OSF-ISD: October 2017 Archives

News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending 27 October 2017
 ====================================================
The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman.

Our staff, advisers and major grantees tweet at http://bit.ly/13j5fjq. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: EDRi, EFF, La Quadrature du Net.

Job postings
----------------------
The Digital Freedom Fund is looking for a Program Officer to help support its partners in bringing about change through strategic litigation.
http://bit.ly/2g1gC97


NEWS
=====
For breaking news stories, visit: http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:news/

US: Test of police body cameras finds little impact
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At the New York Times, Amanda Ripley reports that the largest, most rigorous study of police body cameras has found that the cameras have no effect on the rate of civilian complaints, use of force, or charging decisions. The seven-month study, led by David Yokum at the Lab @ DC, and Anita Ravishankar at the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department, found the effects were too small to be statistically significant; why is not clear. The high financial and privacy costs of police body cameras mean the study may inspire a rethink. The most commonly-cited previous study, in 2012 in Rialto, California, found that shifts with body-worn cameras had half the use-of-force incidents. It led to widespread adoption even though it was a short-term study including only 54 officers. At the ACLU, Jay Stanley discusses the likely limitations of a new trend: gun-mounted cameras that are activated when a gun is drawn from its holster.
NY Times: http://nyti.ms/2gIKZVE
ACLU: http://bit.ly/2haJ4X8

EU: European Parliament endorses privacy rights
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EDRi reports that the European Parliament has supported the mandate for trilogues on the ePrivacy Regulation and endorsed privacy rights 318 to 280, with 18 abstentions. The vote followed the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs (LIBE)'s vote for "clear, privacy-friendly rules" after considering the proposed e-Privacy Regulation. The legislation, which follows the 2016 adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation, is intended to protect internet and mobile phone users from tracking, monitoring, and profiling. The next stage will be negotiations with the EU member states in the Council. La Quadrature du Net highlights two weaknesses of the draft Regulation: allowing websites to track users without their consent for audience measuring purposes; and allowing companies to track devices in public spaces without our consent.
EDRi on Twitter: http://bit.ly/2gISaNG
EDRi (LIBE): http://bit.ly/2gMno6L
Quadrature: http://bit.ly/2zRePvM

US: California creates firewall limiting federal access to state data
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The EFF reports that California governor Jerry Brown has signed into law S.B. 31, a bill creating a firewall between the state's data and any attempt by the US federal government to create lists, registries, or databases based on a person's religion, nationality, or ethnicity. Police authorities are also prohibited from investigating or enforcing a requirement to register with such a registry.
EFF: http://bit.ly/2xo2YE3

Italy: School program teaches how to recognize fake news
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At the New York Times, Jason Horowitz reports on a project led by Laura Boldrini, the president of Italy's Chamber of Deputies, to educate secondary school students on how to recognize fake news and conspiracy theories online. In an experiment using work sheets prepared by the national broadcaster, RAL, students are being taught to verify stories. As the early 2018 Italian election approaches, conspiracy theories are spreading through the country against a background of spreading economic problems, partisan media, a migrant crisis, and an increasing distrust of traditional authorities.
NY Times: http://nyti.ms/2i6so2B

Norwegian Consumer Council finds security issues in children's smartwatches
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue website, Finn Myrstad, director of digital policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), reports that the NCC has found critical security flaws in smartwatches for children. The technical tests found security flaws in three of the four watches/apps; several transmit data to servers in the US and East Asia, often in plain text. The tests also found that some of the advertised safety features, such as a panic button, were unreliable and that the user terms are inadequate and unclear.
TACD: http://bit.ly/2lhNIqL

US: Congress investigates Russian election interference
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Guardian reports that the US Senate and House intelligence committees have summoned representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google to appear on November 1 as part of their investigation into the extent to which these companies were used in a Russian effort to sway the 2016 presidential election. Meduza summarizes (in English) a detailed Russian report on the Russian troll farm the Internet Research Agency, which spent nearly $80,000 over two years to hire American activists to stage 40 rallies in different American cities in order to incite animosity over hot-button issues. The Guardian publishes the stories of some of the tricked demonstrators, who say their activism is real, though they display varying reactions to learning the source of their funding. CNN reports that among the many platforms used to spread the IRA's "Don't Shoot Us" campaign, which purported to support Black Lives Matter, were Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Pokémon Go.
Guardian (committees): http://bit.ly/2z9w2nd
Meduza: http://bit.ly/2yT9zdp
Guardian (activists): http://bit.ly/2haXhTZ
CNN: http://cnnmon.ie/2yLaXil


FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
====================
For more features and analysis selected by the Program team, visit:
http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:oped/

China: Big data meets Big Brother in new citizen rating system
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this Wired article, Rachel Bostman studies China's plans to issue each of the country's citizens with a "social credit score"; the system is currently voluntary but will become mandatory in 2020. The government has licensed eight companies to devise systems and algorithms. The two best-known projects, China Rapid Finance and Sesame Credit, include among their partners data giants such as WeChat owner Tencent and the Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services Group, which owns AliPay. The article goes on to discuss how individuals are scored and why they sign up for such a privacy-invasive system. The government, Bostman writes, is attempting to make obedience feel like gaming.
Wired: http://bit.ly/2iB2FmI

Regulating artificial intelligence
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this report from AI Now, authors Alex Campolo, Madelyn Sanfilippo, Meredith Whittaker, and Kate Crawford explain the state of the art of artificial intelligence, discuss the controversies it raises, and make ten recommendations for its deployment. Among them: high-stakes public agencies should drop "black box" AI and algorithmic systems; companies should rigorously pre-test such systems for biases and errors; standards should be developed for tracking datasets throughout their life cycle; the AI industry should recruit experts from a wide array of disciplines outside computer science and engineering. By contrast, Wired UK reports that a report commissioned by the UK government has recommended the creation of an AI council to oversee the industry but that there should be no direct regulation.
AI Now (PDF): http://bit.ly/2iy2DvP
Wired: http://bit.ly/2y617Iv

Google Urbanism: a takeover in all but name
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this Guardian article, Evgeny Morozov fears the Google Urbanism project will turn cities into privately-run digital platform and buying their way in with promises of "cool" services and efficiency but profiting by extracting the resulting data. Google Urbanism, he writes, means the end of politics: "Alphabet's democratization of function will not be matched by the democratization of control and ownership of urban resources". In this dystopian future, market demand will replace communal decision-making. Also at the Guardian, Jathan Sadowski argues that the waterfront redevelopment partnership between the city of Toronto and Google's Sidewalk Labs, like other such initiatives, risks creating a template for bypassing democratic leadership.
Guardian (Morozov): http://bit.ly/2xoDZQN
Guardian (Sadowski): http://bit.ly/2zEUTf2

Can you make a living as an Uber driver?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this web-based game at the Financial Times based on the newspaper's reporting and interviews with dozens of drivers, players attempt to earn enough to make a $1,000 mortgage payment while working as a full-time Uber driver with two kids to support. As you go, the game asks you to make strategy decisions that expose the perverse incentives on issues such as whether to get a business license and how you want to handle passengers, mishaps, and illegal requests. Even at the easiest setting, it seems impossible to win. Hint: when your windscreen gets chipped, fix it promptly.
FT: http://bit.ly/2gFIdgx

Intellectual property for the 21st-century economy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this posting at Project Syndicate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dean Baker, and Arjun Jayadev discuss efforts by developing countries such as South Africa, India, and Brazil to push back against the intellectual property regime that has been forced upon them over the last 30 years. South Africa is finalizing an IP policy that should widen access to medicines; a 2005 law in India created a mechanism to add balance and fairness to patenting standards; and Brazil negotiated lower drug prices to enable early treatment of HIV/AIDS. The authors go on to discuss their new paper arguing that the economic institutions and laws protecting knowledge in advanced economies are poorly suited for governing global economic activity or meeting the needs of developing countries and emerging markets. Knowledge, they write, is a global public good; the current IP regime is not sustainable.
Project Syndicate: http://bit.ly/2gKZhoL

The rise of authoritarian cryptocurrencies
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this article at Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky discusses the prospects of authoritarian cryptocurrencies, a new way for Russia and China to control their financial systems. In Russia, the pro-government newspaper Argumenti I Fakti reported that President Vladimir Putin is proposing a near-term launch of a closed crypto-ruble, and Yao Qian, deputy director of the People's Bank of China's technology division, has suggested a central bank-issued electronic currency for which commercial banks would administer wallets. The idea is directly opposed to the original libertarian idea behind bitcoin of a decentralized currency that could not be controlled by any government; China's and Russia's goals are likely to be improving the cost and speed of financial transactions.
Bloomberg: https://bloom.bg/2yTaydB

