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SHARINGACTION2019 Ethics, Data and Transparency 2019/11/21/apunts/01

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https://pad.femprocomuns.cat/sharingbcn2019dataethics

Ethics, Data and Transparency

Sharing Cities Action Encounter Barcelona - 19-21 November 2019

http://www.sharingcitiesaction.net/encounter-2019/programme/

Collaborative notes at Teixidora.net, documentation to share and reuse.

https://www.teixidora.net/wiki/Sharing_Cities_Action_Encounter_2019

Speakers Affiliation

Maddalena Falzoni (Maadix)

Arantza Lozano (Open ODS)

Beth Coleman (University of Toronto)

(Conference notes in chronological order)

Conference notes

This session frames a critical issue at the heart of a data-driven society: how is data handled across the diverse sectors in which we engage? The panel will discuss new paradigms of data ethics and transparency of data system design across civic publics and IT sectors. Our goal is to activate a broader conversation on what direction civic action might take to advance this ethos.

  • Beth Coleman : What if we start with the idea of reimaging ourselves as agents / participants with power, and in which way we decide how to participate. A fantasy world? Two billion people, complexities of structures according to a changing world with countries doing well and others dependant, etc. Small group to start speaking explicitly. A conversation where the basic experiences of networked people and projects like the one we are doing now.
  • Arantza: Open ODS: Experience working with all sectors developing transparency and participation projects. More than 10 years with work on open data and transparency issues. Open ODS is a platform to speed up the 2030 agenda and its related goals. Multilevel platform and multistakeholder, . Internal resource tool in order to understamd and visualize how are you and your organization doing in relation to ODS.
  • Maadix: it is a project that a lot of people with non technical skills can store and own their data, not in the usual cloud but on an alternative service (GAFAMs). Migrating from Gmail to other tools is critical, but reality is complex. More and more people use gmail services, since they are appealing, and at the beginning it seems free.
  • The solution would be to install our own email server, it is not a simple task, the inferface is complex, we need easier solutions. If we want a social transformation we do not have people to know how technology works. This is why we created maadix. it allows to have all the servers in one place. The idea is that we did not want ot be a small google, we do not have access to user's data, this is completely autonomous, where users do not have to worry about the technical complexity. People have total access to the system. We are completely promoting data sovereignity thanks to this we allow the FLOSS community to get closer to users.

Design process. This is the open SDG. We try to speed up the agenda. We are trying to promote a fairer planet, doing it easier to everybody, making it easier for everyone to achieve the SDGs goals. We try to get data from people, but it is not transparent and not everyone want to give this to us, so we try to help governments to become more transparent.

Even if you promote data soverignity, when for example you send an email from this an account, if you send it to a gmail account then we give all this data to Google.

This is true, but we have to let people to know that change is not that difficult. That we can make alternatives.

Maybe is time to begin again, we are giving data to a lot of companies, we use a lot of products that are gathering our data. When somebody says that this is too risky then they have to start again.

Social networks are excluded from this, because if we are not in this networks then we are not giving this message to the rest of the world. We have to create alternatives, so that people know that products form big corporations are not the only options.

Technology design and ethics. We have a lot of examples for example Estonia that has developed an ID card is trusted because transparency is included in the system.

How do we think our relation with these companies? What are the limits of the services? How we can have more knowledge of what are they doing? Activation between city governments is key.

Wikimedia asks about Digital literacy done by big companies.

Companies are making huge investments to arrive to the first users of these platforms in order to take the market, and to increase engagement. For example, in places where connection is bad, some companies are making huge investments to gain the market there, as society we could request for legislation to guarantee that certain ethics, and rights are included. We love progress, but citizens should know what is really happening, and it is opaque, privative, suers should have the freedom to choose what they want o share.

Beth: I think wikimedia is doing a good job. You have real  comitments.