We had the last BigData175 Seminar today. The speakers were Evelyn Ruppert (from Goldsmith University, UK) and Frank Pasquale (from University of Maryland). It was a pleasure listening to both of them who are experts in their field.
Frank Pasquale - the author of the book "Black Box Society"- talked about the possibilities of algorithms and its possible consequences. As a law professor, he went over possible implications of algorithms in all fields, but especially in health, through studying cases. The first case was the usage of voice analysis in order to help in disease diagnosis. Imagine that a program would analyze your voice and then will be able to conclude whether you are healthy or not, or what kind of a problem you might have. (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603200/voice-analysis-tech-could-diagnose-disease/ - This is a link I have found - he did not give this website). They will be able to screen you for depression or understand how you feel through the way you speak. He also referred to the use of algorithms for social and behavioral determinants of health. The second case he explored was about the usage of algorithms in the prediction of mental health data (Samaritans Radar - http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/supporting-someone-online/samaritans-radar - The app checks the twits of your friends and warn you when one of them seems to write unhealthy messages. vs. Durkheim Project - http://www.durkheimproject.org/ - "automated flagging for Psychological Health". the difference of this project is that they take the consent of the users and they also involve health scientists such as psychologists or doctors.) Pasquale was underlining the importance of involving professionals in the analysis of algorithms (could be psychologist or doctors for health issues, or sociologist, economists, political scientists in other issues). It is like Facebook integrating human for news vetting. The main takeaways from the talk were: "We need to think of our data practices other than consent + how professions can help us navigate information overload".
Evelyn Ruppert - the author of "Being Digital Citizens" (with Engin Isın) and editor of the book "Modes of Knowing" (with John Law) - talked about Data Politics specifically being a digital citizen. As opposed to the viewpoints that consider the internet users as passive, she contends that we claim our rights on the internet in various ways. As a critical citizenship studies scholar, she highlights that we are not just obeying ones, we also contribute and claim rights. She puts forward an active internet user. The internet citizenship she offers is not the classical citizenship understanding that is referred in political science. A digital citizen is the one who claims his/her data rights. She divides them into two:
- through methods such as using alternative platforms, blocking cookies
- demanding rights to data. Such as through data rescue events (groups coming together to collect data that is to be destroyed by companies or institutions).
The takeaway from her talk is that there are different ways of claiming our data rights and we should look into the way to move data subjects (who are conceptualized as passive) to data citizens (who are conceptualized as having agency). She actually answers the question whether people really care that their data is being shared. She says that users are not passive as they are conceptualized. We need to reclaim and define the future of our data or the internet.
One of the things I liked in her talk was that she emphasized the importance of understanding the users as they are more nuanced than it is understood by the big data.
I have been constantly noticing the news about the penetration of algorithms in our daily life since I started studying at Queen's University. But, the most important takeaway points for me were the emphasis on the incompatibility of the consent model. (My deliberation on the issue: Users/Patients/Customers give consent for techniques that they actually don't know the details of. This actually means that they are not very conscious about what they are consenting to. Thus brings the questions of whether the consent given in these situations is valid or not.). In relation to consent model, the other issue was the data overload due to the consent model through the proliferation of data brokers. After their talk, one person from the audience asked a very interesting question, also in harmony with what I been thinking about quite lately. So the questions were something along the lines of "So we have been on the internet for the last 20 years, and there are a vast amount of data accumulated about us. Do companies and governments consider that we change over time and that what who we were when we were 6 years old is different than who we are now. Or do they consider it as a whole?". this was a very important question since as consumers, we are constantly profiled by the commercial companies on the internet, so if they take who I was 10 years ago as their indicative, then this means the information that is used for decision making about me is not reliable and not correct. I have been thinking about it in relation to how we accumulate data and how we do not remember where we put our data. We forget but the systems do not. Or most countries do not have the laws as in Europe or UK that gives people impose companies to use their "right to be forgotten".
David Lyon (Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre - and my supervisor) opening the talk and introducing Evelyn Ruppert and Frank Pasquale.
After the individual presentations, Panel discussion began under the leadership of David Lyon.
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