UK can lead the way on ethical AI, says Lords Committee

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Lords Select Committee: “The UK is in a strong position to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). This position, coupled with the wider adoption of AI, could deliver a major boost to the economy for years to come. The best way to do this is to put ethics at the centre of AI’s development and use concludes a report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?, published today….

One of the recommendations of the report is for a cross-sector AI Code to be established, which can be adopted nationally, and internationally. The Committee’s suggested five principles for such a code are:

  1. Artificial intelligence should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity.
  2. Artificial intelligence should operate on principles of intelligibility and fairness.
  3. Artificial intelligence should not be used to diminish the data rights or privacy of individuals, families or communities.
  4. All citizens should have the right to be educated to enable them to flourish mentally, emotionally and economically alongside artificial intelligence.
  5. The autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence.

Other conclusions from the report include:

  • Many jobs will be enhanced by AI, many will disappear and many new, as yet unknown jobs, will be created. Significant Government investment in skills and training will be necessary to mitigate the negative effects of AI. Retraining will become a lifelong necessity.
  • Individuals need to be able to have greater personal control over their data, and the way in which it is used. The ways in which data is gathered and accessed needs to change, so that everyone can have fair and reasonable access to data, while citizens and consumers can protect their privacy and personal agency. This means using established concepts, such as open data, ethics advisory boards and data protection legislation, and developing new frameworks and mechanisms, such as data portability and data trusts.
  • The monopolisation of data by big technology companies must be avoided, and greater competition is required. The Government, with the Competition and Markets Authority, must review the use of data by large technology companies operating in the UK.
  • The prejudices of the past must not be unwittingly built into automated systems. The Government should incentivise the development of new approaches to the auditing of datasets used in AI, and also to encourage greater diversity in the training and recruitment of AI specialists.
  • Transparency in AI is needed. The industry, through the AI Council, should establish a voluntary mechanism to inform consumers when AI is being used to make significant or sensitive decisions.
  • At earlier stages of education, children need to be adequately prepared for working with, and using, AI. The ethical design and use of AI should become an integral part of the curriculum.
  • The Government should be bold and use targeted procurement to provide a boost to AI development and deployment. It could encourage the development of solutions to public policy challenges through speculative investment. There have been impressive advances in AI for healthcare, which the NHS should capitalise on.
  • It is not currently clear whether existing liability law will be sufficient when AI systems malfunction or cause harm to users, and clarity in this area is needed. The Committee recommend that the Law Commission investigate this issue.
  • The Government needs to draw up a national policy framework, in lockstep with the Industrial Strategy, to ensure the coordination and successful delivery of AI policy in the UK….(More)”.

Data rights are civic rights: a participatory framework for GDPR in the US?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Elena Souris and Hollie Russon Gilman at Vox: “…While online rights are coming into question, it’s worth considering how those will overlap with offline rights and civic engagement.

The two may initially seem completely separate, but democracy itself depends on information and communication, and a balance of privacy (secret ballot) and transparency. As communication moves almost entirely to networked online technology platforms, the governance questions surrounding data and privacy have far-reaching civic and political implications for how people interact with all aspects of their lives, from commerce and government services to their friends, families, and communities. That is why we need a conversation about data protections, empowering users with their own information, and transparency — ultimately, data rights are now civic rights…

What could a golden mean in the US look like? Is it possible to take principles of the GDPR and apply a more community based, citizen-centric approach across states and localities in the United States? Could a US version of the GDPR be designed in a way that included public participation? Perhaps there could be an ongoing participatory role? Most of all, the questions underpinning data regulation need to serve as an impetus for an honest conversation about equity across digital access, digital literacy, and now digital privacy.

Across the country, we’re already seeing successful experiments with a more citizen-inclusive democracy, with localities and cities rising as engines of American re-innovationand laboratories of participatory democracy. Thanks to our federalist system, states are already paving the way for greater electoral reform, from public financing of campaigns to experiments with structures such as ranked-choice voting.

In these local federalist experiments, civic participation is slowly becoming a crucial tool. Innovations from participatory budgeting to interactive policy co-production sessions are giving people in communities a direct say in public policies. For example, the Rural Climate Dialogues in Minnesota empower rural residents to impact policy on long-term climate mitigation. Bowling Green, Kentucky, recently used the online deliberation platform Polisto identify common policy areas for consensus building. Scholars have been writing about various potential participatory models for our digital lives as well, including civic trusts.

