DATA – Page 359 – The Living Library

City Data Exchange – Lessons Learned From A Public/Private Data Collaboration

Curated on May 30, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

Report by the Municipality of Copenhagen: “The City Data Exchange (CDE) is the product of a collaborative project between the Municipality of Copenhagen, the Capital Region of Denmark, and Hitachi. The purpose of the project is to examine the possibilities of creating a marketplace for the exchange of data between public and private organizations.

The CDE consists of three parts:

A collaboration between the different partners on supply, and demand of specific data;
A platform for selling and purchasing data aimed at both public, and private organizations;
An effort to establish further experience in the field of data exchange between public, and private organizations.

In 2013, the City of Copenhagen, and the Copenhagen Region decided to invest in the creation of a marketplace for the exchange of public, and private sector data. The initial investment was meant as a seed towards a self-sustained marketplace. This was an innovative approach to test the readiness of the market to deliver new data-sharing solutions.

The CDE is the result of a tender by the Municipality of Copenhagen and the Capital Region of Denmark in 2015. Hitachi Consulting won the tender and has invested, and worked with the Municipality of Copenhagen, and the Capital Region of Denmark to establish an organization and a technical platform.

The City Data Exchange (CDE) has closed a gap in regional data infrastructure. Both public-and private sector organizations have used the CDE to gain insights into data use cases, new external data sources, GDPR issues, and to explore the value of their data. Before the CDE was launched, there were only a few options available to purchase or sell data.

The City and the Region of Copenhagen are utilizing the insights from the CDE project to improve their internal activities and to shape new policies. The lessons from the CDE also provide insights into a wider national infrastructure for effective data sharing. Based on the insights from approximately 1000 people that the CDE has been in contact with, the recommendations are:

Start with the use case, as it is key to engage the data community that will use the data;
Create a data competence hub, where the data community can meet and get support;
Create simple standards and guidelines for data publishing.

The following paper presents some of the key findings from our work with the CDE. It has been compiled by Smart City Insights on behalf of the partners of the City Data Exchange project…(More)”.

Free Speech is a Triangle

Curated on May 30, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

Essay by Jack Balkin: “The vision of free expression that characterized much of the twentieth century is inadequate to protect free expression today.

The twentieth century featured a dyadic or dualist model of speech regulation with two basic kinds of players: territorial governments on the one hand, and speakers on the other. The twenty-first century model is pluralist, with multiple players. It is easiest to think of it as a triangle. On one corner are nation states and the European Union. On the second corner are privately-owned Internet infrastructure companies, including social media companies, search engines, broadband providers, and electronic payment systems. On the third corner are many different kinds of speakers, legacy media, civil society organizations, hackers, and trolls.

Territorial goverments continue to regulate speakers and legacy media through traditional or “old-school” speech regulation. But nation states and the European Union also now employ “new-school” speech regulation that is aimed at Internet infrastructure owners and designed to get these private companies to surveil, censor, and regulate speakers for them. Finally, infrastructure companies like Facebook also regulate and govern speakers through techniques of private governance and surveillance.

The practical ability to speak in the digital world emerges from the struggle for power between these various forces, with old-school, new-school and private regulation directed at speakers, and both nation states and civil society organizations pressuring infrastructure owners to regulate speech.

If the characteristic feature of free speech regulation in our time is a triangle that combines new school speech regulation with private governance, then the best way to protect free speech values today is to combat and compensate for that triangle’s evolving logic of public and private regulation. The first goal is to prevent or ameliorate as much as possible collateral censorship and new forms of digital prior restraint. The second goal is to protect people from new methods of digital surveillance and manipulation—methods that emerged from the rise of large multinational companies that depend on data collection, surveillance, analysis, control, and distribution of personal data.

This essay describes how nation states should and should not regulate the digital infrastructure consistent with the values of freedom of speech and press; it emphasizes that different models of regulation are appropriate for different parts of the digital infrastructure. Some parts of the digital infrastructure are best regulated along the lines of common carriers or places of public accommodation. But governments should not impose First Amendment-style or common carriage obligations on social media and search engines. Rather, governments should require these companies to provide due process toward their end-users. Governments should also treat these companies as information fiduciaries who have duties of good faith and non-manipulation toward their end-users. Governments can implement all of these reforms—properly designed—consistent with constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press….(More)”.

