Access Rules: Freeing Data from Big Tech for a Better Future

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Thomas Ramge: “Information is power, and the time is now for digital liberation. Access Rules mounts a strong and hopeful argument for how informational tools at present in the hands of a few could instead become empowering machines for everyone. By forcing data-hoarding companies to open access to their data, we can reinvigorate both our economy and our society. Authors Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge contend that if we disrupt monopoly power and create a level playing field, digital innovations can emerge to benefit us all.

Over the past twenty years, Big Tech has managed to centralize the most relevant data on their servers, as data has become the most important raw material for innovation. However, dominant oligopolists like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, in contrast with their reputation as digital pioneers, are actually slowing down innovation and progress by withholding data for the benefit of their shareholders––at the expense of customers, the economy, and society. As Access Rules compellingly argues, ultimately it is up to us to force information giants, wherever they are located, to open their treasure troves of data to others. In order for us to limit global warming, contain a virus like COVID-19, or successfully fight poverty, everyone—including citizens and scientists, start-ups and established companies, as well as the public sector and NGOs—must have access to data. When everyone has access to the informational riches of the data age, the nature of digital power will change. Information technology will find its way back to its original purpose: empowering all of us to use information so we can thrive as individuals and as societies….(More)”.

Making forest data fair and open

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Renato A. F. de Lima : “It is a truth universally acknowledged that those in possession of time and good fortune must be in want of information. Nowhere is this more so than for tropical forests, which include the richest and most productive ecosystems on Earth. Information on tropical forest carbon and biodiversity, and how these are changing, is immensely valuable, and many different stakeholders wish to use data on tropical and subtropical forests. These include scientists, governments, nongovernmental organizations and commercial interests, such as those extracting timber or selling carbon credits. Another crucial, often-ignored group are the local communities for whom forest information may help to assert their rights and conserve or restore their forests.

A widespread view is that to lead to better public outcomes it is necessary and sufficient for forest data to be open and ‘Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable’ (FAIR). There is indeed a powerful case. Open data — those that anyone can use and share without restrictions — can encourage transparency and reproducibility, foster innovation and be used more widely, thus translating into a greater public good (for example, https://creativecommons.org). Open biological collections and genetic sequences such as GBIF or GenBank have enabled species discovery, and open Earth observation data helps people to understand and monitor deforestation (for example, Global Forest Watch). But the perspectives of those who actually make the forest measurements are much less recognized, meaning that open and FAIR data can be extremely unfair indeed. We argue here that forest data policies and practices must be fair in the correct, linguistic use of the term — just and equitable.

In a world in which forest data origination — measuring, monitoring and sustaining forest science — is secured by large, long-term capital investment (such as through space missions and some officially supported national forest inventories), making all data open makes perfect sense. But where data origination depends on insecure funding and precarious employment conditions, top-down calls to make these data open can be deeply problematic. Even when well-intentioned, such calls ignore the socioeconomic context of the places where the forest plots are located and how knowledge is created, entrenching the structural inequalities that characterize scientific research and collaboration among and within nations. A recent review found scant evidence for open data ever lessening such inequalities. Clearly, only a privileged part of the global community is currently able to exploit the potential of open forest data. Meanwhile, some local communities are de facto owners of their forests and associated knowledge, so making information open — for example, the location of valuable species — may carry risks to themselves and their forests….(More)”.

The ethical imperative to identify and address data and intelligence asymmetries

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stefaan Verhulst in AI & Society: “The insight that knowledge, resulting from having access to (privileged) information or data, is power is more relevant today than ever before. The data age has redefined the very notion of knowledge and information (as well as power), leading to a greater reliance on dispersed and decentralized datasets as well as to new forms of innovation and learning, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). As Thomas Piketty (among others) has shown, we live in an increasingly stratified world, and our society’s socio-economic asymmetries are often grafted onto data and information asymmetries. As we have documented elsewhere, data access is fundamentally linked to economic opportunity, improved governance, better science and citizen empowerment. The need to address data and information asymmetries—and their resulting inequalities of political and economic power—is therefore emerging as among the most urgent ethical challenges of our era, yet often not recognized as such.