The war to sell mattresses over the internet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this lengthy article at Fast Company, David Zax investigates the background of a 2016 lawsuit brought by the mattress manufacturer Casper against Sleepopolis, the largest of an ecosystem of mattress review sites, which makes millions of dollars through affiliate marketing. Casper alleged false advertising and deceptive practices. The case ended with a settlement and a sale in which Casper provided financing for a takeover of Sleepopolis. The story illustrates the many hidden ways of gaming apparently independent reviews and coupon deals in niches where no one would imagine that millions of dollars were at stake and where consumers unwisely trust what they see.
Fast Company: http://bit.ly/2y6DrUs


***

DIARY
==============
To see more events recommended by the Information Program team, visit:
https://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:events/. If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

Mozfest 2017
----------------------------------------
October 27-29, 2017
London, UK
The world's leading festival for the open internet movement will feature influential thinkers from around the world to build, debate, and explore the future of a healthy internet.
http://bit.ly/2oaIXvK

ORGcon 2017
----------------------------------------
November 4-5, 2017
London, UK
ORGCon is the UK's biggest digital rights conference. This year's theme is: The Digital Fightback.
http://bit.ly/2prFqye

OpenCon 2017
----------------------------------------
November 11-13, 2017
Berlin, Germany
OpenCon is the conference and community for students and early career academic professionals interested in advancing Open Access, Open Education and Open Data. Applications to attend are due by August 1.
http://bit.ly/2tNZdqg

After the Digital Tornado
----------------------------------------
November 17-18
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Twenty years since the policy-makers and academics began wrestling with the implications of the internet, fundamental questions remain unresolved, and even more serious new questions have emerged. Today, networks powered by algorithms are eating everything. At this major academic conference hosted by the Wharton School, an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars will consider the deep questions posed for business and society. Registration is free, but space is limited.
http://bit.ly/2y1rif1

Privacy Camp
----------------------------------------
January 23, 2018
Brussels, Belgium
Privacy Camp brings together civil society, policy-makers and academia to discuss existing and looming problems for human rights in the digital environment. In the face of a "shrinking civic space" for collective action, the event aims to provide a platform for actors from across these domains to discuss and develop shared principles to address key challenges for digital rights and freedoms of individuals. The theme for 2018 is "speech, settings and [in]security by design".
http://bit.ly/2lho8Cb

Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection
----------------------------------------
January 24-26, 2018
Brussels, Belgium
The theme of the 11th edition of CPDP is the "Internet of Bodies". Data collection increasingly focuses on the physical body. Bodies are increasingly connected, digitized, and informatized. In turn, the data extracted is reassembled in ways that give rise to significant questions - challenging fundamental assumptions about where the corporeal ends and the informational begins. Biometrics, genetic data processing and the quantified self are only some of the trends and technologies reaching into the depths of our bodies. Emerging technologies such as human enhancement, neural implants, and brain wave technology look likely to soon become a daily reality.
http://bit.ly/2sSQ02x

We Robot 2018
----------------------------------------
April 12-14, 2018
Palo Alto, California, USA
This conference is the annual gathering of academics, policy makers, roboticists, economists, ethicists, entrepreneurs, and lawyers who care about robots and the future of robot law and policy. We Robot fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and the people who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots operate.
http://stanford.io/2juk94u

OKFestival 2018
----------------------------------------
May 3-6, 2018
Thessaloniki, Greece
The Open Knowledge Festival (OKFestival) is the biggest gathering of the open knowledge community and will bring together over 1,000 people from around the world to share their skills and experiences; encouraging them to work together to build the very tools and partnerships that will further the power of openness as a positive force for change.
http://2018.okfestival.org/

RightsCon
----------------------------------------
May 16-18, 2018
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
RightsCon has become one of the world's largest gatherings on human rights and technology, and it's people like you that make it an engine for change. The 2018 event is staged in Canada for a conversation built on the principles of diversity, inclusion, and respect.
http://bit.ly/2rR0IX3

Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection
----------------------------------------
May 24, 2018
San Francisco, CA, USA
ConPro #18 will explore computer science topics with an impact on consumers. This workshop has a strong security and privacy emphasis, with an overall focus on ways in which computer science can prevent, detect, or address the potential for technology to deceive or unfairly harm consumers. Participants will consist heavily of academic and industry researchers but are also expected to include researchers from the Federal Trade Commission - the U.S. government's primary consumer protection body - and other government agencies with a consumer protection mission.
http://bit.ly/2iCUt5r