Skills for a Lifetime

Curated on May 30, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

Nate Silver’s commencement address at Kenyon College: “….Power has shifted toward people and companies with a lot of proficiency in data science.

I obviously don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. But it’s by no means entirely a good thing, either. You should still inherently harbor some suspicion of big, powerful institutions and their potentially self-serving and short-sighted motivations. Companies and governments that are capable of using data in powerful ways are also capable of abusing it.

What worries me the most, especially at companies like Facebook and at other Silicon Valley behemoths, is the idea that using data science allows one to remove human judgment from the equation. For instance, in announcing a recent change to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook was not “comfortable” trying to come up with a way to determine which news organizations were most trustworthy; rather, the “most objective” solution was to have readers vote on trustworthiness instead. Maybe this is a good idea and maybe it isn’t — but what bothered me was in the notion that Facebook could avoid responsibility for its algorithm by outsourcing the judgment to its readers.

I also worry about this attitude when I hear people use terms such as “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” (instead of simpler terms like “computer program”). Phrases like “machine learning” appeal to people’s notion of a push-button solution — meaning, push a button, and the computer does all your thinking for you, no human judgment required.

But the reality is that working with data requires lots of judgment. First, it requires critical judgment — and experience — when drawing inferences from data. And second, it requires moral judgment in deciding what your goals are and in establishing boundaries for your work.

Let’s talk about that first type of judgment — critical judgment. The more experience you have in working with different data sets, the more you’ll realize that the correct interpretation of the data is rarely obvious, and that the obvious-seeming interpretation isn’t always correct. Sometimes changing a single assumption or a single line of code can radically change your conclusion. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for instance, there were a series of models that all used almost exactly the same inputs — but they ranged in giving Trump as high as roughly a one-in-three chance of winning the presidency (that was FiveThirtyEight’s model) to as low as one chance in 100, based on fairly subtle aspects of how each algorithm was designed….(More)”.

Digital Government Review of Colombia

Curated on May 30, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

OECD Report: “This review analyses the shift from e-government to digital government in Colombia. It looks at the governance framework for digital government, the use of digital platforms and open data to engage and collaborate with citizens, conditions for a data-driven public sector, and policy coherence in a context of significant regional disparities. It provides concrete policy recommendations on how digital technologies and data can be harnessed for citizen-driven policy making and public service delivery…(More)”.

Public Policy in an AI Economy

Curated on May 30, 2018May 29, 2019 by admin

NBER Working Paper by Austan Goolsbee: “This paper considers the role of policy in an AI-intensive economy (interpreting AI broadly). It emphasizes the speed of adoption of the technology for the impact on the job market and the implications for inequality across people and across places. It also discusses the challenges of enacting a Universal Basic Income as a response to widespread AI adoption, discuss pricing, privacy and competition policy the question of whether AI could improve policy making itself….(More).

Governance on the Drug Supply Chain via Gcoin Blockchain

Curated on May 30, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

Paper by Jen-Hung Tseng et al in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: “…blockchain was recently introduced to the public to provide an immutable, consensus based and transparent system in the Fintech field. However, there are ongoing efforts to apply blockchain to other fields where trust and value are essential. In this paper, we suggest Gcoin blockchain as the base of the data flow of drugs to create transparent drug transaction data. Additionally, the regulation model of the drug supply chain could be altered from the inspection and examination only model to the surveillance net model, and every unit that is involved in the drug supply chain would be able to participate simultaneously to prevent counterfeit drugs and to protect public health, including patients….(More)”.

How Policymakers Can Foster Algorithmic Accountability

Curated on May 30, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

Report by Joshua New and Daniel Castro: “Increased automation with algorithms, particularly through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), offers opportunities for the public and private sectors to complete increasingly complex tasks with a level of productivity and effectiveness far beyond that of humans, generating substantial social and economic benefits in the process. However, many believe an increased use of algorithms will lead to a host of harms, including exacerbating existing biases and inequalities, and have therefore called for new public policies, such as establishing an independent commission to regulate algorithms or requiring companies to explain publicly how their algorithms make decisions. Unfortunately, all of these proposals would lead to less AI use, thereby hindering social and economic progress.

