Study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Legal Affairs: “This study analyses recent developments in data related practice, law and policy as well as the current legal framework for data access, sharing, and use in the European Union. The study identifies particular issues of concern and highlights respective need for action. On this basis, the study evaluates the Commission’s proposal for a Data Act…(More)”.
Digital Wallets and Migration Policy: A Critical Intersection
Report by the German Marshall Fund: “A range of international bodies have recently begun experimenting with digital wallets. Digital wallets take many forms but are typically mobile phone-based systems that enable people to make electronic transactions and/or share identity credentials. In cross-border and migration contexts, digital wallets promise to have wide ranging implications for global governance, especially in identity management and finance. Aid organizations, governments, technology companies, and other interested parties are testing digital wallet projects that either target, or incidentally affect, migrants and refugees along with mainstream citizens.
A pertinent example is Ukraine’s Diia wallet. Precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the reliance on digital systems for governance, the Ukrainian government launched the Diia wallet in 2020. Diia provides Ukrainians with a centralized, digital platform for storing, managing, and sharing official credentials such as vaccination records, insurance documents, passports, ID cards, and licenses. Through the Diia mobile application, Ukrainian people can engage with the government to update residence or driving license information, pay taxes, or access benefits, among other uses.
In early 2022, Russia’s war on Ukraine prompted the mass displacement of Ukrainian refugees. Key government infrastructures have been and continue to be targeted, compromised, and/or destroyed by Russian forces. Some Ukrainians have lost access to their devices, network connections, and digital ID documents in the Diia wallet (see Figure 1). However, others are using the wallet to access vital assistance. Internally displaced people are receiving monthly aid to cover living expenses; refugees are using Diia to donate to the army, report on enemy troops, and access TV and radio. The Diia wallet is a key example of a mainstream digital wallet system being stress tested in circumstances of political conflict and displacement. It illustrates the urgent need to investigate the implications of national digital wallet systems for governments and people in crisis:
- Does the digital wallet infrastructure support the secure continuation of government services and assistance?
- Do digital wallets boost the resilience of internally displaced people and refugees rebuilding their lives across borders, including marginalized groups?
- What are the risks of a digital wallet system, and how are they playing out in conditions of mass displacement?…(More)”.
Education data reality: A continued conversation
Report by the Digital Futures Commission (UK): “explores how EdTech is currently used within schools, and identifies four problems that constrain children’s best interests when it comes to EdTech and the use of education data:
- Disproportional risks vs benefits: The actual benefits of EdTech and the data processed from children in schools are currently not discernible or in children’s best interests. Nor are they proportionate to the scope, scale and sensitivity of data currently processed from children in schools. The teachers and school staff reported modest added value of EdTech or the insights that could be extracted from the data processed by the EdTech in use without appropriate analytics skills required from teachers or school staff.
- Limited control over data: Schools have limited control or oversight over data processed from children through their uses of EdTech. This limited control over data results from the design of the specific EdTech, EdTech providers’ business models, the broader ecosystem of public and commercial stakeholders with interests in data processed from children in educational contexts and convoluted terms of service and privacy policies. Effectively, the power imbalance between EdTech providers and schools, as service users, is structured in the terms of use they signed up to and exacerbated by external pressure to use some EdTech services.
- Insufficient guidance: Currently, there is a distinct lack of comprehensive guidance for schools on how to manage EdTech providers’ data practices. Nor is there a minimum standard for acceptable features, data practices and evidence-based benefits for schools to navigate the currently fragmented EdTech market and select appropriate EdTech that offers educational benefits proportionate to the data it processes.
- Resource limitation: Patchy access to and security of digital devices at school and home due to cost and resource barriers means that access to digital technologies to deliver and receive education remains inequitable…(More)”.
Mobile Big Data for Cities: Urban climate resilience strategies for low- and middle-income countries
GSMA Report: “Cities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including rising sea levels and storm surges, heat stress, extreme precipitation, inland and coastal flooding and landslides. The physical effects of climate change have disrupted supply chains, led to lost productivity from health issues and incurred costs associated with rebuilding or repairing physical assets, such as buildings and transport infrastructure.
