From market multilateralism to governance by goal setting: SDGs and the changing role of partnerships in a new global order

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Benedicte Bull and Desmond McNeill: “Business has been involved in cooperation with multilateral organizations through public-private partnerships (PPPs) since the late 1990s. With their adoption of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), multilateral institutions increasingly consider partnerships as a means to achieve their goals given their own limited implementation capacity. However, the global economic order has changed significantly since the first expansion of PPPs, particularly due to growing participation by non-western states and companies. This article asks how this shift has changed the eagerness to form partnerships, as well as their qualitative content. It analyzes the 3964 partnerships in the SDG partnership registry, focusing on the subset of them that includes business partners. We divide these into five groups: local implementation, resource mobilization, advocacy, policy, and operational partnerships.

We study PPPs involving companies from different varieties of capitalism—private, market based forms, and state-led forms of capitalism. We find that PPPs are still dominated by companies and other actors from Western countries. Moreover, business participate more in U.S.- and Canadianled partnerships than others. We also find strong differences regarding what category of PPPs that companies from different backgrounds engage in, and discuss the linkages between varieties of capitalism and PPP participation…(More)”.

The Lives and After Lives of Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Christine L. Borgman: “The most elusive term in data science is ‘data.’ While often treated as objects to be computed upon, data is a theory-laden concept with a long history. Data exist within knowledge infrastructures that govern how they are created, managed, and interpreted. By comparing models of data life cycles, implicit assumptions about data become apparent. In linear models, data pass through stages from beginning to end of life, which suggest that data can be recreated as needed. Cyclical models, in which data flow in a virtuous circle of uses and reuses, are better suited for irreplaceable observational data that may retain value indefinitely. In astronomy, for example, observations from one generation of telescopes may become calibration and modeling data for the next generation, whether digital sky surveys or glass plates. The value and reusability of data can be enhanced through investments in knowledge infrastructures, especially digital curation and preservation. Determining what data to keep, why, how, and for how long, is the challenge of our day…(More)”.

Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Ellen P. Goodman and Julia Powles: “Cities around the world are rapidly adopting digital technologies, data analytics, and the trappings of “smart” infrastructure. No company is more ambitious about exploring data flows and seeking to dominate networks of information than Google. In October 2017, Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs embarked on its first prototype smart city in Toronto, Canada, planning a new kind of data-driven urban environment: “the world’s first neighborhood built from the internet up.” Although the vision is for an urban district foregrounding progressive ideals of inclusivity, for the crucial first 18 months of the venture, many of the most consequential features of the project were hidden from view and unavailable for serious scrutiny. The players defied public accountability on questions about data collection and surveillance, governance, privacy, competition, and procurement. Even more basic questions about the use of public space went unanswered: privatized services, land ownership, infrastructure deployment and, in all cases, the question of who is in control. What was hidden in this first stage, and what was revealed, suggest that the imagined smart city may be incompatible with democratic processes, sustained public governance, and the public interest.

This article analyzes the Sidewalk project in Toronto as it took shape in its first phase, prior to the release of the Master Innovation and Development Plan, exploring three major governance challenges posed by the imagined “city of the future”: privatization, platformization, and domination. The significance of this case study applies well beyond Toronto. Google and related companies are modeling future business growth embedded in cities and using projects like the one in Toronto as test beds. What happens in Toronto is designed to be replicated. We conclude with some lessons, highlighting the precarity of civic stewardship and public accountability when cities are confronted with tantalizing visions of privatized urban innovation…(More)”.

How Much Is Data Privacy Worth? A Preliminary Investigation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Angela G. Winegar and Cass R. Sunstein: “Do consumers value data privacy? How much? In a survey of 2,416 Americans, we find that the median consumer is willing to pay just $5 per month to maintain data privacy (along specified dimensions), but would demand $80 to allow access to personal data. This is a “superendowment effect,” much higher than the 1:2 ratio often found between willingness to pay and willingness to accept. In addition, people demand significantly more money to allow access to personal data when primed that such data includes health-related data than when primed that such data includes demographic data. We analyze reasons for these disparities and offer some notations on their implications for theory and practice.

