Book edited by Collmann, Jeff, and Matei, Sorin Adam: “This book springs from a multidisciplinary, multi-organizational, and multi-sector conversation about the privacy and ethical implications of research in human affairs using big data. The need to cultivate and enlist the public’s trust in the abilities of particular scientists and scientific institutions constitutes one of this book’s major themes. The advent of the Internet, the mass digitization of research information, and social media brought about, among many other things, the ability to harvest – sometimes implicitly – a wealth of human genomic, biological, behavioral, economic, political, and social data for the purposes of scientific research as well as commerce, government affairs, and social interaction. What type of ethical dilemmas did such changes generate? How should scientists collect, manipulate, and disseminate this information? The effects of this revolution and its ethical implications are wide-ranging.
This book includes the opinions of myriad investigators, practitioners, and stakeholders in big data on human beings who also routinely reflect on the privacy and ethical issues of this phenomenon. Dedicated to the practice of ethical reasoning and reflection in action, the book offers a range of observations, lessons learned, reasoning tools, and suggestions for institutional practice to promote responsible big data research on human affairs. It caters to a broad audience of educators, researchers, and practitioners. Educators can use the volume in courses related to big data handling and processing. Researchers can use it for designing new methods of collecting, processing, and disseminating big data, whether in raw form or as analysis results. Lastly, practitioners can use it to steer future tools or procedures for handling big data. As this topic represents an area of great interest that still remains largely undeveloped, this book is sure to attract significant interest by filling an obvious gap in currently available literature. …(More)”
Ana Campoy at Quartz: “Mexico City just launched a massive experiment in digital democracy. It is asking its nearly 9 million residents to help draft a new constitution through social media. The crowdsourcing exercise is unprecedented in Mexico—and pretty much everywhere else.
as locals are known, can petition for issues to be included in the constitution through Change.org (link inSpanish), and make their case in person if they gather more than 10,000 signatures. They can also annotate proposals by the constitution drafters via PubPub, an editing platform (Spanish) similar to GoogleDocs.
The idea, in the words of the mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, is to“bestow the constitution project (Spanish) with a democratic,progressive, inclusive, civic and plural character.”
There’s a big catch, however. The constitutional assembly—the body that has the final word on the new city’s basic law—is under no obligation to consider any of the citizen input. And then there are the practical difficulties of collecting and summarizing the myriad of views dispersed throughout one of the world’s largest cities.
That makes Mexico City’s public-consultation experiment a big test for the people’s digital power, one being watched around the world.Fittingly, the idea of crowdsourcing a constitution came about in response to an attempt to limit people power.
Fittingly, the idea of crowdsourcing a constitution came about in response to an attempt to limit people power.
For decades, city officials had fought to get out from under the thumb of the federal government, which had the final word on decisions such as who should be the city’s chief of police. This year, finally, they won a legal change that turns the Distrito Federal (federal district), similar to the US’s District of Columbia, into Ciudad de México (Mexico City), a more autonomous entity, more akin to a state. (Confusingly, it’s just part of the larger urban area also colloquially known as Mexico City, which spills into neighboring states.)
However, trying to retain some control, the Mexican congress decided that only 60% of the delegates to the city’s constitutional assembly would be elected by popular vote. The rest will be assigned by the president, congress, and Mancera, the mayor. Mancera is also the only one who can submit a draft constitution to the assembly.
Mancera’s response was to create a committee of some 30 citizens(Spanish), including politicians, human-rights advocates, journalists,and even a Paralympic gold medalist, to write his draft. He also calledfor the development of mechanisms to gather citizens’ “aspirations,values, and longing for freedom and justice” so they can beincorporated into the final document.
The mechanisms, embedded in an online platform (Spanish) that offersvarious ways to weigh in, were launched at the end of March and willcollect inputs until September 1. The drafting group has until themiddle of that month to file its text with the assembly, which has toapprove the new constitution by the end of January.
An experiment with few precedents
Mexico City didn’t have a lot of examples to draw on, since not a lot ofplaces have experience with crowdsourcing laws. In the US, a few locallawmakers have used Wiki pages and GitHub to draft bills, says MarilynBautista, a lecturer at Stanford Law School who has researched thepractice. Iceland—with a population some 27 times smaller than MexicoCity’s—famously had its citizens contribute to its constitution withinput from social media. The effort failed after the new constitution gotstuck in parliament.
