Daniel E. O’Leary at IEEE Intelligent Systems: “This article investigates some issues associated with big data and analytics (big data) and ethics, examining how big data ethics are different than computer ethics and other more general ethical frameworks. In so doing, the author briefly investigates some of the previous research in “computer ethics,” reviews some codes of ethics, analyzes the application of two frameworks on ethics to big data, and provides a definition of big data ethics. Ultimately, the author argues that in order to get sufficient specificity, a code of ethics for big data is necessary….(More)”
From smart city to open city: Lessons from Jakarta Smart City
Putri, D.A., CH Karlina, M., Tanaya, J., at the Centre for Innovation Policy and Governance, Indonesia: “In 2011, Indonesia started its Open Government journey when along with seven other countries it initiated Open Government Partnership. Following the global declaration, Indonesia launched the Open Government Indonesia (OGI) in January 2012 with the aim to introduce open government reforms, including open data. This initiative is supported by Law No. 14/2008 on Freedom of Information. Despite its early stage, the implementation of Open Government in Indonesia has shown promising developments, with three action plans enacted in the last four years. In the Southeast Asian region, Indonesia could be considered a pioneer in implementing the open data initiative at national as well as sub-national levels. In some cases, the open data initiative at sub- national level has even surpassed the progress at the national level. Jakarta, for example, became the first city to have its own gubernatorial bylaw on data and system management, which requires the city administration and agencies to open its public data, thus leading to the birth of open data initiatives in the city. The city also have Jakarta Smart City that connect sub-districts officials with the citizen. Jakarta Smart City is an initiative that promote openness of the government through public service delivery. This paper aims to take a closer look on the dynamics of citizens-generated data in Jakarta and how Jakarta smart city program contributes to the implementation of open data….(More)”
Technology Is Monitoring the Urban Landscape
Big City is watching you.
It will do it with camera-equipped drones that inspect municipal powerlines and robotic cars that know where people go. Sensor-laden streetlights will change brightness based on danger levels. Technologists and urban planners are working on a major transformation of urban landscapes over the next few decades.
Much of it involves the close monitoring of things and people, thanks to digital technology. To the extent that this makes people’s lives easier, the planners say, they will probably like it. But troubling and knotty questions of privacy and control remain.
A White House report published in February identified advances in transportation, energy and manufacturing, among other developments, that will bring on what it termed “a new era of change.”
Much of the change will also come from the private sector, which is moving faster to reach city dwellers, and is more skilled in collecting and responding to data. That is leading cities everywhere to work more closely than ever with private companies, which may have different priorities than the government.
One of the biggest changes that will hit a digitally aware city, it is widely agreed, is the seemingly prosaic issue of parking. Space given to parking is expected to shrink by half or more, as self-driving cars and drone deliveries lead an overall shift in connected urban transport. That will change or eliminate acres of urban space occupied by raised and underground parking structures.
Shared vehicles are not parked as much, and with more automation, they will know where parking spaces are available, eliminating the need to drive in search of a space.
“Office complexes won’t need parking lots with twice the footprint of their buildings,” said Sebastian Thrun, who led Google’s self-driving car project in its early days and now runs Udacity, an online learning company. “Whenwe started on self-driving cars, we talked all the time about cutting the number of cars in a city by a factor of three,” or a two-thirds reduction.
In addition, police, fire, and even library services will seek greater responsiveness by tracking their own assets, and partly by looking at things like social media. Later, technologies like three-dimensional printing, new materials and robotic construction and demolition will be able to reshape skylines in a matter of weeks.
At least that is the plan. So much change afoot creates confusion….
The new techno-optimism is focused on big data and artificial intelligence.“Futurists used to think everyone would have their own plane,” said ErickGuerra, a professor of city and regional planning at the University ofPennsylvania. “We never have a good understanding of how things will actually turn out.”