Privacy Law Scholars
----------------------------------------
May 30-31
Washington, DC, USA
PLSC is a paper workshop with the goal of improving and providing support for in-progress scholarship. To achieve this, PLSC assembles a wide array of privacy law scholars and practitioners from around the world to discuss the papers. Scholars from many disciplines (psychology/economics, sociology, philosophy, political science, computer science, and even math) also participate.
http://bit.ly/2zgypRQ

LIBER Annual Conference 2018
----------------------------------------
July 4-6, 2018
Lille, France
The 47th annual conference of the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) will include plenary sessions with top international speakers, presentations on current research, posters, and an exhibition of products and services for the library sector, as well as a comprehensive social programme.
http://bit.ly/2zFcbbU

International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners 2018
----------------------------------------
October 22-26, 2018
Brussels, Belgium
The 40th version of this event will be hosted by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli and the chair of the Commission for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ventsislav Karadjov. The conference is expected to focus on the recently launched international debate on the ethical dimension of data protection in the digital era. Accompanying conference events will also take place in Bulgaria.
https://icdppc.org/

***

Hear more from the Information Program!
================================
If you want to hear more from the Information Program team each week, consider subscribing to our shared bookmarks on delicious using this RSS feed:
http://feeds.pinboard.in/rss/secret:95194ab804ccccac713b/u:osi_info_program/

You can also read more about our work on the Open Society Foundations website: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/information-program

Hear less from the Information Program!
================================
If you wish to unsubscribe from this weekly digest, please send an email with the subject line "Unsubscribe" to info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

This digest operates under the OSF privacy policy: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/policies/privacy

Additionally, it uses the bit.ly URL shortening service, which operates under the following privacy policy: http://bit.ly/pages/privacy/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Open Society Foundation, part of the Open Society Foundations, is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 4571628) and a registered charity (charity number 1105069). Its registered office address is 7th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP

This e-mail and all attachments are confidential and may also be privileged and subject to copyright. If you are not the named recipient, please notify the sender and delete the e-mail and all attachments immediately. Do not disclose the contents to another person. You may not use the information for any purpose, or store, or copy it in any way - unless we tell you that you can. The Open Society Foundations are not liable for any computer viruses or other material transmitted with or as part of this e-mail. You should employ virus checking software.

Open Society Foundation London, part of the Open Society Foundations, is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 10187396). Its registered office address is 7th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP

Research Digest • Open Society Information Program • 13 October 2017

=================================================

The Open Society Information Program Research Digest tracks new scholarly articles and books on the social and political aspects of information and technology issues. The Digest is compiled by Evgeny Morozov. A related Twitter feed is also available at https://twitter.com/#!/morozov_links. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Open Society Foundations or the Information Program.


NEW ARTICLES AND PAPERS

==========================

* "Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing" by Sarah Brayne - American Sociological Review

This article examines the intersection of two structural developments: the growth of surveillance and the rise of "big data." Drawing on observations and interviews conducted within the Los Angeles Police Department, the author offers an empirical account of how the adoption of big data analytics does--and does not--transform police surveillance practices. The author argues that the adoption of big data analytics facilitates amplifications of prior surveillance practices and fundamental transformations in surveillance activities.

source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417725865 ($)

-------

* "Algo-Rhythms and the Beat of the Legal Drum" by Ugo Pagallo - Philosophy & Technology

The paper focuses on concerns and legal challenges brought on by the use of algorithms. A particular class of algorithms that augment or replace analysis and decision-making by humans, i.e. data analytics and machine learning, is under scrutiny. The author argues that by entrusting many legal hard cases to algorithms, humans still bear full responsibility for the judgment of what is socially, ethically, and legally "plain" and "hard" in social affairs. The balance between delegation of decisions to algorithms and non-delegation will be the leitmotiv of the algorithmic society, argues the author.

source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-017-0277-z ($)

-------

* "A Posthuman Data Subject? The Right to Be Forgotten and Beyond" by Jannice Käll - German Law Journal

Arguing that digital technologies greatly obfuscate the boundaries between persons and things, this article draws a parallel to how the continuous expansion of digital technologies also affects critical understandings of how "data" and human personhood are produced in legal theory. Reviewing the new data protection legislation, and especially the Right to Be Forgotten rule with its attempt to strike the balance between the privacy interests of humans and the business needs of the infosphere, the author argues that the construction of new human rights around data protection would benefit from understanding how the theoretical separation between "humans" and "data" is in itself an effect of advanced capitalism.