A general theme is that because of a lack of information and behavioral biases, both willingness to pay and willingness to accept measures are highly unreliable guides to the welfare effects of retaining or giving up data privacy. Gertrude Stein’s comment about Oakland, California may hold for consumer valuations of data privacy: “There is no there there.” For guidance, policymakers should give little or no attention to either of those conventional measures of economic value, at least when steps are not taken to overcome deficits in information and behavioral biases….(More)”.

Clinical Trial Data Transparency and GDPR Compliance: Implications for Data Sharing and Open Innovation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Timo Minssen, Rajam N. and Marcel Bogers: “Recent EU initiatives and legislations have considerably increased public access to clinical trials data (CTD). These developments are generally much welcomed for the enhancement of science, trust, and open innovation. However, they also raise many questions and concerns, not least at the interface between CTD transparency and other areas of evolving EU law on the protection of trade secrets, intellectual property rights and privacy.

This paper focuses on privacy issues and on the interrelation between developments in transparency and the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR). More specifically, this paper examines: (1) the genesis of EU transparency regulations, including the incidents, developments and policy concerns that have shaped them; (2) the features and implications of the GDPR which are relevant in the context of clinical trials; and (3) the risk for tensions between the GDPR and the policy goals of CTD transparency, including their implications for data sharing and open innovation. Ultimately, we stress that these and other related factors must be carefully considered and addressed to reap the full benefits of CTD transparency….(More)”.

Smart Citizens for Smart Cities: The Role of Social Media for Expanding Local Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Bissera Zankova: “The purpose of the study is to analyze the role of social media to boost democratic citizenship and contribute to the creation of smart environment through the perspective of direct democracy in Bulgaria. The issue of “smart cities” will be tackled from a broader media and communication perspective. The term “smart city” does not denote the symbiosis between urban development and new information technologies only but it signifies a new vibrant social ecology rooted in the thorough use of the Internet for wider democratic participation. As a theoretical basis of my survey I shall use Dewey’s model of the inherent bond between communication and enlightened citizenry and Robert Putnam’s theory about the social capital facilitated by social networks generating trust and solidarity among community members. As a case study I shall dwell on local democracy and particularly on two recent referendums in Bulgaria (2017) – in the cities of Tran and Stara Zagora, their basic premises, claims, organization, social media use, outcomes and impact. Though not mandatory for the governing bodies the referendums’ results demonstrated the level of social activity in the country underpinned by networks. Democracy should be understood best through the Abraham Lincoln’s centuries-cherished metaphor as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. In the current research I build on a previous investigation done in 2013 on civic journalism, blogs and protests in Bulgaria and on my contribution to the book “Smart journalism” (Zankova, Skolkay, Franklin (2016), presenting findings from the New Media Literacy Project 2012 – 2014. This interdisciplinary paper will be useful for both academics and practitioners and specifically for media specialists who will get knowledge about the state of direct democracy in a new democratic country in SEE, new media non/ contribution to this state and what the necessary conditions are to make this democracy really workable at a community level to turn the cities into future-oriented democratic centres….(More)”

An open platform centric approach for scalable government service delivery to the poor: The Aadhaar case

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Sandip Mukhopadhyay, Harry Bouwman and Mahadeo PrasadJaiswal: “The efficient delivery of government services to the poor, or Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP), faces many challenges. While a core problem is the lack of scalability, that could be solved by the rapid proliferation of platforms and associated ecosystems. Existing research involving platforms focus on modularity, openness, ecosystem leadership and governance, as well as on their impact on innovation, scale and agility. However, existing studies fail to explore the role of platform in scalable e-government services delivery on an empirical level. Based on an in-depth case study of the world’s largest biometric identity platform, used by millions of the poor in India, we develop a set of propositions connecting the attributes of a digital platform ecosystem to different indicators for the scalability of government service delivery. We found that modular architecture, combined with limited functionality in core modules, and open standards combined with controlled access and ecosystem governance enabled by keystone behaviour, have a positive impact on scalability. The research provides insights to policy-makers and government officials alike, particularly those in nations struggling to provide basic services to poor and marginalised. …(More)”.

