[od-discuss] introducing "Fair Data"

Mon Jan 26 16:40:00 UTC 2015

Hi Conor

>
> Ryan Merkley at Creative Commons suggested I get in touch. I'm an outsider
> and a newcomer, so sorry if my message feels out of left field.
>

Nor for me.

>
> Basically, I'm a public radio producer working with some activists and
> thinkers around and beyond Cambridge, Mass. on a wide-scale graphic design
> project: "Fair Data."
>
> We're taking a line from ACLU activist Chris Soghoian, who suggests in The
> Economist starting a “‘fair data’ movement, in the vein of ‘fair trade’
> campaigns...to support transparent and ethical policies on datasharing,
> privacy and security” (“Little Brother,” September 13, 2014).
>
>
> http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21615875-technology-has-transformed-advertising-consumers-need-be-kept-board-world
>
> We'd work with leading internet not-for-profits—Internet Archive,
> Wikipedia, NPR, &c.—to display the icon on privacy info pages and footers.
>

Consider several icons along the lines of Creative Commons, so that there
is more than one option for the person making the privacy undertaking.
Think about how CC has several options and then it generates a link with a
logo. The genius of this design is that  the range of possibilities is
covered. For fair data this range might include:
* no data
* we encrypt and only you have the key
* we encrypt but we promise to use only for the purposes stated, no
transfer, no giving to authorities and we will tell you if were hacked or
served a warrant
* we do/ do not use your data in anonymized data: - the implication is that
it might be at risk for reverse engineering discovery through graph theory
etc.

The argument for covering the space is to avoid competing standards that
are almost but quite the same but where only insiders can parse the
differences. That is what happened to Open Source licences. I first read
this argument by  Mark Shuttleworth -
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/67

Some people might disagree with me on this, there is something to be said
for a single clear logo but that might limit how much impact it can have.

>
> The icon would represent a baseline, universal privacy policy: your personal
> data isn't being abused, surveilled, or sold for commercial gain.
>

It would be useful if the icon were also machine readable - then one could
set one's browser or search engine to prefer sites that protect privacy and
warn one if a site did not. Mike Linksayer who is on this list could
probably say a lot more on how hard this is to do, and how well it works.

>
> Working with NPR's head graphic design person on the visual component. But
> we're deep in over our heads articulating the language. So as we begin to
> collect feedback, we're wondering:
>
> 1) What is the most democratic way to write and maintain a basic
>
"Fair Data" privacy policy?
>

Write: draft first with your early adopters and advisers -  better to write
something that will adopted then public comment and input and then final
draft from very small group of advisers/experts.

And then version it up to deal with issues, be clear that it could change a
lot in the first few versions.

Fundação Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian thinktank ran a project to create a
Bill of Rights for the Brazilian Internet (Marco Civil) using Wordpress.
The final product is not wordpress and is here:
http://direitorio.fgv.br/civilrightsframeworkforinternet
They might be able to advise on this.

Where would it be located and edited?
>

Whatever technology you use people should be able to see text and comments
at the same time - some wikis do not work well for this.

2) Talking with some folks at the Berkman Center, too. Who else should we
reach out to about this?

It is worth taking a look at how CC designed the licence matrix, logos and
3 deeds, legal, human readable and machine readable. Since you are in
Boston you may want to fight for a 30 minutes of Larry Lessig's time when
you are considering 'design' questions, what elements there should be in
the undertaking that the logo represents. What is this legally? An offer to
contract? A representation? A licensed use of a trademark that can be
withdrawn if the licensee does not comply? All of the above?

 Are there similar projects out there to keep in mind?

There will soon be as this gains popularity there will be at least one fake
version by people who collect and sell data claiming that their standard is
also fair: see 'openwashing' and 'greenwashing'.

>
> It's an ambitious, loose plan at the moment but we think it could go a
> long way—so long as the language is plain, and the process of design and
> writing is open and democratic.
>

What might be useful is if the key questions are elaborated now: what is
abuse of data? What can actors promise and not promise with respect to
surveillance? etc

Andrew

>
> Happy to talk more, and can share a PDF sketch of the project as it
> stands.
>
> Yours thankfully,
> Conor
>
> --
> Conor Gillies
> radioopensource.org
>
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