Publicizing Corporate Secrets for Public Good

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Christopher Morten: “Federal regulatory agencies in the United States hold a treasure trove of valuable information essential to a functional society. Yet little of this immense and nominally “public” resource is accessible to the public. That worrying phenomenon is particularly true for the valuable information that agencies hold on powerful private actors. Corporations regularly shield vast swaths of the information they share with federal regulatory agencies from public view, claiming that the information contains legally protected trade secrets (or other proprietary “confidential commercial information”). Federal agencies themselves have largely acceded to these claims and even fueled them, by construing restrictively various doctrines of law, including trade secrecy law, freedom of information law, and constitutional law. Today, these laws—and fear of these laws—have reduced to a trickle the flow of information that the public can access. This should not and need not be the case.

This article challenges the conventional wisdom that trade secrecy law restricts public agencies’ power to publicize private businesses’ secrets. In fact, federal agencies, and regulatory agencies especially, have long held and still hold statutory and constitutional authority to obtain and divulge otherwise secret information on private actors, when doing so serves the public interest. For many regulatory agencies, that authority extends even to bona fide trade secrets. In an age of “informational capitalism,” this disclosure authority makes U.S. federal regulatory agencies uniquely valuable—and perhaps uniquely dangerous. Building on recent work that explores this right in the context of drugs and vaccines, and drawing heavily from scholarship in privacy and information law, the article proposes a practical framework that regulators can use to publicize secret information in a way that maximizes public benefit and minimizes private harm. Rather than endorse unconstrained information disclosure—transparency for transparency’s sake—this article instead proposes controlled “information publicity,” in which regulators cultivate carefully bounded “gardens” of secret information. Within these gardens, agencies admit only certain users and certain uses of information. Drawing on existing but largely overlooked real-world examples, the article shows that regulators can effectively and selectively publicize trade secret information to noncommercial users while thwarting commercial uses. Regulators can protect trade secrets’ integrity vis-à-vis competitors while simultaneously unlocking new, socially valuable uses…(More)”.

Toward A Periodic Table of Open Data in Cities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Andrew Zahuranec, Adrienne Schmoeker, Hannah Chafetz and Stefaan G Verhulst: “In 2016, The GovLab studied the impact of open data in countries around the world. Through a series of case studies examining the value of open data across sectors, regions, and types of impact, we developed a framework for understanding the factors and variables that enable or complicate the success of open data initiatives. We called this framework the Periodic Table of Open Impact Factors.

Over the years, this tool has attracted substantial interest from data practitioners around the world. However, given the countless developments since 2016, we knew it needed to be updated and made relevant to our current work on urban innovation and the Third Wave of Open Data.

Last month, the Open Data Policy Lab held a collaborative discussion with our City Incubator participants and Council of Mentors. In a workshop setting with structured brainstorming sessions, we introduced the periodic table to participants and asked how this framework could be applied to city governments. We knew that city government often have fewer resources than other levels of government yet benefit from a potentially stronger connection to constituents being served. How might this Periodic Table of Open Data Elements be different at a city government level? We gathered participant and mentor feedback and worked to revise the table.

Today, to celebrate NYC Open Data Week 2022, the celebration of open data in New York, we are happy to release this refined model with a distinctive focus on developing open data strategies within cities. The Open Data Policy Lab is happy to present the Periodic Table of Open Data in Cities.

The Periodic Table of Open Data in Cities

Separated into five categories — Problem and Demand Definition, Capacity and Culture, Governance and Standards, Partnerships, and Risks and Ethical Pitfalls — this table provides a summary of some of the major issues that open data practitioners can think about as they develop strategies for release and use of open data in the communities they serve. We sought to specifically incorporate the needs of city incubators (as determined by our workshop), but the table can be relevant to a variety of stakeholders.

While descriptions for each of these elements are included below, the Periodic Table of Open Data Elements in Cities is an iterative framework and new elements will be perennially added or adjusted in accordance with emerging practices…(More)”.

