Open government and conflicts with public trust and privacy: Recent research ideas

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst
Article by John Wihbey:  “Since the Progressive Era, ideas about the benefits of government openness — crystallized by Justice Brandeis’s famous phrase about the disinfectant qualities of “sunlight” — have steadily grown more popular and prevalent. Post-Watergate reforms further embodied these ideas. Now, notions of “open government” and dramatically heightened levels of transparency have taken hold as zero-cost digital dissemination has become a reality. Many have advocated switching the “default” of government institutions so information and data are no longer available just “on demand” but rather are publicized as a matter of course in usable digital form.
As academic researchers point out, we don’t yet have a great deal of long-term, valid data for many of the experiments in this area to weigh civic outcomes and the overall advance of democracy. Anecdotally, though, it seems that more problems — from potholes to corruption — are being surfaced, enabling greater accountability. This “new fuel” of data also creates opportunities for businesses and organizations; and so-called “Big Data” projects frequently rely on large government datasets, as do “news apps.”
But are there other logical limits to open government in the digital age? If so, what are the rationales for these limits? And what are the latest academic insights in this area?
Most open-records laws, including the federal Freedom of Information Act, still provide exceptions that allow public institutions to guard information that might interfere with pending legal proceedings or jeopardize national security. In addition, the internal decision-making and deliberation processes of government agencies as well as documents related to personnel matters are frequently off limits. These exceptions remain largely untouched in the digital age (notwithstanding extralegal actions by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, or confidential sources who disclose things to the press). At a practical level, experts say that the functioning of FOIA laws is still uneven, and some states continue to threaten rollbacks.
Limits of transparency?
A key moment in the rethinking of openness came in 2009, when Harvard University legal scholar Lawrence Lessig published an essay in The New Republic titled “Against Transparency.” In it, Lessig — a well-known advocate for greater access to information and knowledge of many kinds — warned that transparency in and of itself could lead to diminished trust in government and must be tied to policies that can also rebuild public confidence in democratic institutions.
In recent years, more political groups have begun leveraging open records laws as a kind of tool to go after opponents, a phenomenon that has even touched the public university community, which is typically subject to disclosure laws….

Privacy and openness
If there is a tension between transparency and public trust, there is also an uneasy balance between government accountability and privacy. A 2013 paper in the American Review of Public Administration, “Public Pay Disclosure in State Government: An Ethical Analysis,” examines a standard question of disclosure faced in every state: How much should even low-level public servants be subject to personal scrutiny about their salaries? The researchers, James S. Bowman and Kelly A. Stevens of Florida State University, evaluate issues of transparency based on three competing values: rules (justice or fairness), results (what does the greatest good), and virtue (promoting integrity.)…”

When Nudges Fail: Slippery Defaults

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

New paper by Lauren E. Willis “Inspired by the success of “automatic enrollment” in increasing participation in defined contribution retirement savings plans, policymakers have put similar policy defaults in place in a variety of other contexts, from checking account overdraft coverage to home-mortgage escrows. Internet privacy appears poised to be the next arena. But how broadly applicable are the results obtained in the retirement savings context? Evidence from other contexts indicates two problems with this approach: the defaults put in place by the law are not always sticky, and the people who opt out may be those who would benefit the most from the default. Examining the new default for consumer checking account overdraft coverage reveals that firms can systematically undermine each of the mechanisms that might otherwise operate to make defaults sticky. Comparing the retirement-savings default to the overdraft default, four boundary conditions on the use of defaults as a policy tool are apparent: policy defaults will not be sticky when (1) motivated firms oppose them, (2) these firms have access to the consumer, (3) consumers find the decision environment confusing, and (4) consumer preferences are uncertain. Due to constitutional and institutional constraints, government regulation of the libertarian-paternalism variety is unlikely to be capable of overcoming these bounds. Therefore, policy defaults intended to protect individuals when firms have the motivation and means to move consumers out of the default are unlikely to be effective unless accompanied by substantive regulation. Moreover, the same is likely to be true of “nudges” more generally, when motivated firms oppose them.”

What Government Can and Should Learn From Hacker Culture

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in The Atlantic: “Can the open-source model work for federal government? Not in every way—for security purposes, the government’s inner workings will never be completely open to the public. Even in the inner workings of government, fears of triggering the next Wikileaks or Snowden scandal may scare officials away from being more open with one another. While not every area of government can be more open, there are a few areas ripe for change.