Access to Data in Connected Cars and the Recent Reform of the Motor Vehicle Type Approval Regulation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Wolfgang Kerber and Daniel Moeller: “The need for regulatory solutions for access to in-vehicle data and resources of connected cars is one of the big controversial and unsolved policy issues. Last year the EU revised the Motor Vehicle Type Approval Regulation which already entailed a FRAND-like solution for the access to repair and maintenance information (RMI) to protect competition on the automotive aftermarkets. However, the transition to connected cars changes the technological conditions for this regulatory solution significantly. This paper analyzes the reform of the type approval regulation and shows that the regulatory solutions for access to RMI are so far only very insufficiently capable of dealing with the challenges coming along with increased connectivity, e.g. with regard to the new remote diagnostic, repair and maintenance services. Therefore, an important result of the paper is that the transition to connected cars will require a further reform of the rules for the regulated access to RMI (esp. with regard to data access, interoperability, and safety/security issues). However, our analysis also suggests that the basic approach of the current regulated access regime for RMI in the type approval regulation can also be a model for developing general solutions for the currently unsolved problems of access to in-vehicle data and resources in the ecosystem of connected driving….(More)”.

The Public Domain

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Ilanah Simon Fhima: “…explores whether it is possible to identify and delineate the public domain in intellectual property law.

The article begins with a review of existing IP scholarship on the public domain. Identifying that the prevailing model of the public domain relies upon analogies to the commons, it questions how well a model based upon medieval real property holdings might be expected to capture the nuances of intangible property in the internet age. Additionally, academic focus is predominantly directed on copyright law at the expense of other fields of intellectual endeavour and adopts a US-centric viewpoint, which may not reflective of the different settlement reached in the EU-influenced UK. The article then explores whether an alternative rhetoric in ‘no property’ – tangible objects which cannot be propertised – or a potential analogy with public rights of access to land might provide more suitable alternatives.

Ultimately, the article concludes that it is impossible to draw a complete map of the public domain in terms of what should not be propertised. Instead, it advocates for a positive conception of the public domain, based on individual uses that should always remain free, and the general public interests underlying those uses. This more flexible approach allows the law to evolve in response to specific changes in technology and social conditions, while at the same time maintaining a focus on core non-negotiable freedoms. It also consider whether the same methodology can be applied to tangible property….(More)”.

Measuring and Protecting Privacy in the Always-On Era

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Dan Feldman and Eldar Haber: “Datamining practices have become greatly enhanced in the interconnected era. What began with the internetnow continues through the Internet of Things (IoT), whereby users can constantly be connected to the internet through various means like televisions, smartphones, wearables and computerized personal assistants, among other “things.” As many of these devices operate in a so-called “always-on” mode, constantly receiving and transmitting data, the increased use of IoT devices might lead society into an “always-on” era, where individuals are constantly datafied. As the current regulatory approach to privacy is sectoral in nature, i.e., protects privacy only within a specific context of information gathering or use, and directed only to specific pre-defined industries or a specific cohort, the individual’s privacy is at great risk. On the other hand, strict privacy regulation might negatively impact data utility which serves many purposes, and, perhaps mainly, is crucial for technological development and innovation. The tradeoff between data utility and privacy protection is most unlikely to be resolved under the sectoral approach to privacy, but a technological solution that relies mostly on a method called differential privacy might be of great help. It essentially suggests adding “noise” to data deemed sensitive ex-ante, depending on various parameters further suggested in this Article. In other words, using computational solutions combined with formulas that measure the probability of data sensitivity, privacy could be better protected in the always-on era.

This Article introduces legal and computational methods that could be used by IoT service providers and will optimally balance the tradeoff between data utility and privacy. It comprises several stages. The first Part discusses the protection of privacy under the sectoral approach, and estimates what values are embedded in it. The second Part discusses privacy protection in the “always-on” era. First it assesses how technological changes have shaped the sectoral regulation, then discusses why privacy is negatively impacted by IoT devices and the potential applicability of new regulatory mechanisms to meet the challenges of the “always-on” era. After concluding that the current regulatory framework is severely limited in protecting individuals’ privacy, the third Part discusses technology as a panacea, while offering a new computational model that relies on differential privacy and a modern technique called private coreset. The proposed model seeks to introduce “noise” to data on the user’s side to preserve individual’s privacy — depending on the probability of data sensitivity of the IoT device — while enabling service providers to utilize the data….(More)”.