He recently surveyed the 25 largest metropolitan planning organizations in the country and found that almost none have solid plans for modernizing their infrastructure. That may be the right way to approach the challenges of cities full of robots, but so far most clues are coming from companies that also sell the technology.
“There’s a great deal of uncertainty, and a competition to show they’re low on regulation,” Mr. Guerra said. “There is too much potential money for new technology to be regulated out.”
The big tech companies say they are not interested in imposing the sweeping “smart city” projects they used to push, in part because things are changing too quickly. But they still want to build big, and they view digital surveillance as an essential component…(More)”
Big data for government good: using analytics for policymaking
Kent Smetters in The Hill: ” Big Data and analytics are driving advancements that touch nearly every part of our lives. From improving disaster relief efforts following a storm, to enhancing patient response to specific medications to criminal justice reform and real-time traffic reporting, Big Data is saving lives, reducing costs and improving productivity across the private and the public sector.Yet when our elected officials draft policy they lack access to advanced data and analytics that would help them understand the economic implications of proposed legislation. Instead of using Big Data to inform and shape vital policy questions, Members of Congress typically don’t receive a detailed analysis of a bill until after it has been written, and after they have sought support for it. That’s when a policy typically undergoes a detailed budgetary analysis. And even then, these assessments often ignore the broader impact on jobs and the economy.
Yet when our elected officials draft policy they lack access to advanced data and analytics that would help them understand the economic implications of proposed legislation. Instead of using Big Data to inform and shape vital policy questions, Members of Congress typically don’t receive a detailed analysis of a bill until after it has been written, and after they have sought support for it. That’s when a policy typically undergoes a detailed budgetary analysis. And even then, these assessments often ignore the broader impact on jobs and the economy.
We must do better. Just as modern marketing firms use deep analytical tools to make smart business decisions, policymakers in Washington should similarly have access to modern tools for analyzing important policy questions.
Will Social Security be solvent for our grandchildren? How will changes to immigration policy influence the number of jobs and the GDP? How will tax reform impact the budget, economic growth and the income distribution? What is the impact of new investments in health care, education and roads? These are big questions that must be answered with reliable data and analysis while legislation is being written, not afterwards. The absence leaves us with ideology-driven partisanship.
Simply put, Washington needs better tools to evaluate these complex factors. Imagine the productive conversations we could have if we applied the kinds of tools that are commonplace in the business world to help Washington make more informed choices.
For example, with the help of a nonpartisan budget model from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, policymakers and the public can uncover some valuable—and even surprising—information about our choices surrounding Social Security, immigration and other issues.
By analyzing more than 4,000 different Social Security policy options, for example, the model projects that the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted three years earlier than the Social Security Administration’s projections, barring any changes in current law. The tool’s projected shortfalls are larger than the SSA’s, in fact—because it takes into account how changes over time will affect the outcome. We also learn that many standard policy options fail to significantly move the Trust Fund exhaustion date, as these policies phase in too slowly or are too small. Securing Social Security, we now know, requires a range of policy combinations and potentially larger changes than we may have been considering.
Immigration policy, too, is an area where we could all benefit from greater understanding. The political left argues that legalizing undocumented workers will have a positive impact on jobs and the economy. The political right argues for just the opposite—deportation of undocumented workers—for many of the same reasons. But, it turns out, the numbers don’t offer much support to either side.
On one hand, legalization actually slightly reduces the number of jobs. The reason is simple: legal immigrants have better access to school and college, and they can spend more time looking for the best job match. However, because legal immigrants can gain more skills, the actual impact on GDP from legalization alone is basically a wash.