In Mexico City, where many citizens already feel left out, the first bighurdle is to convince them it’s worth participating….
Then comes the task of making sense of the cacophony that will likelyemerge. Some of the input can be very easily organized—the results ofthe survey, for example, are being graphed in real time. But there could be thousands of documents and comments on the Change.org petitionsand the editing platform.
Ideas are grouped into 18 topics, such as direct democracy,transparency and economic rights. They are prioritized based on theamount of support they’ve garnered and how relevant they are, saidBernardo Rivera, an adviser for the city. Drafters get a weekly deliveryof summarized citizen petitions….
An essay about human rights on the PubPub platform.(PubPub)
The most elaborate part of the system is PubPub, an open publishing platform similar to Google Docs, which is based on a project originally developed by MIT’s Media Lab. The drafters are supposed to post essays on how to address constitutional issues, and potentially, the constitution draft itself, once there is one. Only they—or whoever they authorize—will be able to reword the original document.
User comments and edits are recorded on a side panel, with links to the portion of text they refer to. Another screen records every change, so everyone can track which suggestions have made it into the text. Members of the public can also vote comments up or down, or post their own essays….(More).
Andrea Ceron and Fedra Negri in Policy & Internet: “This article addresses the potential role played by social media analysis in promoting interaction between politicians, bureaucrats, and citizens. We show that in a “Big Data” world, the comments posted online by social media users can profitably be used to extract meaningful information, which can support the action of policymakers along the policy cycle. We analyze Twitter data through the technique of Supervised Aggregated Sentiment Analysis. We develop two case studies related to the “jobs act” labor market reform and the “#labuonascuola” school reform, both formulated and implemented by the Italian Renzi cabinet in 2014–15. Our results demonstrate that social media data can help policymakers to rate the available policy alternatives according to citizens’ preferences during the formulation phase of a public policy; can help them to monitor citizens’ opinions during the implementation phase; and capture stakeholders’ mobilization and de-mobilization processes. We argue that, although social media analysis cannot replace other research methods, it provides a fast and cheap stream of information that can supplement traditional analyses, enhancing responsiveness and institutional learning….(More)”
Nathan Collins at Pacific Standard: “Depending on whom you ask, gentrification is either damaging, not so bad, or maybe even good for the low-income people who live in what we euphemistically call up-and-coming neighborhoods. Either way, it’d be nice for everybody to know which neighborhoods are going to get revitalized/eviscerated next. Now, computer scientists think they’ve found a way to do exactly that: Using Twitter and Foursquare, map the places visited by the most socially diverse crowds. Those, it turns out, are the most likely to gentrify.
Led by University of Cambridge graduate student Desislava Hristova, the researchers began their study by mapping out the social network of 37,722 Londoners who posted Foursquare check-ins via Twitter. Two people were presumed to be friends—connected on the social network—if they followed each other’s Twitter feeds. Next, Hristova and her colleagues built a geographical network of 42,080 restaurants, clubs, shops, apartments, and so on. Quaint though it may seem, the researchers treated two places as neighbors in the geographical network if they were, in fact, physically near each other. The team then linked the social and geographical networks using 549,797 Foursquare check-ins, each of which ties a person in the social network to a place in the geographical one.
Gentrification doesn’t start when outsiders move in; it starts when outsiders come to visit.
Using the network data, the team next constructed several measures of the social diversity of places, each of which helps distinguish between places that bring together friends versus strangers, and to distinguish between spots that attract socially diverse crowds versus a steady group of regulars. Among other things, those measures showed that places in the outer boroughs of London brought together more socially homogenous groups of people—in terms of their Foursquare check-ins, at least—compared with boroughs closer to the core.
But the real question is what social diversity has to do with gentrification. To measure that, the team used the United Kingdom’s Index of Multiple Deprivation, which takes into account income, education, environmental factors such as air quality, and more to quantify the socioeconomic state of affairs in localities across the U.K., including each of London’s 32 boroughs.