Can we take these principles and begin a serious conversation for how to translate the best privacy practices, tools, and methods to ensure that people’s valuable online and offline resources — including their trust, attention span, and vital information — are also protected and honored? Since the people are a primary stakeholder in the conversation about civic data and data privacy, they should have a seat at the table.

Including citizens and residents in these conversations could have a big policy impact. First, working toward a participatory governance framework for civic data would enable people to understand the value of their data in the open market. Second, it would provide greater transparency to the value of networks — an individual’s social graph, a valuable asset, which, until now, people are generating in aggregate without anything in return. Third, it could amplify concerns of more vulnerable data users, including elderly or tech-illiterate citizens — and even refugees and international migrants, as Andrew Young and Stefaan Verhulst recently argued in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

There are already templates and road maps for responsible data, but talking to those users themselves with a participatory governance approach could make them even more effective. Finally, citizens can help answer tough questions about what we value and when and how we need to make ethical choices with data.

Because data-collecting organizations will have to comply abroad soon, the GDPR is a good opportunity for the American social sector to consider data rights as civic rights and incorporate a participatory process to meet this challenge. Instead of simply assuming regulatory agencies will pave the way, a more participatory data framework could foster an ongoing process of civic empowerment and make the outcome more effective. It’s too soon to know the precise forms or mechanisms new data regulation should take. Instead of a rigid, predetermined format, the process needs to be community-driven by design — ensuring traditionally marginalized communities are front and center in this conversation, not only the elites who already hold the microphone.

It won’t be easy. Building a participatory governance structure for civic data will require empathy, compromise, and potentially challenging the preconceived relationship between people, institutions, and their information. The interplay between our online and offline selves is a continuous process of learning error. But if we simply replicate the top-down structures of the past, we can’t evolve toward a truly empowered digital democratic future. Instead, let’s use the GDPR as an opening in the United States for advancing the principles of a more transparent and participatory democracy….(More)”.

Blockchain Slashes US Govt. Contract Award Time From 100 To 10 Days

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Cameron Bishop: “…The US General services Administration built the first federal procurement blockchain proof of concept about six months ago. The procurement blockchain was built to demonstrate how the distributed ledger technology can modernize federal procurement. The pilot project made them realize that blockchain, when combined with artificial intelligence and robotics, provides the foundational architecture for widespread automation.

The proof of concept, which was built in seven weeks, automated the procurement process. More importantly, it reduced the average contract award time from 100 days to less than 10 days. Complex tasks such as financial review was automated through the use of blockchain. It also eliminated human error, bias and subjectivity from the process. A smart contract deployed in the blockchain automatically calculated the financial health score from the offerors’ balance sheets and income statements. The entire process was standardized using commercial and government practices.

Furthermore, the use of blockchain ledger ensured that vendors were kept abreast of the developments. Vendors received alerts on a real-time basis as the offers progress through the workflow. This made the process transparent, while preserving the privacy of each transaction. The success of this pilot project is expected to bring a drastic change in the federal procurement process.

While a blockchain can be public, permissioned, and private, federal agencies may opt for a private blockchain to facilitate procurement transactions among pre-screened vendors with digital identity certificates.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provides guidelines to ensure integrity, openness and fairness in federal procurement. The blockchain technology will enforce those policies through a system of procedural trust embedded into the platform.

By using blockchain technology, the federal procurement process can be more transparent, efficient, faster, and less vulnerable to fraud and abuse. More importantly, by design, a blockchain preserves the integrity of the assets and transactions between multiple parties within the value chain. Additionally, blockchain will avoid unnecessary litigations, while promoting competition in a healthy manner. It will also provide an organization with unique insights into the procurement value chain unavailable previously….(More)”.

To serve a free society, social media must evolve beyond data mining

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Barbara Romzek and Aram Sinnreich at The Conversation: “…For years, watchdogs have been warning about sharing information with data-collecting companies, firms engaged in the relatively new line of business called some academics have called “surveillance capitalism.” Most casual internet users are only now realizing how easy – and common – it is for unaccountable and unknown organizations to assemble detailed digital profiles of them. They do this by combining the discrete bits of information consumers have given up to e-tailers, health sites, quiz apps and countless other digital services.

As scholars of public accountability and digital media systems, we know that the business of social media is based on extracting user data and offering it for sale. There’s no simple way for them to protect data as many users might expect. Like the social pollution of fake news, bullying and spam that Facebook’s platform spreads, the company’s privacy crisis also stems from a power imbalance: Facebook knows nearly everything about its users, who know little to nothing about it.

