[MyData & Open Data] who's working on ethics, privacy and responsible data

Thu Dec 19 12:21:14 UTC 2013

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 12:44:32PM +0100, Christopher Wilson wrote:
> Hi Stef, thanks for the critical comments. Some responses inline.

thanks!

> >> responsible data, plus a preliminary mapping of resources that could be
> > why do we need another meme? why is "privacy/private data" not good enough?
> > who came up with this new term and what is his agenda and who are his funders?
> We use "responsible data" to think about these issues in the context of
> advocacy, and think they go well beyond privacy issues. We started using
> the term because, though  it's become cheap, easy and sexy to collect
> data and information for advocacy, we think doing so carries with it a
> responsibility to avoid doing harm to the people and groups reflected in
> that data. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to see when publishing,
> collecting or sharing data poses risks or steps on peoples' agency, so
> we're trying to help advocacy initiatives make sense of the issue. The
> "meme" wont make sense in all contexts, but for us, the trope of
> responsibility to think about risks in advocacy makes sense.

great goals! i hope you succeed, however please use "responsible advocacy"
instead of "responsible data" data cannot be responsible, and responsibility
is really about accountability, that can only be applied to humans. so please
stick with "private data" instead of "responsible data" - avoiding this shadow
of creating a euphemism to suppress unpleasant ethical questions - and instead
apply the responsibility to the handlers.

> You can read about how our work gets funded here
> <https://www.theengineroom.org/who-funds-our-work/>. That page hasn't

only indirect hints of plausibly deniable tentacles. ;) unfortunately mostly
US interests. i'd rather have germans spearheading our privacy efforts.

> been updated yet to include the Responsible Data Forum
> <https://www.theengineroom.org/projects/responsible-data-forum/>, which
> is being funded by OSF.
> >
> > "Disentangling ideas like privacy, anonymity and re-identification" - why
> > would you disentangle this, if not for the erosion of the concept they form
> > together - divide et impera?
> We're looking for clarity, in the interest of making it easier to make
> responsible decisions about using data in advocacy.

by making it more complicated?

> We hope that better understanding how these issues relate in actual advocacy
> contexts will make it easier to anticipate risks and enable activists and
> small orgs to deal with them.

in an activist context i'd rather consult the operational security research of
intelligence agencies and terrorist groups. compartmentalization, need to
know, don't transport on airplanes, classification levels, etc. do not give
out unnecessary open source intelligence to your adversaries, but collect as
much as possible on them. it's very simple, the data you don't want collected
on yourself, collect on your adversaries.

-- 
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