Perhaps the most glaring need for an open-source approach is in information sharing. Today, among and within several federal agencies, a culture of reflexive and unnecessary information withholding prevails. This knee-jerk secrecy can backfire with fatal consequences, as seen in the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, the 9/11 attacks, and the Boston Marathon bombings. What’s most troubling is that decades after the dangers of information-sharing were identified, the problem persists.
What’s preventing reform? The answer starts with the government’s hierarchical structure—though an information-is-power mentality and “need to know” Cold War-era culture contribute too. To improve the practice of information sharing, government needs to change the structure of information sharing. Specifically, it needs to flatten the hierarchy.
Former Obama Administration regulation czar Cass Sunstein’s “nudge” approach shows how this could work. In his book Simpler: The Future of Government, he describes how making even small changes to an environment can affect significant changes in behavior. While Sunstein focuses on regulations, the broader lesson is clear: Change the environment to encourage better behavior and people tend to exhibit better behavior. Without such strict adherence to the many tiers of the hierarchy, those working within it could be nudged towards, rather than fight to, share information.
One example of where this worked is in with the State Department’s annual Religious Engagement Report (RER). In 2011, the office in charge of the RER decided that instead of having every embassy submit their data via email, they would post it on a secure wiki. On the surface, this was a decision to change an information-sharing procedure. But it also changed the information-sharing culture. Instead of sharing information only along the supervisor-subordinate axis, it created a norm of sharing laterally, among colleagues.
Another advantage to flattening information-sharing hierarchies is that it reduces the risk of creating “single points of failure,” to quote technology scholar Beth Noveck. The massive amounts of data now available to us may need massive amounts of eyeballs in order to spot patterns of problems—small pools of supervisors atop the hierarchy cannot be expected to shoulder those burdens alone. And while having the right tech tools to share information is part of the solution—as the wiki made it possible for the RER—it’s not enough. Leadership must also create a culture that nudges their staff to use these tools, even if that means relinquishing a degree of their own power.
Finally, a more open work culture would help connect interested parties across government to let them share the hard work of bringing new ideas to fruition. Government is filled with examples of interesting new projects that stall in their infancy. Creating a large pool of collaborators dedicated to a project increases the likelihood that when one torchbearer burns out, others in the agency will pick up for them.
When Linus Torvalds released Linux, it was considered, in Raymond’s words, “subversive” and “a distinct shock.” Could the federal government withstand such a shock?
Evidence suggests it can—and the transformation is already happening in small ways. One of the winners of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Innovations in Government award is State’s Consular Team India (CTI), which won for joining their embassy and four consular posts—each of which used to have its own distinct set of procedures-into a single, more effective unit who could deliver standardized services. As CTI describes it, “this is no top-down bureaucracy” but shares “a common base of information and shared responsibilities.” They flattened the hierarchy, and not only lived, but thrived.”

Open Data Index provides first major assessment of state of open government data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Press Release from the Open Knowledge Foundation: “In the week of a major international summit on government transparency in London, the Open Knowledge Foundation has published its 2013 Open Data Index, showing that governments are still not providing enough information in an accessible form to their citizens and businesses.
The UK and US top the 2013 Index, which is a result of community-based surveys in 70 countries. They are followed by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Of the countries assessed, Cyprus, St Kitts & Nevis, the British Virgin Islands, Kenya and Burkina Faso ranked lowest. There are many countries where the governments are less open but that were not assessed because of lack of openness or a sufficiently engaged civil society. This includes 30 countries who are members of the Open Government Partnership.
The Index ranks countries based on the availability and accessibility of information in ten key areas, including government spending, election results, transport timetables, and pollution levels, and reveals that whilst some good progress is being made, much remains to be done.
Rufus Pollock, Founder and CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation said:

Opening up government data drives democracy, accountability and innovation. It enables citizens to know and exercise their rights, and it brings benefits across society: from transport, to education and health. There has been a welcome increase in support for open data from governments in the last few years, but this Index reveals that too much valuable information is still unavailable.