It’s not enough for people to delete their Facebook accounts. Nor is it likely that anyone will successfully replace it with a nonprofit alternativecentering on privacy, transparency and accountability. Furthermore, this problem is not specific just to Facebook. Other companies, including Google and Amazon, also gather and exploit extensive personal data, and are locked in a digital arms race that we believe threatens to destroy privacy altogether….

Governments need to be better guardians of public welfare – including privacy. Many companies using various aspects of technology in new ways have so far avoided regulation by stoking fears that rules might stifle innovation. Facebook and others have often claimed that they’re better at regulating themselves in an ever-changing environment than a slow-moving legislative process could be….

To encourage companies to serve democratic principles and focus on improving people’s lives, we believe the chief business model of the internet needs to shift to building trust and verifying information. While it won’t be an immediate change, social media companies pride themselves on their adaptability and should be able to take on this challenge.

The alternative, of course, could be far more severe. In the 1980s, when federal regulators decided that AT&T was using its power in the telephone market to hurt competition and consumers, they forced the massive conglomerate to break up. A similar but less dramatic change happened in the early 2000s when cellphone companies were forced to let people keep their phone numbers even if they switched carriers.

Data, and particularly individuals’ personal data, are the precious metals of the internet age. Protecting individual data while expanding access to the internet and its many social benefits is a fundamental challenge for free societies. Creating, using and protecting data properly will be crucial to preserving and improving human rights and civil liberties in this still young century. To meet this challenge will require both vigilance and vision, from businesses and their customers, as well as governments and their citizens….(More).

A New Model for Industry-Academic Partnerships

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Working Paper by Gary King and Nathaniel Persily: “The mission of the academic social sciences is to understand and ameliorate society’s greatest challenges. The data held by private companies holds vast potential to further this mission. Yet, because of its interaction with highly politicized issues, customer privacy, proprietary content, and differing goals of firms and academics, these data are often inaccessible to university researchers.

We propose here a new model for industry-academic partnerships that addresses these problems via a novel organizational structure: Respected scholars form a commission which, as a trusted third party, receives access to all relevant firm information and systems, and then recruits independent academics to do research in specific areas following standard peer review protocols organized and funded by nonprofit foundations.

We also report on a partnership we helped forge under this model to make data available about the extremely visible and highly politicized issues surrounding the impact of social media on elections and democracy. In our partnership, Facebook will provide privacy-preserving data and access; seven major politically and substantively diverse nonprofit foundations will fund the research; and the Social Science Research Council will oversee the peer review process for funding and data access….(More)”.

Practical approaches to big data privacy over time

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Micah Altman, Alexandra Wood, David R O’Brien and Urs Gasser in International Data Privacy Law: “

  • Governments and businesses are increasingly collecting, analysing, and sharing detailed information about individuals over long periods of time.
  • Vast quantities of data from new sources and novel methods for large-scale data analysis promise to yield deeper understanding of human characteristics, behaviour, and relationships and advance the state of science, public policy, and innovation.
  • The collection and use of fine-grained personal data over time, at the same time, is associated with significant risks to individuals, groups, and society at large.
  • This article examines a range of long-term research studies in order to identify the characteristics that drive their unique sets of risks and benefits and the practices established to protect research data subjects from long-term privacy risks.
  • We find that many big data activities in government and industry settings have characteristics and risks similar to those of long-term research studies, but are subject to less oversight and control.
  • We argue that the risks posed by big data over time can best be understood as a function of temporal factors comprising age, period, and frequency and non-temporal factors such as population diversity, sample size, dimensionality, and intended analytic use.
  • Increasing complexity in any of these factors, individually or in combination, creates heightened risks that are not readily addressable through traditional de-identification and process controls.
  • We provide practical recommendations for big data privacy controls based on the risk factors present in a specific case and informed by recent insights from the state of the art and practice….(More)”.

Selected Readings on Data Responsibility, Refugees and Migration

Curated on Posted on by Andrew Young

By Kezia Paladina, Alexandra Shaw, Michelle Winowatan, Stefaan Verhulst, and Andrew Young

The Living Library’s Selected Readings series seeks to build a knowledge base on innovative approaches for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance. This curated and annotated collection of recommended works on the topic of Data Collaboration for Migration was originally published in 2018.