Resulting from the adverse effects of climate change, municipal governments and systems often lack the adaptive capacity or resources to keep up. Hence, the adaptative capacity of cities can be enhanced by corresponding to more comprehensive and real-time data. Such data will give municipal agencies the ability to watch events as they unfold, understand how demand patterns are changing and respond with faster and lower-cost solutions. This provides a solid basis for innovative data sources, such as mobile big data (MBD), to help strengthen urban climate resilience.
This study highlights the potential value of using mobile big data (MBD) in preparing for and responding to climate-related disasters in cities. In line with the “3As” of urban climate resilience, a framework adopted by the GSMA Mobile for Development programme, this study examines how MBD could help cities and their populations adapt to multiple long-term challenges brought about by climate change, anticipate climate hazards or events and/or absorb (face, manage and recover from) adverse conditions, emergencies or disasters…(More)”.
Responsible Data for Children Goes Polyglot: New Translations of Principles & Resources Available
Responsible Data for Children Blog: “In 2018, UNICEF and The GovLab launched the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative with the aim of supporting organisations and practitioners in ensuring that the interest of children is put at the centre of any work involving data for and about them.
Since its inception, the RD4C initiative has aimed to be field-oriented, driven by the needs of both children and practitioners across sectors and contexts. It has done so by ensuring that actors from the data responsibility sphere are informed and engaged on the RD4C work.
We want them to know what responsible data for and about children entails, why it is important, and how they can realize it in their own work.
In this spirit, the RD4C initiative has started translating its resources into different languages. We would like anyone willing to enhance their responsible data handling practices for and about children to be equipped with resources they can understand. As a global effort, we want to guarantee anyone willing to share their expertise and contribute be given the opportunity to do it.
Importantly, we would like children around the world—including the most marginalised and vulnerable groups—to be aware of what they can expect from organisations handling data for and about them and to have the means to demand and enforce their rights.
Last month, we released the RD4C Video, which is now available in Arabic, French and Spanish. Soon, the rest of the RD4C resources, such as our principles, tools and case studies will be translated as well.”
Responsible by Design – Principles for the ethical use of behavioural science in government
OECD Report: “The use of behavioural insights (BI) in public policy has grown over the last decade, with the largest increase of new behavioural teams emerging in the last five years. More and more governments are turning to behavioural science – a multidisciplinary approach to policy making encompassing lessons from psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, anthropology, economics and more. There are a wide variety of frameworks and resources currently available, such as the OECD BASIC framework, designed with the purpose of helping BI practitioners and government officials infusing behavioural science throughout the policy cycle.
Despite the availability of such frameworks, there are less resources available with the primary purpose of safeguarding the responsible use of behavioural science in government. Oftentimes, teams are left to establish their own ethical standards and practices, which has resulted in an uncoordinated mosaic of procedures guiding the international community interested in upholding ethical behavioural practices. Until now, few attempts have been made to standardize ethical principles for behavioural science in public policy, and to concisely gather and present international best practices.
In light of this, we developed the first-of-its-kind Good Practice Principles for the Ethical Use of Behavioural Science in Public Policy to advance the responsible use of BI in government…(More)”.
How China uses search engines to spread propaganda
Blog by Jessica Brandt and Valerie Wirtschafter: “Users come to search engines seeking honest answers to their queries. On a wide range of issues—from personal health, to finance, to news—search engines are often the first stop for those looking to get information online. But as authoritarian states like China increasingly use online platforms to disseminate narratives aimed at weakening their democratic competitors, these search engines represent a crucial battleground in their information war with rivals. For Beijing, search engines represent a key—and underappreciated vector—to spread propaganda to audiences around the world.