The other option being discussed, deportation, also reduces jobs, in this case because the number of native-born workers can’t rise enough to absorb the job losses caused by deportation. GDP also declines. Calculations based on 125 different immigration policy combinations show that increasing the total amount of legal immigrants—especially those with higher skills—is the most effective policy for increasing employment rates and GDP….(More)”
Open data and its usability: an empirical view from the Citizen’s perspective
Paper by Weerakkody, V., Irani, Z., Kapoor, K. et al. in Information Systems Frontiers: Government legislation and calls for greater levels of oversight and transparency are leading public bodies to publish their raw datasets online. Policy makers and elected officials anticipate that the accessibility of open data through online Government portals for citizens will enable public engagement in policy making through increased levels of fact based content elicited from open data. The usability and benefits of such open data are being argued as contributing positively towards public sector reforms, which are under extreme pressures driven by extended periods of austerity. However, there is very limited scholarly studies that have attempted to empirically evaluate the performance of government open data websites and the acceptance and use of these data from a citizen perspective. Given this research void, an adjusted diffusion of innovation model based on Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory (DOI) is proposed and used in this paper to empirically determine the predictors influencing the use of public sector open data. A good understanding of these predictors affecting the acceptance and use of open data will likely assist policy makers and public administrations in determining the policy instruments that can increase the acceptance and use of open data through an active promotion campaign to engage-contribute-use….(More)”
Chat bot helps out in emergency situations
Springwise: “New York-based 911bot uses Facebook Messenger to report accidents and help users get advice….Knowing what to do in an emergency situation can mean the difference between life and death. But at the scene of an accident, as nerves takes over, it’s often difficult to remember to act rationally. Because of this, systems that guide panic-stricken individuals through an emergency can save lives. Now developers have stepped in to create a bot that does the job of emergency service call-takers. 911bot is a chat service that helps users notify emergencies to the authorities.
Individuals report accidents through a system integrated with Facebook Messenger. As the report is received, individuals are given the option to send extra information such as images of the accident and the location. The system can automatically call 911 to file a user’s request for help, along with information on their location. It then offers advice on how to handle the situation. To take one example, if a cardiac arrest is reported, 911bot sends over information on how to perform CPR. As one of the founders explains, when an individual suffers a cardiac arrest, acting quickly is essential. When CPR is administered within the first five minutes of an episode, the patient is five times more likely to survive.
We’ve seen a number of tech innovations developed to help in emergencies. two apps help those in a crises locate trained first aiders, and a hand held device can translate conversations between emergency workers and citizens that don’t speak their language….(More)” .
Soft Data and Public Policy: Can Social Media Offer Alternatives to Official Statistics in Urban Policymaking?
Marta Severo, Amel Feredj and Alberto Romele in Policy & Internet: “In recent years, decision makers have reported difficulties in the use of official statistics in public policy: excessively long publication delays, insufficient coverage of topics of interest, and the top-down process of data creation. The deluge of data available online represents a potential answer to these problems, with social media data in particular as a possible alternative to traditional data. In this article, we propose a definition of “Soft Data” to indicate data that are freely available on the Internet, and that are not controlled by a public administration but rather by public or private actors. The term Soft Data is not intended to replace those of “Big Data” and “Open Data,” but rather to highlight specific properties and research methods required to convert them into information of interest for decision makers. The analysis is based on a case study of Twitter data for urban policymaking carried out for a European research program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of European cohesion policy. The article explores methodological issues and the possible impact of “Soft Data” on public policy, reporting on semistructured interviews carried out with nine European policymakers….(More)”
#HackthePayGap
Department of Commerce: “More than 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. Yet just yesterday, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker addressed developers, data scientists, and designers who are using Department of Commerce data to build new tools and products aimed at ending the pay disparities that still disadvantage women in today’s economy.
Speaking at the White House Hack the Pay Gap Demo Day, Secretary Pritzker stressed that the issue of equal pay for equal work is not just a women’s issue, but an injustice that impacts families and threatens our nation’s economic prosperity. While the pay gap remains a stubborn and persistent problem, Secretary Pritzker pointed to open data as a powerful new tool for workers, businesses, and the public to advance equality in the workplace.