source: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56330ad3e4b0733dcc0c8495/t/59a9a6f559cc685ded692259/1504290550021/05+Vol_18_No_05_Kall.pdf (free)

-------

* "Cyber Insurance" by Pythagoras Petratos et al. - book chapter

This article offers an accessible introduction to the topic of cyber insurance. The authors describe the different types or risks as well as uncertainty and ignorance related to cyber security. A framework for catastrophes linked to cyber-events is presented. It is assessed which risks might be insurable or uninsurable. Authors also discuss the evolution and challenges of cyber insurance and propose some thoughts for the further development of cyber insurance markets.

source: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-06091-0_25-1 ($)

-------

* "Online Network Organization of Barcelona en Comú, an Emergent Movement-Party" by Pablo Aragón et al. - Computational Social Networks

The article explores the novelty of the emerging grassroots party Barcelona en Comú that won the 2015 Barcelona City Council election. On the one hand, it came out of a social movement that was based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties develop oligarchical leadership structures. Exploring this tension through the lens of the party's Twitter activity, this article finds that while traditional parties are organized in a single cluster, for Barcelona en Comú two well-defined groups co-exist: a centralized cluster led by the candidate and party accounts, and a decentralized cluster with the movement activists.

source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40649-017-0044-4 ($)


NEW AND NOTEWORTHY BOOKS
=============================

* "Google and Democracy: Politics and the Power of the Internet" by Sean Richey & J. Benjamin Taylor (Routledge)

This book explores the influence of Google on American politics, specifically on direct democracy. Using original experiments and nationally representative cross-sectional data, the authors show how Google Search returns quality information, that users click on quality information, and gain political knowledge and other contingent benefits. Additionally, they correlate Google usage with real-world voting behavior on direct democracy. The authors conclude that Google Search is a powerful and important component to American political life in the twenty-first century, yet its influence is poorly researched or understood.

source: https://www.amazon.com/Google-Democracy-Politics-Power-Internet/dp/1138066451/

-------

* "The Political Economy of Robots: Prospects for Prosperity and Peace in the Automated 21st Century" edited by Ryan Kiggins (Palgrave Macmillan)

This collection examines the implications of technological automation for global prosperity and peace. Focusing on robots, information communication technologies, and other automation technologies, contributors to this book offer brief interventions that assess how automation may alter extant political, social, and economic institutions, norms, and practices that comprise the global political economy. The collection deals directly with such issues as automated production, trade, war, state sanctioned robot violence, financial speculation, transnational crime, and policy decision making.

source: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-Robots-Prosperity-International/dp/3319514652/

-------

* "Bulk Collection: Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data" edited by Fred H. Cate & James X. Dempsey (Oxford University Press)

This book draws on comparative methods to examine national practices and laws regarding systematic government access to personal information held by private-sector companies. These data collection programs, often undertaken in the name of national security, were cloaked in secrecy and largely immune from oversight, posing serious threats to personal privacy. This book contains twelve updated country reports plus eleven analytic chapters that present descriptive and normative frameworks for assessing national surveillance laws, survey evolving international law and human rights principles applicable to government surveillance, and describe oversight mechanisms.

source: https://www.amazon.com/Bulk-Collection-Systematic-Government-Private-Sector/dp/0190685514

-------

* "Documenting Americans: A Political History of National ID Card Proposals in the United States" by Magdalena Krajewsk (Cambridge University Press)

This book offers the first political history of national ID card proposals and developments in identity policing in the United States. The book focuses on the period from 1915 to 2016, including the post-9/11 debates and policy decisions regarding the introduction of technologically-advanced identification documents. The author debunks two common myths: that Americans are opposed to national ID cards and that American policymakers never propose national ID cards.

source: https://www.amazon.com/Documenting-Americans-Political-National-Proposals-ebook/dp/B074XF8N5K

-------

* "Robot Ethics 2.0: From Autonomous Cars to Artificial Intelligence" edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, Ryan Jenkins (Oxford University Press)

Contributors to this book argue that, as robots slip into more domains of human life -- from the operating room to the bedroom -- they take on our morally important tasks and decisions, as well as create new risks from psychological to physical. This, according to the book, makes it all the more urgent to study their ethical, legal, and policy impacts. In particular, this volume looks toward autonomous cars here as an important case study that cuts across diverse issues, from liability to psychology to trust and more.

source: https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Ethics-2-0-Autonomous-Intelligence/dp/0190652950/



Hear more from the Information Program!
================================
If you want to be alerted to more scholarly research relevant to the Information Program, consider subscribing to the related Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/#!/morozov_links

You can also read more about our work on the Open Society Foundations website http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/initiatives/information


Hear less from the Information Program!