Special thanks to Paul Currion whose data responsibility literature review gave us a headstart when developing the below. (Check out his article listed below on Refugee Identity)

The collection below is also meant to complement our article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on Data Collaboration for Migration where we emphasize the need for a Data Responsibility Framework moving forward.

From climate change to politics to finance, there is growing recognition that some of the most intractable problems of our era are information problems. In recent years, the ongoing refugee crisis has increased the call for new data-driven approaches to address the many challenges and opportunities arising from migration. While data – including data from the private sector – holds significant potential value for informing analysis and targeted international and humanitarian response to (forced) migration, decision-makers often lack an actionable understanding of if, when and how data could be collected, processed, stored, analyzed, used, and shared in a responsible manner.

Data responsibility – including the responsibility to protect data and shield its subjects from harms, and the responsibility to leverage and share data when it can provide public value – is an emerging field seeking to go beyond just privacy concerns. The forced migration arena has a number of particularly important issues impacting responsible data approaches, including the risks of leveraging data regarding individuals fleeing a hostile or repressive government.

In this edition of the GovLab’s Selected Readings series, we examine the emerging literature on the data responsibility approaches in the refugee and forced migration space – part of an ongoing series focused on Data Responsibiltiy. The below reading list features annotated readings related to the Policy and Practice of data responsibility for refugees, and the specific responsibility challenges regarding Identity and Biometrics.

Data Responsibility and Refugees – Policy and Practice

International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2010) IOM Data Protection Manual. Geneva: IOM.

  • This IOM manual includes 13 data protection principles related to the following activities: lawful and fair collection, specified and legitimate purpose, data quality, consent, transfer to third parties, confidentiality, access and transparency, data security, retention and personal data, application of the principles, ownership of personal data, oversight, compliance and internal remedies (and exceptions).
  • For each principle, the IOM manual features targeted data protection guidelines, and templates and checklists are included to help foster practical application.

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre / OCHA (eds.) (2008) Guidance on Profiling Internally Displaced Persons. Geneva: Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

  • This NRC document contains guidelines on gathering better data on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), based on country context.
  • IDP profile is defined as number of displaced persons, location, causes of displacement, patterns of displacement, and humanitarian needs among others.
  • It further states that collecting IDPs data is challenging and the current condition of IDPs data are hampering assistance programs.
  • Chapter I of the document explores the rationale for IDP profiling. Chapter II describes the who aspect of profiling: who IDPs are and common pitfalls in distinguishing them from other population groups. Chapter III describes the different methodologies that can be used in different contexts and suggesting some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, what kind of information is needed and when it is appropriate to profile.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Model agreement on the sharing of personal data with Governments in the context of hand-over of the refugee status determination process. Geneva: UNHCR.

  • This document from UNHCR provides a template of agreement guiding the sharing of data between a national government and UNHCR. The model agreement’s guidance is aimed at protecting the privacy and confidentiality of individual data while promoting improvements to service delivery for refugees.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015). Policy on the Protection of Personal Data of Persons of Concern to UNHCR. Geneva: UNHCR.

  • This policy outlines the rules and principles regarding the processing of personal data of persons engaged by UNHCR with the purpose of ensuring that the practice is consistent with UNGA’s regulation of computerized personal data files that was established to protect individuals’ data and privacy.
  • UNHCR require its personnel to apply the following principles when processing personal data: (i) Legitimate and fair processing (ii) Purpose specification (iii) Necessity and proportionality (iv) Accuracy (v) Respect for the rights of the data subject (vi) Confidentiality (vii) Security (viii) Accountability and supervision.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015) Privacy Impact Assessment of UNHCR Cash Based Interventions.

  • This impact assessment focuses on privacy issues related to financial assistance for refugees in the form of cash transfers. For international organizations like UNHCR to determine eligibility for cash assistance, data “aggregation, profiling, and social sorting techniques,” are often needed, leading a need for a responsible data approach.
  • This Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) aims to identify the privacy risks posed by their program and seek to enhance safeguards that can mitigate those risks.
  • Key issues raised in the PIA involves the challenge of ensuring that individuals’ data will not be used for purposes other than those initially specified.

Data Responsibility in Identity and Biometrics

Bohlin, A. (2008) “Protection at the Cost of Privacy? A Study of the Biometric Registration of Refugees.” Lund: Faculty of Law of the University of Lund.

