the way for Poland’s first participatory budgeting experience.
Mayor Adamowicz of Gdańsk agreed and, within a year, they welcomed about 60 people to the first Citizens Assembly on flood mitigation. Implemented by Dr. Gerwin and a team of coordinators, the Assembly convened over four Saturdays, heard expert testimony, and devised solutions.
The Assembly was not only deliberative and educational, it was action-oriented. Mayor Adamowicz committed to implement proposals on which 80% or more of participants agreed. The final 16 proposals included the investment of nearly $40 million USD in monitoring systems and infrastructure, subsidies to incentivise individuals to improve water management on their property, and an educational “Do Not Flood” campaign to highlight emergency resources.
It may seem risky to outsource the solving of difficult issues to citizens. Yet, when properly designed, public problem-solving can produce creative resolutions to formidable challenges. Beyond Poland, public problem-solving initiatives in Mexico and the United States are making headway on pervasive issues, from flooding to air pollution, to technology in public spaces.
The GovLab, with support from the Tinker Foundation, is
Quantifying Bicycle Network Connectivity in Lisbon Using Open Data
Lorena Abad and Lucas van der Meer in information: “Stimulating non-motorized transport
For each part of the city, a score was computed based on how many common destinations (e.g., schools, universities, supermarkets, hospitals) were located within an acceptable biking distance when using only bicycle lanes and roads with low traffic stress for cyclists. Taking a weighted average of these scores resulted in an overall score for the city of Lisbon of only 8.6 out of 100 points. This shows, at a glance, that the city still has a long way to go before achieving their objectives regarding bicycle use in the city….(More)”.
Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up
Harvard Business School Case Study by Leslie K. John, Mitchell Weiss and Julia Kelley: “By the time Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, began hosting a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session in January 2018, he had only nine months remaining to convince the people of Toronto, their government representatives, and presumably his parent company Alphabet, Inc., that Sidewalk Labs’ plan to construct “the first truly 21st-century city” on the Canadian city’s waterfront was a sound one. Along with much excitement and optimism, strains of concern had emerged since Doctoroff and partners first announced their intentions for a city “built from the internet up” in Toronto’s Quayside district. As Doctoroff prepared for yet another milestone in a year of planning and community engagement, it was almost certain that of the many questions headed his way, digital privacy would be among them….(More)”.
Building Better Cities with Civic Technology
Mapping by Kate Gasporro: “…The field of civic technology is relatively new. There are limited strategies to measure
By mapping the landscape of civic technology, we can see more clearly how eParticipation is being used to address public service challenges, including infrastructure delivery. Although many scholars and practitioners have created independent categories for eParticipation, these categorization frameworks follow a similar pattern. At one end of the spectrum, eParticipation efforts provide public service information and relevant updates to citizens or allowing citizens to contact their officials in a unidirectional flow of information. At the other end, eParticipation efforts allow for deliberate democracy where citizens share decision-making with local government officials. Of the dozen categorization frameworks we found, we selected the most comprehensive one accepted by practitioners. This framework draws from public participation practices and identifies five categories:
eInforming : One-way communication providing online information to citizens (in the form of a website) or togovernment (via ePetitions)eConsulting : Limited two-way communication where citizens can voice their opinions and provide feedbackeInvolving : Two-way communication where citizens go through an online process to capture public concernseCollaborating : Enhanced two-way communication that allows citizens to develop alternative solutions and identify the preferred solution, but decision making remains the government’s responsibilityeEmpowerment : Advanced two-way communication that allows citizens to influence and make decisions as co-producers of policies…
After surveying the civic technology space, we found 24 tools that use eParticipation for infrastructure delivery. We map these technologies according to their intended use phase in infrastructure delivery and type of
The field of civic technology is relatively new. There are limited strategies to measure