================================

If you wish to unsubscribe from this weekly digest, please send an email with the subject line "unsubscribe researchdigest" to info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

This digest operates under the OSF privacy policy:
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/policies/privacy


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0)


News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending 29 September 2017
====================================================
The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. 

Our staff, advisers and major grantees tweet at http://bit.ly/13j5fjq. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: EDRi, EFF, SumOfUs.


NEWS
=====
For breaking news stories, visit: http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:news/

UK: Transport for London bars Uber
----------------------------------------------------------------------
London Reconnections reports that Transport for London (TfL) has decided not to renew Uber's license to operate, saying the company is not "fit and proper". The company says it will appeal; over 825,000 customers have answered its call to sign a Change.org petition in support. TfL's announcement lists four areas in which it feels Uber has failed to take sufficient responsibility: reporting serious criminal offenses; obtaining medical certificates; Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks; and explaining the use of the company's regulator-blocking software Greyball. London Reconnections explains Uber's corporate structure and the reasons why in TfL Uber has met a genuinely powerful regulator that will not be easily pacified. SumOfUs argues that TfL should not restore Uber's license until and unless the company agrees to fair working terms, including granting drivers basic employment rights and safe working practices; it has delivered a petition with 106,000 signatures to London Assembly member Unmesh Desai.
London Reconnections: http://bit.ly/2wnpxbm
TfL: http://bit.ly/2yLG5LF
SumOfUs: http://bit.ly/2woknfk

Apple adds tracking prevention to Safari browser
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Guardian reports that the latest version of Apple's Safari browser implements "intelligent tracking prevention", which prevents some websites from tracking users around the net. The move has proved controversial, and six advertising consortia have written an open letter to Apple, published in AdWeek, saying the new rules will "hurt the user experience and sabotage the economic model for the internet". Google is also developing a feature for its Chrome browser that will block "intrusive ads". EFF expresses the hope that Mozilla, Microsoft, and Google will follow the lead of Apple and minority browsers Brave and Opera.
Guardian: http://bit.ly/2wnRnEF
AdWeek: http://bit.ly/2wnoXu8
EFF: http://bit.ly/2xQb2jR

Chile: Draft decree requires data retention
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Human Rights Watch reports that the text of a draft decree signed by Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, which has been released by the rights group Derechos Digitales, would require telecommunications companies to retain data on the electronic and mobile communications of everyone in the country for at least two years. While the decree would require a court order to intercept communications, the same would not be true for accessing data already held. The draft also forbids companies from incorporating technology to hinder interception or recording, which if interpreted broadly could mean banning encryption. To come into force, the decree needs to be approved by the Comptroller Generalk's Office, which is reviewing the draft.
Human Rights Watch: http://bit.ly/2fxF4ie

EU: Buried study shows unauthorized downloads have little effect on sales
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EDRi reports that in response to a freedom of information request from Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda the European Commission has finally published a study on the impact of unauthorized downloads on the copyright industry that it commissioned in 2014. Awarded to the Dutch research and consultancy company Ecorys at a cost of €369,871, the study, now published at Netzpolitik, found that statistical analysis did not support the claim that downloading displaced sales with one exception: recent top movies. In that case, the researchers found that the legal consumption of top films decreased by four for every ten recent top films watched illegally. Music and books were unaffected; downloading games may even boost sales. The researchers suggest that downloading films and TV series decreases with lower prices. At TechDirt, Glyn Moody has more details and background.
EDRi: http://bit.ly/2x1H60b
Netzpolitik (PDF): http://bit.ly/2xQNbkl
TechDirt: http://bit.ly/2x1xl2h