Even as awareness grows of this imperative, society and policymakers lag in their understanding of the underlying issue. Just what are data asymmetries? How do they emerge, and what form do they take? And how do data asymmetries accelerate information and other asymmetries? What forces and power structures perpetuate or deepen these asymmetries, and vice versa? I argue that it is a mistake to treat this problem as homogenous. In what follows, I suggest the beginning of a taxonomy of asymmetries. Although closely related, each one emerges from a different set of contingencies, and each is likely to require different policy remedies. The focus of this short essay is to start outlining these different types of asymmetries. Further research could deepen and expand the proposed taxonomy as well help define solutions that are contextually appropriate and fit for purpose….(More)”.

Open Data for Social Impact Framework

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Framework by Microsoft: “The global pandemic has shown us the important role of data in understanding, assessing, and taking action to solve the challenges created by COVID-19. However, nearly all organizations, large and small, still struggle to make data relevant to their work. Despite the value data provides, many organizations fail to harness its power to improve outcomes.

Part of this struggle stems from the “data divide” – the gap that exists between countries and organizations that have effective access to data to help them innovate and solve problems and those that do not. To close this divide, Microsoft launched the Open Data Campaign in 2020 to help realize the promise of more open data and data collaborations that drive innovation.

One of the key lessons we’ve learned from the Campaign and the work we’ve been doing with our partners, the Open Data Institute and The GovLab, is that the ability to access and use data to improve outcomes involves much more than technological tools and the data itself. It is also important to be able to leverage and share the experiences and practices that promote effective data collaboration and decision-making. This is especially true when it comes to working with governments, multi-lateral organizations, nonprofits, research institutions, and others who seek to open and reuse data to address important social issues, particularly those faced by developing countries.

Put another way, just having access to data and technology does not magically create value and improve outcomes. Making the most of open data and data collaboration requires thinking about how an organization’s leadership can commit to making data useful towards its mission, defining the questions it wants to answer with data, identifying the skills its team needs to use data, and determining how best to develop and establish trust among collaborators and communities served to derive more insight and benefit from data.

The Open Data for Social Impact Framework is a tool leaders can use to put data to work to solve the challenges most important to them. Recognizing that not all data can be made publicly accessible, we see the tremendous benefits that can come from advancing more open data, whether that takes shape as trusted data collaborations or truly open and public data. We use the phrase ‘social impact’ to mean a positive change towards addressing a societal problem, such as reducing carbon emissions, closing the broadband gap, building skills for jobs, and advancing accessibility and inclusion.

We believe in the limitless opportunities that opening, sharing, and collaborating around data can create to draw out new insights, make better decisions, and improve efficiencies when tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges….(More)”.

Russian Asset Tracker

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Project by OCCRP: “In the wake of Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine, governments around the world have imposed sanctions on many of Putin’s enablers. But they have learned to keep their wealth obscured, hiring an army of lawyers to hide it in secretive bank accounts and corporate structures that reach far offshore. Figuring out who owns what, and how much of it, is a tall order even for experienced police investigators.

That’s why we decided to follow the trail, tracking down as many of these assets as possible and compiling them in a database for the public to see and use. We started with a list of names of people who “actively participate in the oppression and corruption of Putin’s regime” drawn up by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, led by opposition leader Alexei Navalny. We’ll be expanding it soon to include other Russians sanctioned for corruption or their support of Putin.

We looked for land, mansions, companies, boats, planes, and anything else of value that could be tied through documentary evidence to Putin’s circle. Some of these assets have been reported before. Some are being revealed here for the first time. Some are still to be discovered: We’ll keep searching for more properties and yachts, adding more names, and updating this database regularly. If you are aware of anything we’ve missed, please let us know by filling out this form.

For now, we’ve uncovered over $17.5 billion in assets, and counting….(More)”.

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)”.