The rough pattern, according to the analysis: The most socially diverse places in London were also the most deprived. This is about the opposite of what you’d expect, based on social networks studied in isolation from geography, which indicates that, generally, the people with the most diverse social networks are the most prosperous….(More)”
CRS Reports & Analysis: “Since the rise of social media over the past decade, new platforms of technology have reinforced the adage that the law lags behind developments in technology. Government agencies, officials, and employees regularly use a number of social media options – e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc. – that have led agencies to update existing ethics rules to reflect the unique issues that they may present. Two areas of ethics regulation affected by the increased role of social media are the ethical standards governing gifts to federal employees and the restrictions on employees’ political activities. These rules apply to employees in the executive branch, though separate ethics rules and guidance on similar topics apply to the House and Senate….(More)”
Jenkins A., Croitoru A., Crooks A.T., Stefanidis A. in PLOS: “Place can be generally defined as a location that has been assigned meaning through human experience, and as such it is of multidisciplinary scientific interest. Up to this point place has been studied primarily within the context of social sciences as a theoretical construct. The availability of large amounts of user-generated content, e.g. in the form of social media feeds or Wikipedia contributions, allows us for the first time to computationally analyze and quantify the shared meaning of place. By aggregating references to human activities within urban spaces we can observe the emergence of unique themes that characterize different locations, thus identifying places through their discernible sociocultural signatures. In this paper we present results from a novel quantitative approach to derive such sociocultural signatures from Twitter contributions and also from corresponding Wikipedia entries. By contrasting the two we show how particular thematic characteristics of places (referred to herein as platial themes) are emerging from such crowd-contributed content, allowing us to observe the meaning that the general public, either individually or collectively, is assigning to specific locations. Our approach leverages probabilistic topic modelling, semantic association, and spatial clustering to find locations are conveying a collective sense of place. Deriving and quantifying such meaning allows us to observe how people transform a location to a place and shape its characteristics….(More)”
Sydney Steel at Havard Political Review: “Over the last decade, Africa has experienced previously unseen levels of economic growth and market vibrancy. Developing countries can only achieve equitable growth and reduce poverty rates, however, if they are able to make the most of their available resources. To do this, they must maximize the impact of aid from donor governments and NGOs and ensure that domestic markets continue to diversify, add jobs, and generate tax revenues. Yet, in most developing countries, there is a dearth of information available about industry profits, government spending, and policy outcomes that prevents efficient action.
ONE, an international advocacy organization, has estimated that $68.6 billion was lost in sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 due to a lack of transparency in government budgeting….
The Importance of Technology
Increased visibility of problems exerts pressure on politicians and other public sector actors to adjust their actions. This process is known as social monitoring, and it relies on citizens or public agencies using digital tools, such as mobile phones, Facebook, and other social media sites to spot public problems. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, traditional media companies and governments have not shown consistency in reporting on transparency issues.
New technologies offer a solution to this problem. Philip Thigo, the creator of an online and SMS platform that monitors government spending, said in an interview with Technology for Transparency, “All we are trying to do is enhance the work that [governments] do. We thought that if we could create a clear channel where communities could actually access data, then the work of government would be easier.” Networked citizen media platforms that rely on the volunteer contributions of citizens have become increasingly popular. Given that in most African countries less than 10 percent of the population has Internet access, mobile-device-based programs have proven the logical solution. About 30 percent of the population continent-wide has access to cell phones.
Lova Rakotomalala, a co-founder of an NGO in Madagascar that promotes online exposure of social grassroots projects, told the HPR, “most Malagasies will have a mobile phone and an FM radio because it helps them in their daily lives.” Rakotomalala works to provide workshops and IT training to people in regions of Madagascar where Internet access has been recently introduced. According to him, “the amount of data that we can collect from social monitoring and transparency projects will only grow in the near future. There is much room for improvement.”
Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool
The Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool is a prominent example of how social media technology can help obviate traditional transparency issues. Despite increased development assistance and foreign aid, the number of Kenyans classified as poor grew from 29 percent in the 1970s to almost 60 percent in 2000. Noticing this trend, Philip Thigo created an online and SMS platform called the Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool. The platform specifically focuses on the Constituencies Development Fund, through which members of the Kenyan parliament are able to allocate resources towards various projects, such as physical infrastructure, government offices, or new schools.