  • This 2008 study focuses on the systematic biometric registration of refugees conducted by UNHCR in refugee camps around the world, to understand whether enhancing the registration mechanism of refugees contributes to their protection and guarantee of human rights, or whether refugee registration exposes people to invasions of privacy.
  • Bohlin found that, at the time, UNHCR failed to put a proper safeguards in the case of data dissemination, exposing the refugees data to the risk of being misused. She goes on to suggest data protection regulations that could be put in place in order to protect refugees’ privacy.

Currion, Paul. (2018) “The Refugee Identity.” Medium.

  • Developed as part of a DFID-funded initiative, this essay considers Data Requirements for Service Delivery within Refugee Camps, with a particular focus on refugee identity.
  • Among other findings, Currion finds that since “the digitisation of aid has already begun…aid agencies must therefore pay more attention to the way in which identity systems affect the lives and livelihoods of the forcibly displaced, both positively and negatively.”
  • Currion argues that a Responsible Data approach, as opposed to a process defined by a Data Minimization principle, provides “useful guidelines,” but notes that data responsibility “still needs to be translated into organisational policy, then into institutional processes, and finally into operational practice.”

Farraj, A. (2010) “Refugees and the Biometric Future: The Impact of Biometrics on Refugees and Asylum Seekers.” Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 42 (2010): 891.

  • This article argues that biometrics help refugees and asylum seekers establish their identity, which is important for ensuring the protection of their rights and service delivery.
  • However, Farraj also describes several risks related to biometrics, such as, misidentification and misuse of data, leading to a need for proper approaches for the collection, storage, and utilization of the biometric information by government, international organizations, or other parties.  

GSMA (2017) Landscape Report: Mobile Money, Humanitarian Cash Transfers and Displaced Populations. London: GSMA.

  • This paper from GSMA seeks to evaluate how mobile technology can be helpful in refugee registration, cross-organizational data sharing, and service delivery processes.
  • One of its assessments is that the use of mobile money in a humanitarian context depends on the supporting regulatory environment that contributes to unlocking the true potential of mobile money. The examples include extension of SIM dormancy period to anticipate infrequent cash disbursements, ensuring that persons without identification are able to use the mobile money services, and so on.
  • Additionally, GMSA argues that mobile money will be most successful when there is an ecosystem to support other financial services such as remittances, airtime top-ups, savings, and bill payments. These services will be especially helpful in including displaced populations in development.

GSMA (2017) Refugees and Identity: Considerations for mobile-enabled registration and aid delivery. London: GSMA.

  • This paper emphasizes the importance of registration in the context of humanitarian emergency, because being registered and having a document that proves this registration is key in acquiring services and assistance.
  • Studying cases of Kenya and Iraq, the report concludes by providing three recommendations to improve mobile data collection and registration processes: 1) establish more flexible KYC for mobile money because where refugees are not able to meet existing requirements; 2) encourage interoperability and data sharing to avoid fragmented and duplicative registration management; and 3) build partnership and collaboration among governments, humanitarian organizations, and multinational corporations.

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2015) “Experimentation in Humanitarian Locations: UNHCR and Biometric Registration of Afghan Refugees.” Security Dialogue, Vol 46 No. 2: 144–164.

  • In this article, Jacobsen studies the biometric registration of Afghan refugees, and considers how “humanitarian refugee biometrics produces digital refugees at risk of exposure to new forms of intrusion and insecurity.”

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2017) “On Humanitarian Refugee Biometrics and New Forms of Intervention.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1–23.

  • This article traces the evolution of the use of biometrics at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – moving from a few early pilot projects (in the early-to-mid-2000s) to the emergence of a policy in which biometric registration is considered a ‘strategic decision’.

Manby, Bronwen (2016) “Identification in the Context of Forced Displacement.” Washington DC: World Bank Group. Accessed August 21, 2017.

  • In this paper, Bronwen describes the consequences of not having an identity in a situation of forced displacement. It prevents displaced population from getting various services and creates higher chance of exploitation. It also lowers the effectiveness of humanitarian actions, as lacking identity prevents humanitarian organizations from delivering their services to the displaced populations.
  • Lack of identity can be both the consequence and and cause of forced displacement. People who have no identity can be considered illegal and risk being deported. At the same time, conflicts that lead to displacement can also result in loss of ID during travel.
  • The paper identifies different stakeholders and their interest in the case of identity and forced displacement, and finds that the biggest challenge for providing identity to refugees is the politics of identification and nationality.
  • Manby concludes that in order to address this challenge, there needs to be more effective coordination among governments, international organizations, and the private sector to come up with an alternative of providing identification and services to the displaced persons. She also argues that it is essential to ensure that national identification becomes a universal practice for states.