Policymakers should reject these proposals and instead support algorithmic decision-making by promoting policies that ensure its robust development and widespread adoption. Like any new technology, there are strong incentives among both developers and adopters to improve algorithmic decision-making and ensure its applications do not contain flaws, such as bias, that reduce their effectiveness. Thus, rather than establish a master regulatory framework for all algorithms, policymakers should do what they have always done with regard to technology regulation: enact regulation only where it is required, targeting specific harms in particular application areas through dedicated regulatory bodies that are already charged with oversight of that particular sector. To accomplish this, regulators should pursue algorithmic accountability—the principle that an algorithmic system should employ a variety of controls to ensure the operator (i.e., the party responsible for deploying the algorithm) can verify it acts in accordance with its intentions, as well as identify and rectify harmful outcomes. Adopting this framework would both promote the vast benefits of algorithmic decision-making and minimize harmful outcomes, while also ensuring laws that apply to human decisions can be effectively applied to algorithmic decisions….(More)”.

The GovLab Selected Readings on Blockchain Technologies and the Governance of Extractives

Curated on May 29, 2018May 29, 2019 by Andrew Young

Curation by Andrew Young, Anders Pedersen, and Stefaan G. Verhulst

Readings developed together with NRGI, within the context of our joint project on Blockchain technologies and the Governance of Extractives. Thanks to Joyce Zhang and Michelle Winowatan for research support.

We need your help! Please share any additional readings on the use of Blockchain Technologies in the Extractives Sector with [email protected].

Introduction

By providing new ways to securely identify individuals and organizations, and record transactions of various types in a distributed manner, blockchain technologies have been heralded as a new tool to address information asymmetries, establish trust and improve governance – particularly around the extraction of oil, gas and other natural resources. At the same time, blockchain technologies are been experimented with to optimize certain parts of the extractives value chain – potentially decreasing transparency and accountability while making governance harder to implement.

Across the expansive and complex extractives sector, blockchain technologies are believed to have particular potential for improving governance in three key areas:

Beneficial ownership and illicit flows screening: The identity of those who benefit, through ownership, from companies that extract natural resources is often hidden – potentially contributing to tax evasion, challenges to global sanction regimes, corruption and money laundering.
Land registration, licensing and contracting transparency: To ensure companies extract resources responsibly and comply with rules and fee requirements, effective governance and a process to determine who has the rights to extract natural resources, under what conditions, and who is entitled to the land is essential.
Commodity trading and supply chain transparency: The commodity trading sector is facing substantive challenges in assessing and verifying the authenticity of for example oil trades. Costly time is spent by commodity traders reviewing documentation of often poor quality. The expectation of the sector is firstly to eliminate time spent verifying the authenticity of traded goods and secondly to reduce the risk premium on trades. Transactions from resources and commodities trades are often opaque and secretive, allowing for governments and companies to conceal how much money they receive from trading, and leading to corruption and evasion of taxation.

In the below we provide a selection of the nascent but growing literature on Blockchain Technologies and Extractives across six categories:

Selected Readings

Blockchain Technologies and Extractives – Promise and Current Potential

Adams, Richard, Beth Kewell, Glenn Parry. “Blockchain for Good? Digital Ledger Technology and Sustainable Development Goals.” Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research. October 27, 2017.

This chapter in the Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research seeks to reflect and explore the different ways Blockchain for Good (B4G) projects can provide social and environmental benefits under the UN’s Sustainable Goals framework
The authors describe the main categories in which blockchain can achieve social impact: mining/consensus algorithms that reward good behavior, benefits linked to currency use in the form of “colored coins,” innovations in supply chain, innovations in government, enabling the sharing economy, and fostering financial inclusion.
The chapter concludes that with B4G there is also inevitably “Blockchain for Bad.” There is already critique and failures of DLTs such as the DAO, and more research must be done to identify whether DLTs can provide a more decentralized, egalitarian society, or if they will ultimately be another tool for control and surveillance by organizations and government.

Cullinane, Bernadette, and Randy Wilson. “Transforming the Oil and Gas Industry through Blockchain.” Official Journal of the Australian Institute of Energy News, p 9-10, December 2017.