This social monitoring technology has exposed real government abuses. …
Another mobile tool, Question Box, allows Ugandans to call or message operators who have access to a database full of information on health, agriculture, and education.
But tools like Medic Mobile and the Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool are only the first steps in solving the problems that plague corrupt governments and underdeveloped communities. Improved access to information is no substitute for good leadership. However, as Rakotomalala argued, it is an important stepping-stone. “While legally binding actions are the hammer to the nail, you need to put the proverbial nail in the right place first. That nail is transparency.”…(More)
Samuel C. Woolley at First Monday: “Over the last several years political actors worldwide have begun harnessing the digital power of social bots — software programs designed to mimic human social media users on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Increasingly, politicians, militaries, and government-contracted firms use these automated actors in online attempts to manipulate public opinion and disrupt organizational communication. Politicized social bots — here ‘political bots’ — are used to massively boost politicians’ follower levels on social media sites in attempts to generate false impressions of popularity. They are programmed to actively and automatically flood news streams with spam during political crises, elections, and conflicts in order to interrupt the efforts of activists and political dissidents who publicize and organize online. They are used by regimes to send out sophisticated computational propaganda. This paper conducts a content analysis of available media articles on political bots in order to build an event dataset of global political bot deployment that codes for usage, capability, and history. This information is then analyzed, generating a global outline of this phenomenon. This outline seeks to explain the variety of political bot-oriented strategies and presents details crucial to building understandings of these automated software actors in the humanities, social and computer sciences….(More)”
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 and humanitarian response was originally published in 2016.
Data, when used well in a trusted manner, allows humanitarian organizations to innovate how to respond to emergency events, including better coordination of post-disaster relief efforts, the ability to harness local knowledge to create more targeted relief strategies, and tools to predict and monitor disasters in real time. Consequently, in recent years both multinational groups and community-based advocates have begun to integrate data collection and evaluation strategies into their humanitarian operations, to better and more quickly respond to emergencies. However, this movement poses a number of challenges. Compared to the private sector, humanitarian organizations are often less equipped to successfully analyze and manage big data, which pose a number of risks related to the security of victims’ data. Furthermore, complex power dynamics which exist within humanitarian spaces may be further exacerbated through the introduction of new technologies and big data collection mechanisms. In the below we share:
Selected Reading List (summaries and hyperlinks)
Annotated Selected Reading List
Additional Readings
Selected Reading List (summaries in alphabetical order)
Fancesco Mancini, International Peace Institute – New Technology and the prevention of Violence and Conflict – Explores the ways in which new tools available in communications technology can assist humanitarian workers in preventing violence and conflict.
Andrew Robertson and Steve Olson (USIP) – Using Data Sharing to Improve Coordination in Peacebuilding – Summarises the findings of a United States Institute of Peace workshop which investigated the use of data-sharing systems between government and non-government actors in conflict zones. It identifies some of the challenges and benefits of data-sharing in peacebuilding efforts.
United Nations Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development – A World That Counts, Mobilizing the Data Revolution – Compiled by a group of 20 international experts, this report proposes ways to improve data management and monitoring, whilst mitigating some of the risks data poses.
Katie Whipkey and Andrej Verity – Guidance for Incorporating Big Data into Humanitarian Operations – Created as part of the Digital Humanitarian Network with the support of UN-OCHA, this is a manual for humanitarian organizations looking to strategically incorporate Big Data into their work.
Katja Lindskov Jacobsen –Making design safe for citizens: A hidden history of humanitarian experimentation – Argues that the UNHCR’s use of iris recognition technology in 2002 and 2007 during the repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan constitutes a case of “humanitarian experimentation.” It questions this sort of experimentation which compromises the security of refugees in the pursuit of safer technologies for the rest of the world.
Responsible Data Forum –Responsible Data Reflection Stories: an Overview – compiles various stories sourced by the Responsible Data Forum blog relating to data challenges faced by advocacy organizations, and draws recommendations based on these cases.