The UK and US are leaders on open government data but even they have room for improvement: the US for example does not provide a single consolidated and open register of corporations, while the UK Electoral Commission lets down the UK’s good overall performance by not allowing open reuse of UK election data.
There is a very disappointing degree of openness of company registers across the board: only 5 out of the 20 leading countries have even basic information available via a truly open licence, and only 10 allow any form of bulk download. This information is critical for range of reasons – including tackling tax evasion and other forms of financial crime and corruption.
Less than half of the key datasets in the top 20 countries are available to re-use as open data, showing that even the leading countries do not fully understand the importance of citizens and businesses being able to legally and technically use, reuse and redistribute data. This enables them to build and share commercial and non-commercial services.
To see the full results: https://index.okfn.org. For graphs of the data: https://index.okfn.org/visualisations.”

Making government simpler is complicated

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mike Konczal in The Washington Post: “Here’s something a politician would never say: “I’m in favor of complex regulations.” But what would the opposite mean? What would it mean to have “simple” regulations?

There are two definitions of “simple” that have come to dominate liberal conversations about government. One is the idea that we should make use of “nudges” in regulation. The other is the idea that we should avoid “kludges.” As it turns out, however, these two definitions conflict with each other —and the battle between them will dominate conversations about the state in the years ahead.

The case for “nudges”

The first definition of a “simple” regulation is one emphasized in Cass Sunstein’s recent book titled Simpler: The Future of Government (also see here). A simple policy is one that simply “nudges” people into one choice or another using a variety of default rules, disclosure requirements, and other market structures. Think, for instance, of rules that require fast-food restaurants to post calories on their menus, or a mortgage that has certain terms clearly marked in disclosures.

These sorts of regulations are deemed “choice preserving.” Consumers are still allowed to buy unhealthy fast-food meals or sign up for mortgages they can’t reasonably afford. The regulations are just there to inform people about their choices. These rules are designed to keep the market “free,” where all possibilities are ultimately possible, although there are rules to encourage certain outcomes.
In his book, however, Sunstein adds that there’s another very different way to understand the term “simple.” What most people mean when they think of simple regulations is a rule that is “simple to follow.” Usually a rule is simple to follow because it outright excludes certain possibilities and thus ensures others. Which means, by definition, it limits certain choices.

The case against “kludges”
This second definition of simple plays a key role in political scientist Steve Teles’ excellent recent essay, “Kludgeocracy in America.” For Teles, a “kludge” is a “clumsy but temporarily effective” fix for a policy problem. (The term comes from computer science.) These kludges tend to pile up over time, making government cumbersome and inefficient overall.
Teles focuses on several ways that kludges are introduced into policy, with a particularly sharp focus on overlapping jurisdictions and the related mess of federal and state overlap in programs. But, without specifically invoking it, he also suggests that a reliance on “nudge” regulations can lead to more kludges.
After all, non-kludge policy proposal is one that will be simple to follow and will clearly cause a certain outcome, with an obvious causality chain. This is in contrast to a web of “nudges” and incentives designed to try and guide certain outcomes.

Why “nudges” aren’t always simpler
The distinction between the two is clear if we take a specific example core to both definitions: retirement security.
For Teles, “one of the often overlooked benefits of the Social Security program… is that recipients automatically have taxes taken out of their paychecks, and, then without much effort on their part, checks begin to appear upon retirement. It’s simple and direct. By contrast, 401(k) retirement accounts… require enormous investments of time, effort, and stress to manage responsibly.”

Yet 401(k)s are the ultimately fantasy laboratory for nudge enthusiasts. A whole cottage industry has grown up around figuring out ways to default people into certain contributions, on designing the architecture of choices of investments, and trying to effortlessly and painlessly guide people into certain savings.
Each approach emphasizes different things. If you want to focus your energy on making people better consumers and market participations, expanding our government’s resources and energy into 401(k)s is a good choice. If you want to focus on providing retirement security directly, expanding Social Security is a better choice.
The first is “simple” in that it doesn’t exclude any possibility but encourages market choices. The second is “simple” in that it is easy to follow, and the result is simple as well: a certain amount of security in old age is provided directly. This second approach understands the government as playing a role in stopping certain outcomes, and providing for the opposite of those outcomes, directly….