Last April the Commerce Department, Presidential Innovation Fellows, and the White House Council on Women and Girls invited data scientists and developers from across America to “Hack the Pay Gap” using MIDAAS (Making Income Data Available as a Service) – a new application programming interface (API) designed to improve public access to the U.S. Census Bureau’s income, population, and geographic data…..For example, the “What’s my Pay Gap” project asks you to answers questions about yourself and allows you to discover how your personal wage gap grows and shrinks depending on your demographic characteristics. Another project named “Aware,” provides a survey and data analytics platform for companies to use in order to make data-driven decisions about combating the pay gap in their own organizations. In addition, the Secretary listened to a presentation on the PowerShift application that provides users salary breakdown and range data on what men in a similar situation are making in addition to legal information about fair pay….To learn more about the Hack the Pay Gap challenge visit paygap.pif.gov.”
Two Laws On Expertise That Make Government Dumber
Beth Noveck in Forbes: “With the announcement of Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn last week comes the prospect of new tech products that can help us visualize more than ever before about what we know and can do. But the buzz about what this might mean for our ability to find a job in the 21st century (and for privacy), obscures a tantalizing possibility for improving government.
Imagine if the Department of Health and Human Services needed to craft a new policy on hospitals. With better tools for automating the identification of expertise from our calendar, email, and document data (Microsoft), our education history and credentials (LinkedIn) skills acquired from training (Lynda), it might become possible to match the demand for know how about healthcare to the supply of those people who have worked in the sector, have degrees in public health, or who have demonstrated passion and know how evident from their volunteer experience.
The technological possibility of matching people to public opportunities to participate in the life of our democracy in ways that relate to our competencies and interests is impeded, however, by two decades-old statutes that prohibit the federal government from taking advantage of the possibilities of technology to tap into the expertise of the American people to solve our hardest problems.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (FACA) and the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (PRA) entrench the committee and consultation practices of an era before the Internet. They make it illegal for wider networks of more diverse people with innovative ideas from convening to help solve public problems and need to be updated for the 21st century….(More)”
Use of big data risks making some people uninsurable
Oliver Ralph at the Financial Times: “More sophisticated use of data could create an “underclass” of people who cannot afford insurance. According to a new report from the Chartered Institute of Insurance, consumers could miss out on some types of cover altogether if insurers deem them too risky.
Big data are one of the insurance industry’s great hopes for the future. Established insurers and a host of start-ups are investing millions in new systems to better understand the information they hold about customers, and to collect more data. They hope that by better analysing the risks that each policyholder faces, they can not only price their products more accurately but also advise customers on how to avoid problems.
However, the CII paper warns that using data in this way threatens the concept of pooling risk on which the industry was founded.
“Data is a double-edged sword,” said David Thomson, director of policy and public affairs at the CII. “The insurance sector needs to be careful about moving away from pooled risk into individual pricing. They need to think about the broader public interest.”
The report says that the concept of pooling risk “underpins the effectiveness of insurance cover”.
It adds: “Some people may be identified as such high risk to insurers that they are priced out of insurance altogether. Big data could, in effect, create groups of ‘uninsurable’ people. While in some cases this may be to do with modifiable behaviour, like driving style, it could easily be due to factors that people can’t control, such as where they live, age, genetic conditions or health problems.”
The issue of genetic data is a particularly contentious one.
In theory, genetic data could be useful to insurers when deciding how to price life or health insurance. Because of the ethical questions this poses, an agreement signed in 2000 between the government and the Association of British Insurers stops the industry from using predictive genetic test results. The agreement runs until 2019, although a review is due this year.
“You could price people out of the market for health products. There’s a danger insurers will not offer health cover to some people. The government would intervene if people are doing social sorting,” said Mr Thomson.
Better use of data in other areas has already forced the government to act. Improved mapping and data analysis have allowed insurers to more accurately assess which homes and businesses run a high risk of flooding. Many people complained that the resulting prices made cover unaffordable for people living in areas at risk….(More)”.