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik – The humanitarian cyberspace: shrinking space or an expanding frontier? – Provides a detailed account of the development of a “humanitarian cyberspace” and how information and communication technologies have been further integrated into humanitarian operations since the mid-1990s.
Annotated Selected Reading List (in alphabetical order)
Karlsrud, John. “Peacekeeping 4.0: Harnessing the Potential of Big Data, Social Media, and Cyber Technologies.” Cyberspace and International Relations, 2013. http://bit.ly/235Qb3e
This chapter from the book “Cyberspace and International Relations” suggests that advances in big data give humanitarian organizations unprecedented opportunities to prevent and mitigate natural disasters and humanitarian crises. However, the sheer amount of unstructured data necessitates effective “data mining” strategies for multinational organizations to make the most use of this data.
By profiling some civil-society organizations who use big data in their peacekeeping efforts, Karlsrud suggests that these community-focused initiatives are leading the movement toward analyzing and using big data in countries vulnerable to crisis.
The chapter concludes by offering ten recommendations to UN peacekeeping forces to best realize the potential of big data and new technology in supporting their operations.
Mancini, Fancesco. “New Technology and the prevention of Violence and Conflict.” International Peace Institute, 2013. http://bit.ly/1ltLfNV
This report from the International Peace Institute looks at five case studies to assess how information and communications technologies (ICTs) can help prevent humanitarian conflicts and violence. Their findings suggest that context has a significant impact on the ability for these ICTs for conflict prevention, and any strategies must take into account the specific contingencies of the region to be successful.
The report suggests seven lessons gleaned from the five case studies:
New technologies are just one in a variety of tools to combat violence. Consequently, organizations must investigate a variety of complementary strategies to prevent conflicts, and not simply rely on ICTs.
Not every community or social group will have the same relationship to technology, and their ability to adopt new technologies are similarly influenced by their context. Therefore, a detailed needs assessment must take place before any new technologies are implemented.
New technologies may be co-opted by violent groups seeking to maintain conflict in the region. Consequently, humanitarian groups must be sensitive to existing political actors and be aware of possible negative consequences these new technologies may spark.
Local input is integral to support conflict prevention measures, and there exists need for collaboration and awareness-raising with communities to ensure new technologies are sustainable and effective.
Information shared between civil-society has more potential to develop early-warning systems. This horizontal distribution of information can also allow communities to maintain the accountability of local leaders.
Meier, Patrick. “Digital humanitarians: how big data is changing the face of humanitarian response.” Crc Press, 2015. http://amzn.to/1RQ4ozc
This book traces the emergence of “Digital Humanitarians”—people who harness new digital tools and technologies to support humanitarian action. Meier suggests that this has created a “nervous system” to connect people from disparate parts of the world, revolutionizing the way we respond to humanitarian crises.
Meier argues that such technology is reconfiguring the structure of the humanitarian space, where victims are not simply passive recipients of aid but can contribute with other global citizens. This in turn makes us more humane and engaged people.
Robertson, Andrew and Olson, Steve. “Using Data Sharing to Improve Coordination in Peacebuilding.” United States Institute for Peace, 2012. http://bit.ly/235QuLm
This report functions as an overview of a roundtable workshop on Technology, Science and Peace Building held at the United States Institute of Peace. The workshop aimed to investigate how data-sharing techniques can be developed for use in peace building or conflict management.
Four main themes emerged from discussions during the workshop:
“Data sharing requires working across a technology-culture divide”—Data sharing needs the foundation of a strong relationship, which can depend on sociocultural, rather than technological, factors.
“Information sharing requires building and maintaining trust”—These relationships are often built on trust, which can include both technological and social perspectives.
“Information sharing requires linking civilian-military policy discussions to technology”—Even when sophisticated data-sharing technologies exist, continuous engagement between different stakeholders is necessary. Therefore, procedures used to maintain civil-military engagement should be broadened to include technology.
“Collaboration software needs to be aligned with user needs”—technology providers need to keep in mind the needs of its users, in this case peacebuilders, in order to ensure sustainability.
United Nations Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. “A World That Counts, Mobilizing the Data Revolution.” 2014. https://bit.ly/2Cb3lXq
This report focuses on the potential benefits and risks data holds for sustainable development. Included in this is a strategic framework for using and managing data for humanitarian purposes. It describes a need for a multinational consensus to be developed to ensure data is shared effectively and efficiently.
