Are you a 'Data Absolutist' ?

[Michael Hardner]

Sabrina Tang of UofT uses a phrase I've never heard before:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/neil-seeman/open-data_b_4868074.html

A protean army of computer scientists, hackers and citizen researchers think we are living in an era of data access prohibition. February 22 was heralded as international open data day. The unofficial mission objective was to 'liberate data sets' -- a phrase popular with those whom we call 'data absolutists'.

Their argument is compelling. Unshackled data -- such as government-owned datasets on rates of illness in discrete populations -- are rich repositories of hidden gems of insights, from which citizen researchers, provided they have access to the data, can investigate in order to relieve human suffering. Philosophically, openness fulfills the grand vision of the Web, which has always been to break down information hierarchies: to make all information elegantly structured, equal, free and useful.

'Data absolutists' believe that citizen researchers -- not just University academics with specialty access to taxpayer-funded data sets -- can infuse their wisdom into the data, and thereby 'mash up' information on, say, hospital patient safety records, using location-based data, or 'patient experience stories' on open-access blogs. We side with the data absolutists, not the 'restrictionists' -- to a point.

This article goes a bit farther down the path of discussing why Open Government Partnerships are more than apps - but I'm still looking for the holy grail of performance monitoring tools, built for a public ready to discuss and feedback on government operations.

The scope of government today has grown immensely since western democracy was imagined and conceived in the 18th century. As a Torontonian, government directs my healthcare, my transportation, my financial safety net, and even my entertainment. Along with this increased scope, we have less of a public scope on government and more on political fights (really, a form of entertainment) as well as more of our 'news' taken up with sports, and entertainment. Newspapers and network news are declining.

As government's scope grows, and the means for a defined public to seriously monitor government are diminished, we end up delegating more and more of both functions to surrogates who are not wholly trusted by the population and so we see indecisiveness, we hear noise, and we feel chaos is nigh.

[cybercoma]

The amount of harm that can come from completely open data is huge. This isn't about a citizenry that monitors its government. Access to the datasets that StatCan holds wouldn't help with that. This is about protecting the privacy of individuals, who could potentially be targeted by people given open access to StatCan data. Some of those surveys ask intimate details about people's lives, details that they wouldn't want exposed. Open Data sounds like a great idea until you realize that you would cause irreparable damage to anyone's ability to research when people began withdrawing from surveys in larger numbers because they don't want their data to be public knowledge. One of the reasons StatCan has the response rate that it does is that they ensure respondent anonymity. Even researchers on university campuses that use this data need to have it vetted through a StatCan analyst to ensure that their published reports will not contain personally identifiable information, not only specifically but in a way that it could be deduced who individuals are. Open Access threatens respondents anonymity, which thereby threatens the ability of StatCan to target truly random samples. If the samples are no longer random, in other words those that withdraw or refuse to take part share common characteristics, then the research will no longer be generalizable. Research that's not generalizable is not useful for public policy. While access to information is an important thing, in the case of free and open access to StatCan data, I could not be more against it. It completely undermines our ability to understand the people in this country.

[Moonlight Graham]

Unless there's national security or privacy concerns I don't know why government should keep any information under wraps.

I also think it's a travesty that academic journals containing so much of our society's peer-reviewed research are locked away to anyone but other academics and students. Ordinary citizens have to pay big bucks just to get access to research from many of our brightest minds.

[Michael Hardner]

The amount of harm that can come from completely open data is huge. This isn't about a citizenry that monitors its government. Access to the datasets that StatCan holds wouldn't help with that. This is about protecting the privacy of individuals, who could potentially be targeted by people given open access to StatCan data.

Well, sure... but let's be clear that 'completely open data' isn't going to happen, and if it did it would involve a complete reworking of society. We can't even assess the impacts to society that would result

Some of those surveys ask intimate details about people's lives, details that they wouldn't want exposed. Open Data sounds like a great idea until you realize that you would cause irreparable damage to anyone's ability to research when people began withdrawing from surveys in larger numbers because they don't want their data to be public knowledge.

It's like trying to imagine personal property not meaning the same thing any more. Privacy as it exists today, ie. the contemporary social construct, is part of our being. PII - personally identifiable information - would either not be collected or it would be open for all to see.

Maybe a better way to imagine it would be if everyone became psychic overnight and there were no more private thoughts.

It completely undermines our ability to understand the people in this country.

Your response is kind of nonsensical, though. It couldn't happen as such unless people were ready for it.