On a range of topics of geopolitical importance, Beijing has exploited search engine results to disseminate state-backed media that amplify the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda. As we demonstrate in our recent report, published by the Brookings Institution in collaboration with the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, users turning to search engines for information on Xinjiang, the site of the CCP’s egregious human rights abuses of the region’s Uyghur minority, or the origins of the coronavirus pandemic are surprisingly likely to encounter articles on these topics published by Chinese state-media outlets. By prominently surfacing this type of content, search engines may play a key role in Beijing’s effort to shape external perceptions, which makes it crucial that platforms—along with authoritative outlets that syndicate state-backed content without clear labeling—do more to address their role in spreading these narratives…(More)“.
Kids Included: Enabling meaningful child participation within companies in a digital era
Report by KidsKnowBest and The LEGO Group: “As the impact of digital technology on children’s lives continues to grow, there are mounting calls for businesses that engage with children to deliver meaningful child participation throughout the design and development of their operations. Engaging children in how you take decisions and in how you design your digital products and services can, if done responsibly, create substantial value for both businesses and children. However, it also presents a broad number of challenges that businesses will need to address.
This report is a practical tool intended for businesses that are embarking on a journey towards meaningful child participation and encountering the challenges that come with it. It brings together expert voices from across sectors, including those of children and young people, to reflect on the following questions:
- What is meaningful child participation?
- Why is it important for children and businesses in relation to the digital environment?
- What are the key challenges to achieving this?
- How can businesses overcome these challenges?
While the report’s contributors passionately believe in the importance of meaningful child participation, they also recognise that nobody has all the answers. As such, this report is not intended to be referenced as an exhaustive resource, and is intended to be used together with the many other valuable resources for businesses.
However, we do hope it will inspire and enable businesses to move towards a future where children’s beliefs and perspectives are central to the design and development of the digital world. Children are asking to be heard. It’s time for businesses to sit up, listen, and learn…(More)”.
An anthology of warm data
Intro to anthology by Nora Bateson: “…The difficulty is that the studied living system is rarely put back into its multi contextual life-ing where it is in constant change. What would information look like that could change and shift in the field? The vitality of any living system is in the relationships between the parts. The relational vitality is constantly changing.
Warm Data is information that is alive within the transcontextual relating of a living system.
We may find it convenient to ignore this world of slippery, shifty information and choose instead that information that can be handled and pinned down. Still, the swirly stuff is underlying absolutely everything that is known as “action,” “decision,” or “learning.” Warm Data is necessary if for no other reason than a reminder that whatever information is currently available in a living process, “it is not just that and nothing more.”There are more contexts constantly shifting all the time. Think of a family, how it stays the same, and how it changes over time—or a city, pond, or a religion. To maintain any coherence, those systems must continually reshape and do so in relation to one another…(More)”.
Expert Group to Eurostat releases its report on the re-use of privately-held data for Official Statistics
Blog by Stefaan Verhulst: “…To inform its efforts, Eurostat set up an expert group in 2021 on ‘Facilitating the use of new data sources for official statistics’ to reflect on opportunities offered by the data revolution to enhance the reuse of private sector data for official statistics”.
Data reuse is a particularly important area for exploration, both because of the potential it offers and because it is not sufficiently covered by current policies. Data reuse occurs when data collected for one purpose is shared and reused for another, often with resulting social benefit. Currently, this process is limited by a fragmented or outdated policy and regulatory framework, and often quite legitimate concerns over ethical challenges represented by sharing (e.g., threats to individual privacy).
Nonetheless, despite such hurdles, a wide variety of evidence supports the idea that responsible data reuse can strengthen and supplement official statistics, and potentially lead to lasting and positive social impact.
Having reviewed and deliberated about these issues over several months, the expert group issued its report this week entitled “Empowering society by reusing privately held data for official statistics”. It seeks to develop recommendations and a framework for sustainable data reuse in the production of official statistics. It highlights regulatory gaps, fragmentation of practices, and a lack of clarity regarding businesses’ rights and obligations, and it draws attention to the ways in which current efforts to reuse data have often led to ad-hoc, one-off projects rather than systematic transformation.
The report considers a wide variety of evidence, including historical, policy, and academic research, as well as the theoretical literature… (More)”.
Read the Eurostat report at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cros/content/read-final-report_en