It suggests that “people who are counted”—i.e., those who are included in data collection processes—have better development outcomes and a better chance for humanitarian response in emergency or conflict situations.
Katie Whipkey and Andrej Verity. “Guidance for Incorporating Big Data into Humanitarian Operations.” Digital Humanitarian Network, 2015. http://bit.ly/1Y2BMkQ
This report produced by the Digital Humanitarian Network provides an overview of big data, and how humanitarian organizations can integrate this technology into their humanitarian response. It primarily functions as a guide for organizations, and provides concise, brief outlines of what big data is, and how it can benefit humanitarian groups.
The report puts forward four main benefits acquired through the use of big data by humanitarian organizations: 1) the ability to leverage real-time information; 2) the ability to make more informed decisions; 3) the ability to learn new insights; 4) the ability for organizations to be more prepared.
It goes on to assess seven challenges big data poses for humanitarian organizations: 1) geography, and the unequal access to technology across regions; 2) the potential for user error when processing data; 3) limited technology; 4) questionable validity of data; 5) underdeveloped policies and ethics relating to data management; 6) limitations relating to staff knowledge.
Risks of Using Big Data in Humanitarian Context Crawford, Kate, and Megan Finn. “The limits of crisis data: analytical and ethical challenges of using social and mobile data to understand disasters.” GeoJournal 80.4, 2015. http://bit.ly/1X0F7AI
Crawford & Finn present a critical analysis of the use of big data in disaster management, taking a more skeptical tone to the data revolution facing humanitarian response.
They argue that though social and mobile data analysis can yield important insights and tools in crisis events, it also presents a number of limitations which can lead to oversights being made by researchers or humanitarian response teams.
Crawford & Finn explore the ethical concerns the use of big data in disaster events introduces, including issues of power, privacy, and consent.
The paper concludes by recommending that critical data studies, such as those presented in the paper, be integrated into crisis event research in order to analyze some of the assumptions which underlie mobile and social data.
Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2010)Making design safe for citizens: A hidden history of humanitarian experimentation. Citizenship Studies 14.1: 89-103. http://bit.ly/1YaRTwG
This paper explores the phenomenon of “humanitarian experimentation,” where victims of disaster or conflict are the subjects of experiments to test the application of technologies before they are administered in greater civilian populations.
By analyzing the particular use of iris recognition technology during the repatriation of Afghan refugees to Pakistan in 2002 to 2007, Jacobsen suggests that this “humanitarian experimentation” compromises the security of already vulnerable refugees in order to better deliver biometric product to the rest of the world.
Responsible Data Forum. “Responsible Data Reflection Stories: An Overview.” http://bit.ly/1Rszrz1
This piece from the Responsible Data forum is primarily a compilation of “war stories” which follow some of the challenges in using big data for social good. By drawing on these crowdsourced cases, the Forum also presents an overview which makes key recommendations to overcome some of the challenges associated with big data in humanitarian organizations.
It finds that most of these challenges occur when organizations are ill-equipped to manage data and new technologies, or are unaware about how different groups interact in digital spaces in different ways.
Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora. “The humanitarian cyberspace: shrinking space or an expanding frontier?” Third World Quarterly 37:1, 17-32, 2016. http://bit.ly/1PIiACK
This paper analyzes the shift toward more technology-driven humanitarian work, where humanitarian work increasingly takes place online in cyberspace, reshaping the definition and application of aid. This has occurred along with what many suggest is a shrinking of the humanitarian space.
Sandvik provides three interpretations of this phenomena:
First, traditional threats remain in the humanitarian space, which are both modified and reinforced by technology.
Second, new threats are introduced by the increasing use of technology in humanitarianism, and consequently the humanitarian space may be broadening, not shrinking.
Finally, if the shrinking humanitarian space theory holds, cyberspace offers one example of this, where the increasing use of digital technology to manage disasters leads to a contraction of space through the proliferation of remote services.