'Absolutists' are to Open Data people perhaps as libertarians are to conservatives, or Trostskyites to NDPers.

[Michael Hardner]

Unless there's national security or privacy concerns I don't know why government should keep any information under wraps.

Even your reasonable take on things seems to be impossible to implement, currently. Even asking government to make apps with OUR data seems difficult.

I also think it's a travesty that academic journals containing so much of our society's peer-reviewed research are locked away to anyone but other academics and students. Ordinary citizens have to pay big bucks just to get access to research from many of our brightest minds.

How about operating procedures, such as recommendations from those very expensive inquiries and inquests ? What kind of people allow their governments to make the same mistakes over and over again without monitoring the results ?

[waldo]

How about operating procedures

to strictly monitor, review and sanction the output of "citizen auditors" gaining access to that "opened data". We've seen what purposeful misinformation those with an agenda can bring forward, particularly to an obliging soundbite driven media.

[Michael Hardner]

to strictly monitor, review and sanction the output of "citizen auditors" gaining access to that "opened data". We've seen what purposeful misinformation those with an agenda can bring forward, particularly to an obliging soundbite driven media.

The mass media that is set up to produce political news as it exists serves up a form of political entertainment for a mass audience.

I suspect that the audience for open government data will constitute a true 'public' and that those who have real interest in debate and providing real input will respond as a public and not as a mob.

[TimG]

I suspect that the audience for open government data will constitute a true 'public' and that those who have real interest in debate and providing real input will respond as a public and not as a mob.

It is pretty condescending of you to assume that AGW skeptics looking at climate data do not represent the true "public" and do not have a real interest in the debate and providing real input. Actually condescending is probably too polite: "the pathetic grumblings of an elitist jerk" is a more accurate description of the attitude expressed in your post.

It is worth reminding you that protections for free speech protect all speech - not just speech that you agree with. The same is true with open access to data. Government officials have no right to discriminate based on the reasons for the request for access. The data should either be confidential to everyone - or available to everyone.

If a government researcher shares data with another friendly researcher outside of the government that should invalidate any future attempt to keep the data secret. If there are good reasons for keeping data secret then there cannot be exceptions made.

Edited March 4, 2014 by TimG

[GostHacked]

Some of that open data could violate patient-doctor confidentiality, would it not? Won't the implementation of this be breaking laws from the outset?

[waldo]

to strictly monitor, review and sanction the output of "citizen auditors" gaining access to that "opened data". We've seen what purposeful misinformation those with an agenda can bring forward, particularly to an obliging soundbite driven media.

I suspect that the audience for open government data will constitute a true 'public' and that those who have real interest in debate and providing real input will respond as a public and not as a mob.

It is pretty condescending of you to assume that AGW skeptics looking at climate data do not represent the true "public" and do not have a real interest in the debate and providing real input. Actually condescending is probably too polite: "the pathetic grumblings of an elitist jerk" is a more accurate description of the attitude expressed in your post.

yowza! Michael, let me reign in the completely uncalled for mega-reach/leap member 'TimG' just took. No one mentioned climate data. More pointedly, if one wants to speak to Environment Canada sourced data/studies/research, that currently being isolated from the public by Harper Conservatives (aka, muzzled scientists), open access to that data/studies/research is a broad want from all manner of interested parties.

as an example of what I was referring to, look no further than the antics of "citizen auditor" Vivian Krause and how her "findings" were leveraged and manipulated by Ethical Oil/Harper Conservatives... and, of course, the obliging Sun/NP/FP media that spun her claims, verbatim, far and wide.

in any case Michael, to your actual comment (above), the working practical extension of your expectation must still butt up against the realities of a weak and resource constrained media with little (to no) interest in source verification. Manipulations of opened data, purposeful or not, agenda driven or not, will readily find an easy leap into the mainstream media.

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[Michael Hardner]

It is pretty condescending of you to assume that AGW skeptics looking at climate data do not represent the true "public" and do not have a real interest in the debate and providing real input.

I said no such thing. Also, it's important to distinguish between "the" public and "a" public.

Actually condescending is probably too polite: "the pathetic grumblings of an elitist jerk" is a more accurate description of the attitude expressed in your post.

You're reading things in that aren't there.

It is worth reminding you that protections for free speech protect all speech - not just speech that you agree with.