Spain: Government raids .cat registry owner Fundació PuntCAT
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times reports that the Spanish authorities, in the news for raiding the offices of the Catalan regional government and detaining at least 14 people, simultaneously raided the offices of Fundació PuntCAT, which has overseen the .cat domain name registry since its creation in 2005. PuntCAT's head of IT, Pep Masoliver, was arrested and charged with sedition. Almost all of the 113,000 websites registered under .cat belong to the Catalan-speaking community, and the foundation monitors such sites to ensure that they use the Catalan language. Catalonia's regional government has long pushed for secession from Spain and intends to hold a referendum on secession on October 1, efforts the Madrid government claims violates the country's 1978 constitution. The foundation has written to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to say that the Spanish authorities have asked it to block all .cat domain names that may contain any information about the referendum, and posted it on Twitter. The Guardian has more detail on the broader situation. 
New York Times: http://nyti.ms/2yMbVbx
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2x1hb91
Guardian: http://bit.ly/2yx9PLD


FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
====================
For more features and analysis selected by the Program team, visit:
http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:oped/

EFF's open letter to W3C
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this open letter, EFF's Cory Doctorow explains why EFF has resigned from W3C, the organization founded by Tim Berners-Lee that guides the development of the web. EFF's resignation is related to W3C's adoption of the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) standard, which enables companies like Netflix and others to deliver video protected via digital rights management (DRM) to web browsers. EFF had agreed to drop its opposition to EME provided that the W3C extend its existing intellectual property rights policies to ensure that companies could not use provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright to attack legitimate activities such as research and modifications that require the circumvention of DRM. Despite support by W3C members from many sectors, W3C's leaders rejected this compromise. At The Outline, Adrianne Jeffries discusses the controversy and the perception that the W3C, "vendor-neutral" since its founding in 1994, has become a captive of large corporate interests. 
EFF: http://bit.ly/2xOrtgx
The Outline: http://bit.ly/2hAeR6R

Fixing Facebook
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this article at Wired, Antonio Garcia Martinez explains the inner workings of Facebook's advertising machine, which he helped create, and suggests how to fix them in the light of two recent stories: the sale of $100,000 in political ads to Russian operators before the 2016 election, and the ease with which bigoted users can be targeted via keywords. Garcia Martinez rapidly dismisses the second story because advertisers have largely abandoned keywords in favor of more personalized targeting. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's embrace of transparency, he writes, will require the company to solve the problem of how to display all the many variants of ads without disrupting advertisers' desire to have clean product pages. ProPublica has the detail of what is known about Facebook's transparency initiative.
Wired: http://bit.ly/2hAwXpd
ProPublica: http://bit.ly/2fDoCQS

African start-ups
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this article at Quartz Africa based on the recent Accelerating Africa 2,0 event, Yinka Adegoke argues that Africa's community of start-ups and venture capitalists should be focusing on innovation and problem-solving rather than chasing huge valuations. The latter approach may have worked in Silicon Valley, but will be damaging in an African context.
Quartz: http://bit.ly/2fD5DWZ

Disrupting Daesh on Twitter
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this blog posting at VOX-Pol, Maura Conway and Suraj Lakhani summarize findings in the project's August report, Disrupting Daesh: Measuring Takedown of Online Terrorist Material and Its Impacts. While Twitter was quickly suspending accounts linked to Islamic State (IS), the same was not true of accounts linked to other extremist groups. VOX-Pol estimates that 90% of accounts supportive of IS were taken down over the three months of their study. The researchers conclude by warning that IS activity is migrating to other platforms, particularly Telegram, where there may be less overall activity but participants may be more committed to their cause and therefore pose a greater security risk.
VOX-Pol: http://bit.ly/2yLcvGa

Information bottleneck and deep machine learning
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this article at Quanta Magazine, Natalie Wolchover explains a Berlin conference talk posted to YouTube by Naftali Tishby, a computer scientist and neuroscientist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the talk, Tishby proposed an answer to the question of how deep neural networks learn: an information bottleneck that rids the information passing through the network of noise and retains only the most relevant features. Tishby has identified two phases of this process: "fitting" and "compression". It's widely agreed that he may have solved the important problem of how neural networks generalize principles from the stream of specific examples they're fed; it's unlikely that this is how human brains do it.
Quanta: http://bit.ly/2fBHtvO
YouTube: http://bit.ly/2ywnhiI

***

DIARY
==============
To see more events recommended by the Information Program team, visit:
https://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:events/. If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

Privacy + Security Forum
----------------------------------------
October 4-6, 2017
Washington, DC, USA
The conference breaks down the silos of security and privacy by bringing together leaders from both fields. 
http://bit.ly/1PZhExo