Additional Readings on Data and Humanitarian Response
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, et al. – Humanitarian technology: a critical research agenda. – Takes a critical look at the field of humanitarian technology, analyzing what challenges this poses to post-disaster and conflict environment.
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik – “The Risks of Technological Innovation.” – Suggests that despite the evident benefits such technology presents, it can also undermine humanitarian action and lead to “catastrophic events” themselves needing a new type of humanitarian response.
Kate Crawford – Is Data a Danger to the Developing World? – Argues that it is not simply risks to privacy that data poses to developing countries, but suggests that “data discrimination” can affect even the basic human rights of individuals, and introduce problematic power hierarchies between those who can access data and those who cannot.
Paul Currion –Eyes Wide Shut: The challenge of humanitarian biometrics – Examines the use of biometrics by humanitarian organizations and national governments, and suggests stronger accountability is needed to ensure data from marginalized groups remain protected.
Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, Jake Kendall and Cameron F. Kerry – Enabling Humanitarian Use of Mobile Phone Data – Analyzes how data from mobile communication can provide insights into the spread of infectious disease, and how such data can also compromise individual privacy.
Gus Hosein and Carly Nyst – Aiding Surveillance – Suggests that the unregulated use of technologies and surveillance systems by humanitarian organizations create systems which pose serious threats to individuals’ rights, particularly their right to privacy.
Mary K.Pratt – Big Data’s role in humanitarian aid – A Computer World article which provides an overview of Big Data, and how it is improving the efficiency and efficacy of humanitarian response, especially in conflict zones.
Bertrand Taithe Róisínand and Roger Mac Ginty – Data hubris? Humanitarian information systems and the mirage of technology – Specifically looks at visual technology and crisis mapping, and big data, and suggests that there exists an over-enthusiasm in these claims made on behalf of technologically advanced humanitarian information systems.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) – Big data and humanitarianism: 5 things you need to know – Briefly outlines five issues that face humanitarian organizations as they integrate big data into their operations.
* Thanks to: Kristen B. Sandvik; Zara Rahman; Jennifer Schulte; Sean McDonald; Paul Currion; Dinorah Cantú-Pedraza and the Responsible Data Listserve for valuable input.
Rebecca Lipman at Economist Intelligence Unit Perspectives on “One city tweets to stay dry: From drones to old-fashioned phone calls, data come from many unlikely sources. In a disaster, such as a flood or earthquake, responders will take whatever information they can get to visualise the crisis and best direct their resources. Increasingly, cities prone to natural disasters are learning to better aid their citizens by empowering their local agencies and responders with sophisticated tools to cut through the large volume and velocity of disaster-related data and synthesise actionable information.
Consider the plight of the metro area of Jakarta, Indonesia, home to some 28m people, 13 rivers and 1,100 km of canals. With 40% of the city below sea level (and sinking), and regularly subject to extreme weather events including torrential downpours in monsoon season, Jakarta’s residents face far-too-frequent, life-threatening floods. Despite the unpredictability of flooding conditions, citizens have long taken a passive approach that depended on government entities to manage the response. But the information Jakarta’s responders had on the flooding conditions was patchy at best. So in the last few years, the government began to turn to the local population for help. It helped.
Today, Jakarta’s municipal government is relying on the web-based PetaJakarta.org project and a handful of other crowdsourcing mobile apps such as Qlue and CROP to collect data and respond to floods and other disasters. Through these programmes, crowdsourced, time-sensitive data derived from citizens’ social-media inputs have made it possible for city agencies to more precisely map the locations of rising floods and help the residents at risk. In January 2015, for example, the web-based Peta Jakarta received 5,209 reports on floods via tweets with detailed text and photos. Anytime there’s a flood, Peta Jakarta’s data from the tweets are mapped and updated every minute, and often cross-checked by Jakarta Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) officials through calls with community leaders to assess the information and guide responders.
But in any city Twitter is only one piece of a very large puzzle. …
Even with such life-and-death examples, government agencies remain deeply protective of data because of issues of security, data ownership and citizen privacy. They are also concerned about liability issues if incorrect data lead to an activity that has unsuccessful outcomes. These concerns encumber the combination of crowdsourced data with operational systems of record, and impede the fast progress needed in disaster situations….Download the case study here.”