In this article, Cullinane and Wilson explore blockchain’s application in the oil and gas industry “presents a particularly compelling opportunity…due to the high transactional values, associated risks and relentless pressure to reduce costs.”
The authors elaborate four areas where blockchain can benefit play a role in transforming the oil and gas industry:
- Supply chain management
- Smart contracts
- Record management
- Cross-border payments

Da Silva, Filipe M., and Ankita Jaitly. “Blockchain in Natural Resources: Hedging Against Volatile Prices.” Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., 2018.

The authors of this white paper assess the readiness of natural resources industries for blockchain technology application, identify areas where blockchain can add value, and outline a strategic plan for its adoption.
In particular, they highlight the potential for blockchain in the oil and gas industry to simplify payments, where for example, gas can be delivered directly to consumer homes using a blockchain smart contracting application.

Halford-Thompson, Guy. “Powered by Blockchain: Reinventing Information Management in the Energy Space.” BTL, May 12, 2017.

According to Halford-Thompson, “oil and gas companies are exploring blockchain’s promise to revamp inefficient internal processes and achieve significant reductions in operating costs through the automation of record keeping and messaging, the digitization of the supply chain information flow, and the elimination of reconciliation, among many other data management use cases.”
The data reconciliation process, for one, is complex and can require significant time for completion. Blockchain technology could not only remove the need for some steps in the information reconciliation process, but also eliminate the need for reconciliation altogether in some instances.

Blockchain Technologies and the Governance of Extractives

Koeppen, Mark, David Shrier, and Morgan Bazilian. “Is Blockchain’s Future in Oil and Gas Transformative Or Transient?“ Deloitte, 2017.

In this report, the authors propose four areas that blockchain can improve for the oil and gas industry, which are:
- Transparency and compliance: Employment of blockchain is predicted to significantly reduce cost related to compliance, since it securely makes information available to all parties involved in the supply chain.
- Cyber threats and security: The industry faces constant digital security threat and blockchain provides a solution to address this issue.
- Mid-volume trading/third party impacts: They argue that the “boundaries between asset classes will blur as cash, energy products and other commodities, from industrial components to apples could all become digital assets trading interoperably.”
- Smart contract: Since the “sheer size and volume of contracts and transactions to execute capital projects in oil and gas have historically caused significant reconciliation and tracking issues among contractors, sub-contractors, and suppliers,” blockchain-enabled smart contracts could improve the process by executing automatically after all requirements are met, and boosting contract efficiency and protecting each party from volatile pricing.

Mawet, Pierre, and Michael Insogna. “Unlocking the Potential of Blockchain in Oil and Gas Supply Chains.” Accenture Energy Blog, November 21, 2016.

The authors propose three ways blockchain technology can boost productivity and efficiency in oil and gas industry:
- “Greater process efficiency. Smart contracts, for example, can be held in a blockchain transaction with party compliance confirmed through follow-on transactions, reducing third-party supervision and paper-based contracting, thus helping reduce cost and overhead.”
- “Compliance. Visibility is essential to improve supply chain performance. The immutable record of transactions can aid in product traceability and asset tracking.”
- “Data transfer from IoT sensors. Blockchain could be used to track the unique history of a device, with the distributed ledger recording data transfer from multiple sensors. Data security in devices could be safeguarded by unique blockchain characteristics.”

Som, Indranil. “Blockchain: Radically Changing the Mining Paradigm.” Digitalist, September 27, 2017.

In this article, Som proposes three ways that the blockchain technology can “support leaner organizations and increased security” in the mining industry: improving cybersecurity, increasing transparency through smart contracts, and providing visibility into the supply chain.

Identity: Beneficial Ownership and Illicit Flows

de Jong, Julia, Alexander Meyer, and Jeffrey Owens. “Using blockchain for transparent beneficial ownership registers.“ International Tax Review, June 2017.