Why it’s hard to create “simple” regulations
Like all supposed binaries this is really a continuum. Taxes, for instance, sit somewhere in the middle of the two definitions of “simple.” They tend to preserve the market as it is but raise (or lower) the price of certain goods, influencing choices.
And reforms and regulations are often most effective when there’s a combination of these two types of “simple” rules.
Consider an important new paper, “Regulating Consumer Financial Products: Evidence from Credit Cards,” by Sumit Agarwal, Souphala Chomsisengphet, Neale Mahoney and Johannes Stroebel. The authors analyze the CARD Act of 2009, which regulated credit cards. They found that the nudge-type disclosure rules “increased the number of account holders making the 36-month payment value by 0.5 percentage points.” However, more direct regulations on fees had an even bigger effect, saving U.S. consumers $20.8 billion per year with no notable reduction in credit access…..
The balance between these two approaches of making regulations simple will be front and center as liberals debate the future of government, whether they’re trying to pull back on the “submerged state” or consider the implications for privacy. The debate over the best way for government to be simple is still far from over.”

Text messages are saving Swedes from cardiac arrest

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Philip A. Stephenson in Quartz: “Sweden has found a faster way to treat people experiencing cardiac emergencies through a text message and a few thousand volunteers.

A program called SMSlivräddare, (or SMSLifesaver) (link in Swedish) solicits people who’ve been trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). When a Stockholm resident dials 112 for emergency services, a text message is sent to all volunteers within 500 meters of the person in need. The volunteer then arrives at the location within the crucial first minutes to perform lifesaving CPR. The odds for surviving cardiac arrest drop 10% for every minute it takes first responders to arrive…

With ambulance resources stretched thin, the average response time is some eight minutes, allowing SMS-livräddare-volunteers to reach victims before ambulances in 54% of cases.

Through a combination of techniques, including SMS-livräddare, Stockholm County has seen survival rates after cardiac arrest rise from 3% to nearly 11%, over the last decade. Local officials have also enlisted fire and police departments to respond to cardiac emergencies, but the Lifesavers routinely arrive before them as well.

Currently 9,600 Stockholm residents are registered SMS-livräddare-volunteers and there are plans to continue to increase enrollment. An estimated 200,000 Swedes have completed the necessary CPR training, and could, potentially, join the program….

Medical officials in other countries, including Scotland, are now considering similar community-based programs for cardiac arrest.”

7 Tactics for 21st-Century Cities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Abhi Nemani, co-director of Code for America: “Be it the burden placed on them by shrinking federal support, or the opportunity presented by modern technology, 21st-century cities are finding new ways to do things. For four years, Code for America has worked with dozens of cities, each finding creative ways to solve neighborhood problems, build local capacity and steward a national network. These aren’t one-offs. Cities are championing fundamental, institutional reforms to commit to an ongoing innovation agenda.
Here are a few of the ways how:

  1. …Create an office of new urban mechanics or appoint a chief innovation officer…
  2. …Appoint a chief data officer or create an office of performance management/enhancement…
  3. …Adopt the Gov.UK Design Principles, and require plain, human language on every interface….
  4. …Share open source technology with a sister city or change procurement rules to make it easier to redeploy civic tech….
  5. …Work with the local civic tech community and engage citizens for their feedback on city policy through events, tech and existing forums…
  6. …Create an open data policy and adopt open data specifications…
  7. …Attract tech talent into city leadership, and create training opportunities citywide to level up the tech literacy for city staff…”

From open data to open democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by : “Such debates further underscore the complexities of open data and where it might lead. While open data may be viewed by some inside and outside government as a technically-focused and largely incremental project based upon information formatting and accessibility (with the degree of openness subject to a myriad of security and confidentiality provisions), such an approach greatly limits its potential. Indeed, the growing ubiquity of mobile and smart devices, the advent of open source operating systems and social media platforms, and the growing commitment by governments themselves to expansive public engagement objectives, all suggest a widening scope.
Yet, what will incentivize the typical citizen to access open data and to partake in collective efforts to create public value? It is here where our digital culture may well fall short, emphasizing individualized service and convenience at the expense of civic responsibility and community-mindedness. For one American academic, this “citizenship deficit” erodes democratic legitimacy and renders our politics more polarized and less discursive. For other observers in Europe, notions of the digital divide are giving rise to new “data divides.”
The politics and practicalities of data privacy often bring further confusion. While privacy advocates call for greater protection and a culture of data activism among Internet users themselves, the networked ethos of online communities and commercialization fuels speed and sharing, often with little understanding of the ramifications of doing so. Differences between consumerism and citizenship are subtle yet profoundly important, while increasingly blurred and overlooked.
A key conundrum provincially and federally, within the Westminster confines of parliamentary democracy, is that open data is being hatched mainly from within the executive branch, whereas the legislative branch watches and withers. In devising genuine democratic openness, politicians and their parties must do more than post expenses online: they must become partners and advocates for renewal. A lesson of open source technology, however, is that systemic change demands an informed and engaged civil society, disgruntled with the status quo but also determined to act anew.
Most often, such actions are highly localized, even in a virtual world, giving rise to the purpose and meaning of smarter and more intelligent communities. And in Canada it bears noting that we see communities both large and small embracing open data and other forms of online experimentation such as participatory budgeting. It is often within small but connected communities where a virtuous cycle of online and in-person identities and actions can deepen and impact decision-making most directly.
How, then, do we reconcile traditional notions of top-down political federalism and national leadership with this bottom-up approach to community engagement and democratic renewal? Shifting from open data to open democracy is likely to be an uneven, diverse, and at times messy affair. Better this way than attempting to ordain top-down change in a centralized and standardized manner.”