NIH issues a seismic mandate: share data publicly

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Max Kozlov at Nature: “In January 2023, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will begin requiring most of the 300,000 researchers and 2,500 institutions it funds annually to include a data-management plan in their grant applications — and to eventually make their data publicly available.

Researchers who spoke to Nature largely applaud the open-science principles underlying the policy — and the global example it sets. But some have concerns about the logistical challenges that researchers and their institutions will face in complying with it. Namely, they worry that the policy might exacerbate existing inequities in the science-funding landscape and could be a burden for early-career scientists, who do the lion’s share of data collection and are already stretched thin.

Because the vast majority of laboratories and institutions don’t have data managers who organize and curate data, the policy — although well-intentioned — will probably put a heavy burden on trainees and early-career principal investigators, says Lynda Coughlan, a vaccinologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, who has been leading a research team for fewer than two years and is worried about what the policy will mean for her.

Jorgenson says that, although the policy might require researchers to spend extra time organizing their data, it’s an essential part of conducting research, and the potential long-term boost in public trust for science will justify the extra effort…(More)”.

Measuring Data Demand Within the Public Sector

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Discussion Paper for data.europa.eu: “What are the needs of open data re-users from public sector institutions in Europe? This question is critical to facilitate the publication of open data and support to re-users from EU institutions and public authorities in Member States in line with their needs for policymaking, service provision and organisational management. To what extent is this question asked in open data policymaking across Europe? And how?

This discussion paper provides an overview of the state-of-the-art of existing approaches and indicators in the European open data landscape to assess public institutions’ needs as data re-users. This overview serves as a basis to drive a discussion with public sector stakeholders on suitable methods and indicators to measure public institutions’ data demand to foster demand-driven data publication and support on data.europa.eu, the official portal for European data.

The undertaken literature review and the analysis of international measurement frameworks show feeble evidence of existing approaches and indicators developed by EU institutions and Member States to assess public institutions’ open data demand. The results of this discussion paper raise the following questions to be discussed with stakeholders to further develop demand-driven data publication and support to public sector re-users.

  1. Why is it important to measure public institutions’ data demand?
  2. What are suitable engagement activities for public sector re-users?
  3. What is needed to evolve demand measurement from an occasional to a structural
    activity?
  4. How can automated metrics be leveraged to measure the data demand by public
    institutions?
  5. To what extent can existing international indicators be re-used and complemented to
    measure public institutions’ data demand?
  6. How can data providers in EU institutions and Member States be supported in adopting a
    demand-driven approach towards the publication of open data for public sector purposes?…(More)”.

End the State Monopoly on Facts

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Adam J. White: “…This Covid-era dynamic has accelerated broader trends toward the consolidation of informational power among a few centralized authorities. And it has further deformed the loose set of institutions and norms that Jonathan Rauch, in a 2018 National Affairs article, identified as Western civilization’s “constitution of knowledge.” This is an arrangement in science, journalism, and the courts in which “any hypothesis can be floated” but “can join reality only insofar as it persuades people after withstanding vigorous questioning and criticism.” The more that Americans delegate the hard work of developing and distributing information to a small number of regulatory institutions, the less capable we all will be of correcting the system’s mistakes — and the more likely the system will be to make mistakes in the first place.

In a 1999 law review article, Timur Kuran and Cass Sunstein warned of availability cascades, a process in which activists promote factual assertions and narratives that in a self-reinforcing dynamic become more plausible the more widely available they are, and can eventually overwhelm the public’s perception. The Covid-19 era has been marked by the opposite problem: unavailability cascades, in which media institutions and social media platforms swiftly erase disfavored narratives and dissenting contentions from the marketplace of ideas, making them seem implausible by their near unavailability. Such cascades occur because legacy media and social media platforms have come to rely overwhelmingly, even exclusively, on federal regulatory agencies’ factual assertions and the pronouncements of a small handful of other favored institutions, such as the World Health Organization, as the gold standard of facts. But availability and unavailability cascades, even when intended in good faith to prevent the spread of disinformation among the public, risk misinforming the very people they purport to inform. A more diverse and vibrant ecosystem of informational institutions would disincentivize the platforms’ and media’s reflexive, cascading reactions to dissenting views.