This paper discusses the features of blockchain and distributed ledger technology that can improve collection and distribution of information on beneficial ownership.
The FATF and OECD Global Forum regimes have identified a number of common problems related to beneficial ownership information across all jurisdictions, including:
- “Insufficient accuracy and accessibility of company identification and ownership information;
- Less rigorous implementation of customer due-diligence (CDD) measures by key gatekeepers such as lawyers, accountants, and trust and company service providers; and
- Obstacles to information sharing such as data protection and privacy laws, which impede competent authorities from receiving timely access to adequate, accurate and up-to-date information on basic legal and beneficial ownership.”
The authors argue that the transparency, immutability, and security offered by blockchain makes it ideally suited for record-keeping, particularly with regards to the ownership of assets. Thus, blockchain can address many of the shortcomings in the current system as identified by the FATF and the OECD.
They go on to suggest that a global registry of beneficial ownership using blockchain technology would offer the following benefits:
- Ensuring real-time accuracy and verification of ownership information
- Increasing security and control over sensitive personal and commercial information
- Enhancing audit transparency
- Creating the potential for globally-linked registries
- Reducing corruption and fraud, and increasing trust
- Reducing compliance burden for regulate entities

Herian, Robert. “Trusteeship in a Post-Trust World: Property, Trusts Law and the Blockchain.” The Open University, 2016.

This working paper discusses the often overlooked topic of trusteeship and trusts law and the implications of blockchain technology in the space.
“Smart trusts” on the blockchain will distribute trusteeship across a network and, in theory, remove the need for continuous human intervention in trust fund investments thus resolving key issues around accountability and the potential for any breach of trust.
Smart trusts can also increase efficiency and security of transactions, which could improve the overall performance of the investment strategy, thereby creating higher returns for beneficiaries.

Karsten, Jack and Darrell M. West (2018): “Venezuela’s “petro” undermines other cryptocurrencies – and international sanctions.” Brookings, Friday, March 9 2018,

This article discusses the Venezuelan government’s cryptocurrency, “petro,” which was launched as a solution to the country’s economic crisis and near-worthless currency, “bolívar”
Unlike the volatility of other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, one petro’s price is pegged to the price of one barrel of Venezuelan oil – roughly $60
And rather than decentralizing control like most blockchain applications, the petro is subject to arbitrary discount factor adjustment, fluctuating oil prices, and a corrupt government known for manipulating its currency
The authors warn the petro will not stabilize the Venezuelan economy since only foreign investors funded the presale, yet (from the White Paper) only Venezuelan citizens can use the cryptocurrency to pay taxes, fees, and other expenses. Rather, they argue, the petro represents an attempt to create foreign capital out of “thin air,” which is not subject to traditional economic sanctions.

Land Registration, Licensing and Contracting Transparency

Michael Graglia and Christopher Mellon. “Blockchain and Property in 2018: At the End of the Beginning.” 2018 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 19-23, 2018.

This paper claims “blockchain makes sense for real estate” because real estate transactions depend on a number of relationships, processes, and intermediaries that must reconcile all transactions and documents for an action to occur. Blockchain and smart contracts can reduce the time and cost of transactions while ensuring secure and transparent record-keeping systems.
The ease, efficiency, and security of transactions can also create an “international market for small real estate” in which individuals who cannot afford an entire plot of land can invest small amounts and receive their portion of rental payments automatically through smart contracts.
The authors describe seven prerequisites that land registries must fulfill before blockchain can be introduced successfully: accurate data, digitized records, an identity solution, multi-sig wallets, a private or hybrid blockchain, connectivity and a tech aware population, and a trained professional community
To achieve the goal of an efficient and secure property registry, the authors propose an 8-level progressive framework through which registries slowly integrate blockchain due to legal complexity of land administration, resulting inertia of existing processes, and high implementation costs.
- Level 0 – No Integration
- Level 1 – Blockchain Recording
- Level 2 – Smart Workflow
- Level 3 – Smart Escrow
- Level 4 – Blockchain Registry
- Level 5 – Disaggregated Rights
- Level 6 – Fractional Rights
- Level 7 – Peer-to-Peer Transactions
- Level 8 – Interoperability

Thomas, Rod. “Blockchain’s Incompatibility for Use as a Land Registry: Issues of Definition, Feasibility and Risk.“ European Property Law Journal, vol. 6, no. 3, May 2017.