This isn't about free speech, it's about "the" public infrastructure for governance feedback. As such, the questions aren't theoretical, ie. "should it exist at all" but qualitative, ie. "what's the quality" and quantitative "how much involvement from a public is there" ?

The same is true with open access to data. Government officials have no right to discriminate based on the reasons for the request for access. The data should either be confidential to everyone - or available to everyone.

The problem is baked into your phrasing: "Request for access". The default should be that the data is accessible, not that it is locked away for people to request. We own the data.

Privacy is of course a concern, as evidenced by a few jumping on that point, but it's actually more useful to the powers that be to bring up "privacy" and thereby scare "the" public from demanding their data. Lots of quotation marks here...

If a government researcher shares data with another friendly researcher outside of the government that should invalidate any future attempt to keep the data secret. If there are good reasons for keeping data secret then there cannot be exceptions made.

Yes, "if". There are good reasons but there also more practical reasons to keep data secret, ie. to save the bureaucracy from change.

[Michael Hardner]

Some of that open data could violate patient-doctor confidentiality, would it not? Won't the implementation of this be breaking laws from the outset?

Yes, and as I said it's not happening in any foreseeable lifetimes.

John Lennon said "imagine no possessions", but he could have said "imagine no privacy".

[Michael Hardner]

in any case Michael, to your actual comment (above), the working practical extension of your expectation must still butt up against the realities of a weak and resource constrained media with little (to no) interest in source verification. Manipulations of opened data, purposeful or not, agenda driven or not, will readily find an easy leap into the mainstream media.

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Yes, and I fully expect media would continue to ignore Open Government Data, as they ignore data today.

Manipulations of data will readily leap into the mainstream media, which is the main reason why data is kept under lock and key today.

[TimG]

The problem is baked into your phrasing: "Request for access". The default should be that the data is accessible, not that it is locked away for people to request. We own the data.

I don't disagree. I was responding to your implicit acceptance of waldo's claim that some uses of public data are less legitimate than others. They are not. But I do agree that some data needs to be kept secret and it should be on a case by case basis rather than the default. Edited March 4, 2014 by TimG

[WestCoastRunner]

Yes, and as I said it's not happening in any foreseeable lifetimes.

John Lennon said "imagine no possessions", but he could have said "imagine no privacy".

I wouldn't bet on that. Provincial governments are looking at ways to use 'cloud' computing to store data and processes. There are advantages and disadvantages to this of course, but once 'cloud computing' is implemented, health records will be even more difficult to keep private.

[Michael Hardner]

I was responding to your implicit acceptance of waldo's claim that some uses of public data are less legitimate than others. They are not. But I do agree that some data needs to be kept secret.

Well, specifically he talked about sensationalizing public data. I don't know if I would call that a misuse, as it serves its purpose, however a public forum might not pay as much attention to a speaker who wants to sensationalize things.

Waldo, for example, gets a lot of attention on MLW precisely because of his use of facts. If you compare to other posters, even pro-climate change posters, who don't use facts at all they don't get nearly the same response.

Imagine if the discussions on MLW were the basis for determining how policy would play out. A public that was designed to provide feedback for environmental policy, using MLW discussions as a basis, would likely address both your and Waldo's main points. The resulting policy would thereby be a hybrid of the best arguments on both sides of the discussion.

Does it sound like Utopia ? I have news for you: this is how the system is supposed to work. When we describe the proper use of our public governance institutions as Utopia, that means we have changed too much.

[Michael Hardner]

I wouldn't bet on that. Provincial governments are looking at ways to use 'cloud' computing to store data and processes. There are advantages and disadvantages to this of course, but once 'cloud computing' is implemented, health records will be even more difficult to keep private.

How so ? Clouds are just as secure as mainframes, I think, where the data is now.

[waldo]

I don't disagree. I was responding to your implicit acceptance of waldo's claim that some uses of public data are less legitimate than others. They are not. But I do agree that some data needs to be kept secret.

yes, as Michael points out... I was speaking to misuse...

Michael already called you out on improperly reading things into your grand-leap! Let me do the same... in response to Michael's reference to 'operational procedures', I said, "to strictly monitor, review and sanction the output of "citizen auditors" gaining access to that "opened data". We've seen what purposeful misinformation those with an agenda can bring forward, particularly to an obliging soundbite driven media." In that regard and speaking to your legitimacy reference, via those operational procedures, any "citizen auditor" output is legitimate if that output from opened data, as monitored/reviewed (through operational procedures), is equally sanctioned (through those operational procedures).