This second problem — the concentration of informational power — exacerbates the first one: how to counterbalance the executive branch’s power after an emergency. In order for Congress, the courts, and other governing institutions to reassert their own constitutional roles after the initial weeks and months of crisis, they (and the public) need credible sources of information outside the administration itself. An informational ecosystem not overweighted so heavily toward administrative agencies, one that benefits more from the independent contributions of experts in universities, think tanks, journalism, and other public and private institutions, would improve the quality of information that it produces. It would also be less susceptible to the reflexively partisan skepticism that has become endemic in the polarization of modern president-centric government…(More)”.

A new data deal: the case of Barcelona

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Fernando Monge, Sarah Barns, Rainer Kattel and Francesca Bria: “Cities today are key sites for the operation of global digital marketplaces. It is at the curbsides and the intersections of cities where global digital platforms gain access to valuable urban data to be used in the delivery of data-driven urban services. Signalling an emerging role for city governments in contributing to regulatory responses to global digital platforms, a number of cities have in recent years tested their capacity to reclaim the urban data that is ‘harvested’ and monetised by digital platforms for improved local governance and participation. Focusing on the City of Barcelona, this paper investigates the conditions that enabled Barcelona to pivot from its strong focus on attracting commercial platforms under the rubric of smart city programs, to becoming one of the leading advocates of a citizen-first data rights and data sovereignty agenda. Through a series of interviews with key participants involved in the design and implementation of Barcelona’s data sovereignty program under Mayor Ada Colau, the paper examines the policy and governance instruments deployed by the city to regain access and control over data and discusses the challenges and tensions it faced during the implementation phases of the program. Finally, the paper presents the main lessons of the Barcelona experience for other cities, including a reflection on the role that cities can play in shaping a global agenda around improved data governance….(More)”.

Open Data Governance and Its Actors: Theory and Practice

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Maxat Kassen: “This book combines theoretical and practical knowledge about key actors and driving forces that help to initiate and advance open data governance. Using Finland and Sweden as case studies, it sheds light on the roles of key actors in the open data movement, enabling researchers to understand the key operational elements of data-driven governance. It also examines the most salient manifestations of related networking activities, the motivations of stakeholders, and the political and socioeconomic readiness of the public, private and civic sectors to advance such policies. The book will appeal to e-government experts, policymakers and political scientists, as well as academics and students of public administration, public policy, and open data governance…(More)”.

Data Innovation in Demography, Migration and Human Mobility

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Bosco, C., Grubanov-Boskovic, S., Iacus, S., Minora, U., Sermi, F. and Spyratos, S.: “With the consolidation of the culture of evidence-based policymaking, the availability of data has become central for policymakers. Nowadays, innovative data sources have offered opportunity to describe more accurately demographic, mobility- and migration- related phenomena by making available large volumes of real-time and spatially detailed data. At the same time, however, data innovation has brought up new challenges (ethics, privacy, data governance models, data quality) for citizens, statistical offices, policymakers and the private sector.

Focusing on the fields of demography, mobility and migration studies, the aim of this report is to assess the current state of utilisation of data innovation in the scientific literature as well as to identify areas in which data innovation has the most concrete potential for policymaking. For that purpose, this study has reviewed more than 300 articles and scientific reports, as well as numerous tools, that employed non-traditional data sources for demographic, human mobility or migration research.The specific findings of our report contribute to a discussion on a) how innovative data is used in respect to traditional data sources; b) domains in which innovative data have the highest potential to contribute to policymaking; c) prospects for an innovative data transition towards systematic contribution to official statistics and policymaking…(More)”. See also Big Data for Migration Alliance.