Freedom not Fear
----------------------------------------
October 6-9, 2017
Brussels, Belgium
Annual barcamp for European digital rights activists organized by Digitalcourage. Open to all. The barcamp highly depends on the participants and their contribution - those wanting to organise a workshop or a talk can create an account at the FnF wiki and enter their session.
EDRi: http://bit.ly/2hAJzN0

Countering Violent Extremism Online and the Impact on Civil Liberties
----------------------------------------
October 23-04, 2017
Boston, MA, USA
The theme of this workshop is to explore the challenges and opportunities facing actors engaged in countering violent extremism online, and the impact on content regulation and civil liberties. This workshop is connected with a VOX-Pol study being conducted by Central European University's Center for Media, Data and Society.
http://bit.ly/2x0PrWQ

Mozfest 2017
----------------------------------------
October 27-29, 2017
London, UK
https://ti.to/Mozilla/mozfest-2017/en
The world's leading festival for the open internet movement will feature influential thinkers from around the world to build, debate, and explore the future of a healthy internet.
http://bit.ly/2oaIXvK

ORGcon 2017
----------------------------------------
November 4, 2017
London, UK
ORGCon is the UK's biggest digital rights conference. This year's theme is: The Digital Fightback.
http://bit.ly/2prFqye

OpenCon 2017
----------------------------------------
November 11-13, 2017
Berlin, Germany
OpenCon is the conference and community for students and early career academic professionals interested in advancing Open Access, Open Education and Open Data. Applications to attend are due by August 1.
http://bit.ly/2tNZdqg

After the Digital Tornado
----------------------------------------
November 17-18
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Twenty years since the policy-makers and academics began wrestling with the implications of the internet, fundamental questions remain unresolved, and even more serious new questions have emerged. Today, networks powered by algorithms are eating everything. At this major academic conference hosted by the Wharton School, an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars will consider the deep questions posed for business and society. Registration is free, but space is limited.
http://bit.ly/2y1rif1 

Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection
----------------------------------------
January 24-26, 2018
The theme of the 11th edition of CPDP is the "Internet of Bodies". Data collection increasingly focuses on the physical body. Bodies are increasingly connected, digitized, and informatized. In turn, the data extracted is reassembled in ways that give rise to significant questions - challenging fundamental assumptions about where the corporeal ends and the informational begins. Biometrics, genetic data processing and the quantified self are only some of the trends and technologies reaching into the depths of our bodies. Emerging technologies such as human enhancement, neural implants, and brain wave technology look likely to soon become a daily reality. 
http://bit.ly/2sSQ02x

We Robot 2018
----------------------------------------
April 12-14, 2018
Palo Alto, California, USA
This conference is the annual gathering of academics, policy makers, roboticists, economists, ethicists, entrepreneurs, and lawyers who care about robots and the future of robot law and policy. We Robot fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and the people who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots operate. 
http://stanford.io/2juk94u

RightsCon
----------------------------------------
May 16-18, 2018
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
RightsCon has become one of the world's largest gatherings on human rights and technology, and it's people like you that make it an engine for change. The 2018 event is staged in Canada for a conversation built on the principles of diversity, inclusion, and respect.
http://bit.ly/2rR0IX3

International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners 2018
----------------------------------------
October 22026, 2018
Brussels, Belgium
The 40th version of this event will be hosted by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli and the chair of the Commission for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ventsislav Karadjov. The conference is expected to focus on the recently launched international debate on the ethical dimension of data protection in the digital era. Accompanying conference events will also take place in Bulgaria.
https://icdppc.org/

***

Hear more from the Information Program!
================================
If you want to hear more from the Information Program team each week, consider subscribing to our shared bookmarks on delicious using this RSS feed:
http://feeds.pinboard.in/rss/secret:95194ab804ccccac713b/u:osi_info_program/

You can also read more about our work on the Open Society Foundations website: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/information-program

Hear less from the Information Program!
================================
If you wish to unsubscribe from this weekly digest, please send an email with the subject line "Unsubscribe" to info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

This digest operates under the OSF privacy policy: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/policies/privacy

Additionally, it uses the bit.ly URL shortening service, which operates under the following privacy policy: http://bit.ly/pages/privacy/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Open Society Foundation, part of the Open Society Foundations, is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 4571628) and a registered charity (charity number 1105069). Its registered office address is 7th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP


About this Archive

This page is a archive of entries in the OSF-ISD category from October 2017.

OSF-ISD: September 2017 is the previous archive.

OSF-ISD: November 2017 is the next archive.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.