Thomas argues that blockchain, as it is currently understood and defined, is unsuited for the transfer of real property rights because it fails to address the need for independent verification and control.
Under a blockchain-based system, coin holders would be in complete control of the recordation of the title interests of their land, and thus, it would be unlikely that they would report competing or contested claims.
Since land remains in the public domain, the risk of third party possessory title claims are likely to occur; and over time, these risks will only increase exponentially.
A blockchain-based land title represents interlinking and sequential transactions over many hundreds, if not thousands, of years, so given the misinformation that would compound over time, it would be difficult to trust the current title holder has a correctly recorded title
The author concludes that supporters of blockchain for land registries frequently overlook a registry’s primary function to provide an independent verification of the provenance of stored data.

Vos, Jacob, Christiaan Lemmen, and Bert Beentjes. “Blockchain-Based Land Registry: Panacea, Illusion or Something In Between?“ 2017 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 20-24, 2017.

The authors propose that blockchain is best suited for the following steps in land administration:
- The issuance of titles
- The archiving of transactions – specifically in countries that do not have a reliable electronic system of transfer of ownership
The step in between issuing titles and archiving transactions is the most complex – the registration of the transaction. This step includes complex relationships between the “triple” of land administration: rights (right in rem and/or personal rights), object (spatial unit), and subject (title holder). For the most part, this step is done manually by registrars, and it is questionable whether blockchain technology, in the form of smart contracts, will be able to process these complex transactions.
The authors conclude that one should not underestimate the complexity of the legal system related to land administration. The standardization of processes may be the threshold to success of blockchain-based land administration. The authors suggest instead of seeking to eliminate one party from the process, technologists should cooperate with legal and geodetic professionals to create a system of checks and balances to successfully implement blockchain for land administration.
This paper also outlines five blockchain-based land administration projects launched in Ghana, Honduras, Sweden, Georgia, and Cook County, Illinois.

Commodity Trading and Supply Chain Transparency

Ahmed, Shabir. “Leveraging Blockchain to Revolutionise the Mining Industry.” SAP News, February 27, 2018.

In this article, Ahmed identifies seven key use cases for blockchain in the mining industry:
- Automation of ore acquisition and transfer;
- Automatic registration of mineral rights and IP;
- Visibility of ore inventory at ports;
- Automatic cargo hire process;
- Process and secure large amounts of IoT data;
- Reconciling amount produced and sent for processing;
- Automatically execute procurement and other contracts.

Brooks, Michael. “Blockchain and the Fight Against Illicit Financial Flows.” The Policy Corner, February 19, 2018.

In this article, Brooks argues that, “Because of the inherent decentralization and immutability of data within blockchains, it offers a unique opportunity to bypass traditional tracking and transparency initiatives that require strong central governance and low levels of corruption. It could, to a significant extent, bypass the persistent issues of authority and corruption by democratizing information around data consensus, rather than official channels and occasional studies based off limited and often manipulated information. Within the framework of a coherent policy initiative that integrates all relevant stakeholders (states, transnational organizations, businesses, NGOs, other monitors and oversight bodies), a international supply chains supported by blockchain would decrease the ease with which resources can be hidden, numbers altered, and trade misinvoiced.”

“Conflict Free Natural Resources.” Global Opportunity Report 2017. Global Opportunity Network, 2017.

In this entry from the Global Opportunity Report, and specifically toward the end of ensuring conflict-free natural resources, Blockchain is labeled as “well-suited for tracking objects and transactions, making it possible for virtually anything of value to be traced. This opportunity is about creating transparency and product traceability in supply chains.

“Blockchain for Traceability in Minerals and Metals Supply Chains: Opportunities and Challenges.” RCS Global and ICMM, 2017.

This report is based on insights generated during the Materials Stewardship Round Table on the potential of BCTs for tracking and tracing metals and minerals supply chains, which subsequently informed an RCS Global research initiative on the topic.
Insight into two key areas is increasingly desired by downstream manufacturing companies from upstream producers of metals and minerals: provenance and production methods
In particular, the report offers five key potential advantages of using Blockchain for mineral and metal supply chain activities:
- “Builds consensus and trust around responsible production standards between downstream and upstream companies.
- The immutability of and decentralized control over a blockchain system minimizes the risk of fraud.
- Defined datasets can be made accessible in real time to any third party, including downstream buyers, auditors, investors, etc. but at the same time encrypted so as to share a proof of fact rather than confidential information.
- A blockchain system can be easily scaled to include other producers and supply chains beyond those initially involved.
- Cost reduction due to the paperless nature of a blockchain-enabled CoC [Chain of Custody] system, the potential reduction of audits, and reduction in transaction costs.”