Guide for Policymakers on Making Transparency Meaningful

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by CDT: “In 2020, the Minneapolis police used a unique kind of warrant to investigate vandalism of an AutoZone store during the protests over the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. This “geofence” warrant required Google to turn over data on all users within a certain geographic area around the store at a particular time — which would have included not only the vandal, but also protesters, bystanders, and journalists. 

It was only several months later that the public learned of the warrant, because Google notified a user that his account information was subject to the warrant, and the user told reporters. And it was not until a year later — when Google first published a transparency report with data about geofence warrants — that the public learned the total number of geofence warrants Google receives from U.S. authorities and of a recent “explosion” in their use. New York lawmakers introduced a bill to forbid geofence warrants because of concerns they could be used to target protesters, and, in light of Google’s transparency report, some civil society organizations are calling for them to be banned, too.

Technology company transparency matters, as this example shows. Transparency about governmental and company practices that affect users’ speech, access to information, and privacy from government surveillance online help us understand and check the ways in which tech companies and governments wield power and impact people’s human rights. 

Policymakers are increasingly proposing transparency measures as part of their efforts to regulate tech companies, both in the United States and around the world. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about transparency when it comes to technology companies like social networks, messaging services, and telecommunications firms? A new report from CDT, Making Transparency Meaningful: A Framework for Policymakers, maps and describes four distinct categories of technology company transparency:

  1. Transparency reports that provide aggregated data and qualitative information about moderation actions, disclosures, and other practices concerning user generated content and government surveillance; 
  2. User notifications about government demands for their data and moderation of their content; 
  3. Access to data held by intermediaries for independent researchers, public policy advocates, and journalists; and 
  4. Public-facing analysis, assessments, and audits of technology company practices with respect to user speech and privacy from government surveillance. 

Different forms of transparency are useful for different purposes or audiences, and they also give rise to varying technical, legal, and practical challenges. Making Transparency Meaningful is designed to help policymakers and advocates understand the potential benefits and tradeoffs that come with each form of transparency. This report addresses key questions raised by proposed legislation in the United States and Europe that seeks to mandate one or more of these types of transparency and thereby hold tech companies and governments more accountable….(More)”.

Leveraging Non-Traditional Data For The Covid-19 Socioeconomic Recovery Strategy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Deepali Khanna: “To this end, it is opportune to ask the following questions: Can we harness the power of data routinely collected by companies—including transportation providers, mobile network operators, social media networks and others—for the public good? Can we bridge the data gap to give governments access to data, insights and tools that can inform national and local response and recovery strategies?

There is increasing recognition that traditional and non-traditional data should be seen as complementary resources. Non-traditional data can bring significant benefits in bridging existing data gaps but must still be calibrated against benchmarks based on established traditional data sources. These traditional datasets are widely seen as reliable as they are subject to established stringent international and national standards. However, they are often limited in frequency and granularity, especially in low- and middle-income countries, given the cost and time required to collect such data. For example, official economic indicators such as GDP, household consumption and consumer confidence may be available only up to national or regional level with quarterly updates…

In the Philippines, UNDP, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation and the government of Japan, recently setup the Pintig Lab: a multidisciplinary network of data scientists, economists, epidemiologists, mathematicians and political scientists, tasked with supporting data-driven crisis response and development strategies. In early 2021, the Lab conducted a study which explored how household spending on consumer-packaged goods, or fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), can been used to assess the socioeconomic impact of Covid-19 and identify heterogeneities in the pace of recovery across households in the Philippines. The Philippine National Economic Development Agency is now in the process of incorporating this data for their GDP forecasting, as additional input to their predictive models for consumption. Further, this data can be combined with other non-traditional datasets such as credit card or mobile wallet transactions, and machine learning techniques for higher-frequency GDP nowcasting, to allow for more nimble and responsive economic policies that can both absorb and anticipate the shocks of crisis….(More)”.