Our Privacy Problem is a Democracy Problem in Disguise

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Evgeny Morozov in MIT Technology Review: “Intellectually, at least, it’s clear what needs to be done: we must confront the question not only in the economic and legal dimensions but also in a political one, linking the future of privacy with the future of democracy in a way that refuses to reduce privacy either to markets or to laws. What does this philosophical insight mean in practice?

First, we must politicize the debate about privacy and information sharing. Articulating the existence—and the profound political consequences—of the invisible barbed wire would be a good start. We must scrutinize data-intensive problem solving and expose its occasionally antidemocratic character. At times we should accept more risk, imperfection, improvisation, and inefficiency in the name of keeping the democratic spirit alive.
Second, we must learn how to sabotage the system—perhaps by refusing to self-track at all. If refusing to record our calorie intake or our whereabouts is the only way to get policy makers to address the structural causes of problems like obesity or climate change—and not just tinker with their symptoms through nudging—information boycotts might be justifiable. Refusing to make money off your own data might be as political an act as refusing to drive a car or eat meat. Privacy can then reëmerge as a political instrument for keeping the spirit of democracy alive: we want private spaces because we still believe in our ability to reflect on what ails the world and find a way to fix it, and we’d rather not surrender this capacity to algorithms and feedback loops.
Third, we need more provocative digital services. It’s not enough for a website to prompt us to decide who should see our data. Instead it should reawaken our own imaginations. Designed right, sites would not nudge citizens to either guard or share their private information but would reveal the hidden political dimensions to various acts of information sharing. We don’t want an electronic butler—we want an electronic provocateur. Instead of yet another app that could tell us how much money we can save by monitoring our exercise routine, we need an app that can tell us how many people are likely to lose health insurance if the insurance industry has as much data as the NSA, most of it contributed by consumers like us. Eventually we might discern such dimensions on our own, without any technological prompts.
Finally, we have to abandon fixed preconceptions about how our digital services work and interconnect. Otherwise, we’ll fall victim to the same logic that has constrained the imagination of so many well-­meaning privacy advocates who think that defending the “right to privacy”—not fighting to preserve democracy—is what should drive public policy. While many Internet activists would surely argue otherwise, what happens to the Internet is of only secondary importance. Just as with privacy, it’s the fate of democracy itself that should be our primary goal.

Why Nudge?: The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism

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New and forthcoming book by Cass Sunstein: “Based on a series of pathbreaking lectures given at Yale University in 2012, this powerful, thought-provoking work by national best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein combines legal theory with behavioral economics to make a fresh argument about the legitimate scope of government, bearing on obesity, smoking, distracted driving, health care, food safety, and other highly volatile, high-profile public issues. Behavioral economists have established that people often make decisions that run counter to their best interests—producing what Sunstein describes as “behavioral market failures.” Sometimes we disregard the long term; sometimes we are unrealistically optimistic; sometimes we do not see what is in front of us. With this evidence in mind, Sunstein argues for a new form of paternalism, one that protects people against serious errors but also recognizes the risk of government overreaching and usually preserves freedom of choice.
Against those who reject paternalism of any kind, Sunstein shows that “choice architecture”—government-imposed structures that affect our choices—is inevitable, and hence that a form of paternalism cannot be avoided. He urges that there are profoundly moral reasons to ensure that choice architecture is helpful rather than harmful—and that it makes people’s lives better and longer.”