Van Bockstael, Steve. “The emergence of conflict-free, ethical, and Fair Trade mineral supply chain certification systems: A brief introduction.” The Extractives Industries and Society, vol. 5, issue 1, January 2018.

This introduction to a special section considers the emerging field of “‘conflict-free’, ‘fair’ and ‘transparently sourced and traded’ minerals” in global industry supply chains.
Van Bockstael describes three areas of practice aimed at increasing supply chain transparency:
- “Initiatives that explicitly try to sever the links between mining or minerals trading and armed conflict of the funding thereof.”
- “Initiatives, limited in number yet growing, that are explicitly linked to the internationally recognized ‘Fair Trade’ movement and whose aim it is to source artisanally mined minerals for the Western jewellry industry.”
- “Initiatives that aim to provide consumers or consumer-facing industries with more ethical, transparent and fair supply chains (often using those concepts in fuzzy and interchangeable ways) that are not linked to the established Fair Trade movement” – including, among others, initiatives using Blockchain technology “to create tamper-proof supply chains.”

Global Governance, Standards and Disclosure Practices

Lafarre, Anne and Christoph Van der Elst. “Blockchain Technology for Corporate Governance and Shareholder Activism.” European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) – Law Working Paper No. 390/2018, March 8, 2018.

This working paper focuses on the potential benefits of leveraging Blockchain during functions involving shareholder and company decision making. Lafarre and Van der Elst argue that “Blockchain technology can lower shareholder voting costs and the organization costs for companies substantially. Moreover, blockchain technology can increase the speed of decision-making, facilitate fast and efficient involvement of shareholders.”
The authors argue that in the field of corporate governance, Blockchain offers two important elements: “transparency – via the verifiable way of recording transactions – and trust – via the immutability of these transactions.”
Smart contracting, in particular, is seen as a potential avenue for facilitating the ‘agency relationship’ between board members and the shareholders they represent in corporate decision-making processes.

Myung, San Jun. “Blockchain government – a next for of infrastructure for the twenty-first century.” Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, December 2018.

This paper argues the idea that Blockchain represents a new form of infrastructure that, given its core consensus mechanism, could replace existing social apparatuses including bureaucracy.
Indeed, Myung argues that blockchain and bureaucracy share a number of attributes:
- “First, both of them are defined by the rules and execute predetermined rules.
- Second, both of them work as information processing machines for society.
- Third, both of them work as trust machines for society.”
The piece concludes with five principles for replacing bureaucracy with blockchain for social organization: “1) introducing Blockchain Statute law; 2) transparent disclosure of data and source code; 3) implementing autonomous executing administration; 4) building a governance system based on direct democracy; and 5) making Distributed Autonomous Government (DAG).

Peters, Gareth and Vishnia, Guy (2016): “Blockchain Architectures for Electronic Exchange Reporting Requirements: EMIR, Dodd Frank, MiFID I/II, MiFIR, REMIT, Reg NMS and T2S.” University College London, August 31, 2016.

This paper offers a solution based on blockchain architectures to the regulations of financial exchanges around the world for trade processing and reporting for execution and clearing. In particular, the authors give a detailed overview of EMIR, Dodd Frank, MiFID I/II, MiFIR, REMIT, Reg NMS and T2S.
The authors suggest the increasing amount of data from transaction reporting start to be incorporated on a blockchain ledger in order to harness the built-in security and immutability features of the blockchain to support key regulatory features.
Specifically, the authors suggest 1) a permissioned blockchain controlled by a regulator or a consortium of market participants for the maintenance of identity data from market participants and 2) blockchain frameworks such as Enigma to be used to facilitate required transparency and reporting aspects related to identities when performing pre- and post-trade reporting as well as for auditing.

“Blockchain Technology and Competition Policy – Issues paper by the Secretariat,” OECD, June 8, 2018.