McClure, D. and Menchi, B. (2015). Challenges and the State of Play of Interoperability in Cash Transfer Programming. Geneva: UNHCR/World Vision International.

  • This report reviews the elements that contribute to the interoperability design for Cash Transfer Programming (CTP). The design framework offered here maps out these various features and also looks at the state of the problem and the state of play through a variety of use cases.
  • The study considers the current state of play and provides insights about the ways to address the multi-dimensionality of interoperability measures in increasingly complex ecosystems.     

NRC / International Human Rights Clinic (2016). Securing Status: Syrian refugees and the documentation of legal status, identity, and family relationships in Jordan.

  • This report examines Syrian refugees’ attempts to obtain identity cards and other forms of legally recognized documentation (mainly, Ministry of Interior Service Cards, or “new MoI cards”) in Jordan through the state’s Urban Verification Exercise (“UVE”). These MoI cards are significant because they allow Syrians to live outside of refugee camps and move freely about Jordan.
  • The text reviews the acquirement processes and the subsequent challenges and consequences that refugees face when unable to obtain documentation. Refugees can encounter issues ranging from lack of access to basic services to arrest, detention, forced relocation to camps and refoulement.  
  • Seventy-two Syrian refugee families in Jordan were interviewed in 2016 for this report and their experiences with obtaining MoI cards varied widely.

Office of Internal Oversight Services (2015). Audit of the operations in Jordan for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Report 2015/049. New York: UN.

  • This report documents the January 1, 2012 – March 31, 2014 audit of Jordanian operations, which is intended to ensure the effectiveness of the UNHCR Representation in the state.
  • The main goals of the Regional Response Plan for Syrian refugees included relieving the pressure on Jordanian services and resources while still maintaining protection for refugees.
  • The audit results concluded that the Representation was initially unsatisfactory, and the OIOS suggested several recommendations according to the two key controls which the Representation acknowledged. Those recommendations included:
    • Project management:
      • Providing training to staff involved in financial verification of partners supervise management
      • Revising standard operating procedure on cash based interventions
      • Establishing ways to ensure that appropriate criteria for payment of all types of costs to partners’ staff are included in partnership agreements
    • Regulatory framework:
      • Preparing annual need-based procurement plan and establishing adequate management oversight processes
      • Creating procedures for the assessment of renovation work in progress and issuing written change orders
      • Protecting data and ensuring timely consultation with the UNHCR Division of Financial and Administrative Management

UNHCR/WFP (2015). Joint Inspection of the Biometrics Identification System for Food Distribution in Kenya. Geneva: UNHCR/WFP.

  • This report outlines the partnership between the WFP and UNHCR in its effort to promote its biometric identification checking system to support food distribution in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya.
  • Both entities conducted a joint inspection mission in March 2015 and was considered an effective tool and a model for other country operations.
  • Still, 11 recommendations are proposed and responded to in this text to further improve the efficiency of the biometric system, including real-time evaluation of impact, need for automatic alerts, documentation of best practices, among others.

The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Handbook by Evan Selinger, Jules Polonetsky, and Omer Tene: “Businesses are rushing to collect personal data to fuel surging demand. Data enthusiasts claim personal information that’s obtained from the commercial internet, including mobile platforms, social networks, cloud computing, and connected devices, will unlock path-breaking innovation, including advanced data security. By contrast, regulators and activists contend that corporate data practices too often disempower consumers by creating privacy harms and related problems. As the Internet of Things matures and facial recognition, predictive analytics, big data, and wearable tracking grow in power, scale, and scope, a controversial ecosystem will exacerbate the acrimony over commercial data capture and analysis. The only productive way forward is to get a grip on the key problems right now and change the conversation….(More)”.

 

Lessons from Cambridge Analytica: one way to protect your data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Julia Apostle in the Financial Times: “The unsettling revelations about how data firm Cambridge Analytica surreptitiously exploited the personal information of Facebook users is yet another demoralising reminder of how much data has been amassed about us, and of how little control we have over it.

Unfortunately, the General Data Protection Regulation privacy laws that are coming into force across Europe — with more demanding consent, transparency and accountability requirements, backed by huge fines — may improve practices, but they will not change the governing paradigm: the law labels those who gather our data as “controllers”. We are merely “subjects”.