[GostHacked]

How so ? Clouds are just as secure as mainframes, I think, where the data is now.

Clouds are as secure as mainframes, meaning, if connected to the Internet grid, it can and will be attacked. That is already a daily occurrence that many data centers have to handle.

Any information that is not meant for the public needs to be stored in an isolated network not connected to the Internet in any fashion.

[Michael Hardner]

In that regard and speaking to your legitimacy reference, via those operational procedures, any "citizen auditor" output is legitimate if that output from opened data, as monitored/reviewed (through operational procedures), is equally sanctioned (through those operational procedures).

But, as with here, we're not in a 'mass media' model - it's more of a town hall. So, as with MLW, there is a level of behavior that is unacceptable - such as outright lying and misrepresentation.

[Michael Hardner]

Clouds are as secure as mainframes, meaning, if connected to the Internet grid, it can and will be attacked. That is already a daily occurrence that many data centers have to handle.

Any information that is not meant for the public needs to be stored in an isolated network not connected to the Internet in any fashion.

Right, I understand. Well - personally identifiable information will need to go on the internet to support things like eHealth, so we might as well recognize that attacks are going to happen.

[TimG]

Waldo, for example, gets a lot of attention on MLW precisely because of his use of facts. If you compare to other posters, even pro-climate change posters, who don't use facts at all they don't get nearly the same response.

Well overwhelming a discussion with facts that are only tangentially related to the discussion is not a helpful debating tactic. The only way I can follow a discussion on a climate related topic is to leave waldo on ignore. The parts of his posts that are actually relevant to the discussion are usually quoted by others.

Imagine if the discussions on MLW were the basis for determining how policy would play out. A public that was designed to provide feedback for environmental policy, using MLW discussions as a basis, would likely address both your and Waldo's main points. The resulting policy would thereby be a hybrid of the best arguments on both sides of the discussion.

I have different take. Most people don't have the time to develop new analyses of the raw data and are happy to leave that effort to the funded researchers. Open data is important because it allows people to come in and check the claims made by published papers. It will be harder for researchers to fudge the numbers if their raw data is available for anyone to look at.

I would also like to see all scientific papers referenced by governments made public.

i.e. if a government depart references a paper in a policy/research document then the original paper must be made publicly available. Also all data that was used to produce the results described in that paper must be publically available unless there are legitimate privacy concerns.

Edited March 4, 2014 by TimG

[cybercoma]

I also think it's a travesty that academic journals containing so much of our society's peer-reviewed research are locked away to anyone but other academics and students. Ordinary citizens have to pay big bucks just to get access to research from many of our brightest minds.

There is a movement towards open access journals and there was a revolt brewing amongst professors in mathematics. They edit, review, and write for journals all as part of their academic work. Meanwhile, the journals, owned by huge conglomerates in most cases, still charge the universities an arm and a leg for access. It's ridiculous when you think about it. As for the public having access, you can go into any university library and read the publications. They have many of them on the shelf and you can access them online from the university library often times without being a student.

personally identifiable information - would either not be collected or it would be open for all to see.

Personally identifiable information wouldn't be collected? Well that's great in theory, but it's quite easy to deduce who people are from particular pieces of information that are not personally identifiable on their own. Also you limit what can be researched and what can be said about society if you limit what can be collected. We need to know who people are to know who we are talking about with our data.

Your response is kind of nonsensical, though. It couldn't happen as such unless people were ready for it.

And your response is insulting. You're imagining a hypothetical situation and arguing from that, while I'm explaining to you how things are today. I'm not going to get into debating your hypothetical situation. However, I can tell you that StatCan takes anonymity very seriously because any perception that anonymity can by compromised significantly affects the participation rate, which in turn affects how the data can be used.

[cybercoma]

Michael, here's more information on StatCan's RDC program. It explains who can access what data. Some of Statistics Canada's surveys are vetted and released as PUMFs. While confidential information is still highly guarded. So in a sense, data is made public. I gather the absolutists want the confidential information to be public too.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/rdc-cdr/index-eng.htm

Edited March 4, 2014 by cybercoma

[GostHacked]

Right, I understand. Well - personally identifiable information will need to go on the internet to support things like eHealth, so we might as well recognize that attacks are going to happen.

No it does not need to get on the Internet. In some cases the matter of convenience is outweighed by privacy matters. The more things are connected the more problems you will see. And that is already ringing true.