This OECD issues paper poses two key questions about how blockchain technology might increase the relevance of new disclosures practices:
- “Should competition agencies be given permission to access blockchains? This might enable them to monitor trading prices in real-time, spot suspicious trends, and, when investigating a merger, conduct or market have immediate access to the necessary data without needing to impose burdensome information requests on parties.”
- “Similarly, easy access to the information on a blockchain for a firm’s owners and head offices would potentially improve the effectiveness of its oversight on its own subsidiaries and foreign holdings. Competition agencies may assume such oversight already exists, but by making it easier and cheaper, a blockchain might make it more effective, which might allow for more effective centralised compliance programmes.”

Michael Pisa and Matt Juden. “Blockchain and Economic Development: Hype vs. Reality.” Center for Global Development Policy Paper, 2017.

In this Center for Global Development Policy Paper, the authors examine blockchain’s potential to address four major development challenges: (1) facilitating faster and cheaper international payments, (2) providing a secure digital infrastructure for verifying identity, (3) securing property rights, and (4) making aid disbursement more secure and transparent.
The authors conclude that while blockchain may be well suited for certain use cases, the majority of constraints in blockchain-based projects fall outside the scope of technology. Common constraints such as data collection and privacy, governance, and operational resiliency must be addressed before blockchain can be successfully implemented as a solution.

Industry-Specific Case Studies

Chohan, Usman. “Blockchain and the Extractive Industries: Cobalt Case Study,” University of New South Wales, Canberra Discussion Paper Series: Notes on the 21st Century, 2018.

In this discussion paper, the author studies the pilot use of blockchain in cobalt mining industry in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The project tracked the movement of cobalt from artisanal mines through its installation in devices such as smartphones and electric cars.
The project records cobalt attributes – weights, dates, times, images, etc. – into the digital ledger to help ensure that cobalt purchases are not contributing to forced child labor or conflict minerals.

Chohan, Usman. “Blockchain and the Extractive Industries #2: Diamonds Case Study,” University of New South Wales, Canberra Discussion Paper Series: Notes on the 21st Century, 2018.

The second case study from Chohan investigates the application of blockchain technology in the extractive industry by studying Anglo-American (AAL) diamond DeBeer’s unit and Everledger’s blockchain projects.
In this study, the author finds that AAL uses blockchain to track gems (carat, color, certificate numbers), starting from extraction and onwards, including when the gems change hands in trade transaction.
Like the cobalt pilot, the AAL initiative aims to help avoid supporting conflicts and forced labor, and to improve trading accountability and transparency more generally.

4 reasons why Data Collaboratives are key to addressing migration

Curated on May 24, 2018November 15, 2018 by admin

Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young at the Migration Data Portal: “If every era poses its dilemmas, then our current decade will surely be defined by questions over the challenges and opportunities of a surge in migration. The issues in addressing migration safely, humanely, and for the benefit of communities of origin and destination are varied and complex, and today’s public policy practices and tools are not adequate. Increasingly, it is clear, we need not only new solutions but also new, more agile, methods for arriving at solutions.

Data are central to meeting these challenges and to enabling public policy innovation in a variety of ways. Yet, for all of data’s potential to address public challenges, the truth remains that most data generated today are in fact collected by the private sector. These data contains tremendous possible insights and avenues for innovation in how we solve public problems. But because of access restrictions, privacy concerns and often limited data science capacity, their vast potential often goes untapped.

Data Collaboratives offer a way around this limitation.

Data Collaboratives: A new form of Public-Private Partnership for a Data Age

Data Collaboratives are an emerging form of partnership, typically between the private and public sectors, but often also involving civil society groups and the education sector. Now in use across various countries and sectors, from health to agriculture to economic development, they allow for the opening and sharing of information held in the private sector, in the process freeing data silos up to serve public ends.

Although still fledgling, we have begun to see instances of Data Collaboratives implemented toward solving specific challenges within the broad and complex refugee and migrant space. As the examples we describe below suggest (which we examine in more detail Stanford Social Innovation Review), the use of such Collaboratives is geographically dispersed and diffuse; there is an urgent need to pull together a cohesive body of knowledge to more systematically analyze what works, and what doesn’t.

This is something we have started to do at the GovLab. We have analyzed a wide variety of Data Collaborative efforts, across geographies and sectors, with a goal of understanding when and how they are most effective.

The benefits of Data Collaboratives in the migration field

As part of our research, we have identified four main value propositions for the use of Data Collaboratives in addressing different elements of the multi-faceted migration issue. …(More)”,