But if the past 20 years have taught us anything, it is that when business and legislators have been too slow to adapt to public demand — for goods and services that we did not even know we needed, such as Amazon, Uber and bitcoin — computer scientists have stepped in to fill the void. And so it appears that the realms of data privacy and security are deserving of some disruption. This might come in the form of “self-sovereign identity” systems.

The theory behind self-sovereign identity is that individuals should control the data elements that form the basis of their digital identities, and not centralised authorities such as governments and private companies. In the current online environment, we all have multiple log-ins, usernames, customer IDs and personal data spread across countless platforms and stored in myriad repositories.

Instead of this scattered approach, we should each possess the digital equivalent of a wallet that contains verified pieces of our identities. We can then choose which identification to share, with whom, and when. Self-sovereign identity systems are currently being developed.

They involve the creation of a unique and persistent identifier attributed to an individual (called a decentralised identity), which cannot be taken away. The systems use public/private key cryptography, which enables a user with a private key (a string of numbers) to share information with unlimited recipients who can access the encrypted data if they possess a corresponding public key.

The systems also rely on decentralised ledger applications like blockchain. While key cryptography has been around for a long time, it is the development of decentralised ledger technology, which also supports the trading of cryptocurrencies without the involvement of intermediaries, that will allow self-sovereign identity systems to take off. The potential uses for decentralised identity are legion and small-scale implementation is already happening. The Swiss municipality of Zug started using a decentralised identity system called uPort last year, to allow residents access to certain government services. The municipality announced it will also use the system for voting this spring….

Decentralised identity is more difficult to access and therefore there is less financial incentive for hackers to try. Self-sovereign identity systems could eliminate many of our data privacy concerns while empowering individuals in the online world and turning the established data order on its head. But the success of the technology depends on its widespread adoption….(More)“

Artificial Intelligence and the Need for Data Fairness in the Global South

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Medium blog by Yasodara Cordova: “…The data collected by industry represents AI opportunities for governments, to improve their services through innovation. Data-based intelligence promises to increase the efficiency of resource management by improving transparency, logistics, social welfare distribution — and virtually every government service. E-government enthusiasm took of with the realization of the possible applications, such as using AI to fight corruption by automating the fraud-tracking capabilities of cost-control tools. Controversially, the AI enthusiasm has spread to the distribution of social benefits, optimization of tax oversight and control, credit scoring systems, crime prediction systems, and other applications based in personal and sensitive data collection, especially in countries that do not have comprehensive privacy protections.

There are so many potential applications, society may operate very differently in ten years when the “datafixation” has advanced beyond citizen data and into other applications such as energy and natural resource management. However, many countries in the Global South are not being given necessary access to their countries’ own data.

Useful data are everywhere, but only some can take advantage. Beyond smartphones, data can be collected from IoT components in common spaces. Not restricted to urban spaces, data collection includes rural technology like sensors installed in tractors. However, even when the information is related to issues of public importance in developing countries —like data taken from road mesh or vital resources like water and land — it stays hidden under contract rules and public citizens cannot access, and therefore take benefit, from it. This arrangement keeps the public uninformed about their country’s operations. The data collection and distribution frameworks are not built towards healthy partnerships between industry and government preventing countries from realizing the potential outlined in the previous paragraph.

The data necessary to the development of better cities, public policies, and common interest cannot be leveraged if kept in closed silos, yet access often costs more than is justifiable. Data are a primordial resource to all stages of new technology, especially tech adoption and integration, so the necessary long term investment in innovation needs a common ground to start with. The mismatch between the pace of the data collection among big established companies and small, new, and local businesses will likely increase with time, assuming no regulation is introduced for equal access to collected data….

Currently, data independence remains restricted to discussions on the technological infrastructure that supports data extraction. Privacy discussions focus on personal data rather than the digital accumulation of strategic data in closed silos — a necessary discussion not yet addressed. The national interest of data is not being addressed in a framework of economic and social fairness. Access to data, from a policy-making standpoint, needs to find a balance between the extremes of public, open access and limited, commercial use.

A final, but important note: the vast majority of social media act like silos. APIs play an important role in corporate business models, where industry controls the data it collects without reward, let alone user transparency. Negotiation of the specification of APIs to make data a common resource should be considered, for such an effort may align with the citizens’ interest….(More)”.