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Hi there. It's been a month since the last issue; take it as an indication of what my schedule looks like. I'm not saying this to complain, quite the contrary, just as an explanation. It's not you, it's me!

Also, starting in about a month the daycare for our little one starts, which should open up significant breathing room. Right now every minute is accounted for. Somewhat absurdly this means I'm more efficient than ever, but also that there's no slack in the system. (Cue the pun… wait for it… no, no Slack in the system either. ba-dum-tshh! Sorry not sorry.)

That said, I'll try to catch you up to what's been going on, and share a few thoughts, and then dive right back into the thick of things.

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Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter or benefit from it? A shout out to tinyletter.com/pbihr or a forward is appreciated!

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What's been going on / what I've been working on

Smart Cities & Digital Rights

Now here's a topic I've been invested and interested in for a looooong time. (Remember Cognitive Cities Conference back in, what, 2010 or 2011? Omg, the original website is still up! I wonder who's even hosting this?) While the majority of my work and research since has been focused in related fields but not with a focus on Smart Cities, it's always been an undercurrent, and occasionally a focal point like in the report and policy recommendations for the German Federal Government that I co-wrote with Prof. Dr. Christoph Bieber a couple of years ago on the topic of Smart Cities from a citizen perspective.

So, Smart Cities. I see them as the next big battleground/area of debate where the future of digital rights — which now of course pretty much comes down to human rights — is decided. Algorithmic decision making that decides over access and control, over resource allocation, over policing, over mobility: Those are all things we address when we talk about Smart Cities. These are quality of life things for the wealthy, and existential things for the poorer and more marginalized (and many in between). So that's where the action is.

That's why I'm both humbled and happy to be part of a group of folks who are building a Digital Rights Cities Coalition. I'm late to the party, but all the more grateful to the wonderful Meghan McDermott (also a Mozilla Fellow, like myself) for getting me involved in this. I'm involved to both bring in the responsible IoT perspective we've been developing at ThingsCon for the last 5 years, and specifically also to see if and how the underlying principles of the Trustable Technology Mark can be translated for a Smart City context.

So that's super exciting as it extends my work into some potentially impactful contexts. Another thing I can't quite talk about yet but that I'm also excited about is an upcoming workshop with a small group of people for a Brussels-based foundation around shaping their (and their allies') digital agenda around these very same topics and then some.

In all these meetings I'm extremely happy to be able to contribute my perspective and channel our collective ThingsCon expertise, but also very, very conscious of the limits of my expertise: These are rooms full of people that live and breathe policy and tech, and are real experts in their fields. So I try my best to mostly listen and learn and overall take a humble approach, and contribute bits and piece where I think they might be most helpful. I guess what I'm saying this is: Thanks for getting me in the room!

On a directly related note, I think cities can and should be much more confident in conversations with Smart City tech vendors, and shape their political and tech agenda much more actively. None of this is a fait accompli, it's just hardware, software, processes and governance structures embedded in the urban fabric: By "just" I mean it's all things we collectively decided to implement and hence we can shape it to our will, rather than having our cities shaped by the technology's (or its vendor's) will, so to speak.

Also see this article (Guardian) on why privacy Dr Ann Cavoukian resigned from Sidewalk Labs' Toronto project:

“I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

After initially being told that the data collected would be wiped and unidentifiable, Cavoukian told reporters she learned during a meeting last week that third parties could access identifiable information gathered in the district.

“When I heard that, I said: ‘I’m sorry. I can’t support this,’” she told the Global News. “I have to resign because you committed to embedding privacy by design into every aspect of your operation.”

Sigh. Yes! Privacy by Design and Security by Design have to be embedded at the very foundation. They cannot be an opt-in.
 

Mozfest

I was at Mozfest over the weekend, Mozilla's annual big tech & activism gathering. It's in its 9th year. I think I attended all but one or two, all the way back to its proto event, then called Drumbeat, in Barcelona back in 2010.

At Mozfest is also where the Smart Cities Coalition meeting took place, as well as a Trustable Technology Mark workshop and a bunch of other meetings. It was a memorable Mozfest for me for two other reasons, too: It was the first in that I participated as a Mozilla Fellow, which means a different quality of engagement. But also M and I brought the little one, so we had a toddler in tow, which worked a charm, I'm happy to say.

I know that some of you might enjoy this, so here's a photo that Dietrich took of me before kicking off the Trustable Technology Mark workshop at Mozfest, sporting one of the fancy glue-on mustaches that a privacy booth around the corner had offered me before:

The current overview presentation of the Trustable Tech presentation is available here.
 

ThingsCon Rotterdam

ThingsCon Rotterdam is upon us, our own annual ThingsCon gathering. While a little more intimate than Mozfest, it is the fifth anniversary and I'm so, so happy and grateful this initiative has been developing as it has. It's truly humbling and ever so satisfying. And there's going to be a lot going on.

I'm co-curating the Responsible Tech track. I can neither confirm nor deny if there will be the launch of a trustmark for IoT. But I can absolutely confirm a first look at some of the confirmed speakers, which is a-ma-zing:

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Cennydd Bowles, Eric Bezzem, Laura James, Lorenzo Romanoli, Nathalie Kane, Peter Bihr, Afzal Mangal, Albrecht Kurze, Andrea Krajewski, Anthony Liekens, Chris Adams, Danielle Roberts, Dries De Roeck, Elisa Giaccardi, Ellis Bartholomeus, Gaspard Bos, Gerd Kortuem, Holly Robbins, Isabel Ordonez, Kars Alfrink, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Janjoost Jullens, Ko Nakatsu, Leonardo Amico, Maaike Harbers, Maria Luce Lupetti, Martijn de Waal, Martina Huynh, Max Krüger, Nazli Cila, Pieter Diepenmaat, Ron Evans, Sami Niemelä, Simon Höher, Sjef van Gaalen.

That's just the start. There will be more.

Register today for ThingsCon Rotterdam (6-7 Dec).

Small bits and pieces

• Pillars of search. Former Google lawyer and deputy U.S. CTO Nicole Wong on Recode Decode (Recode): "So what if we change the pillars again? What if now everything that we’ve learned in the last two years, we say, “That’s not the internet we want to live with”? So this is just personal for me, like, what if the pillars were accuracy, authenticity and context. And maybe that slows it down." 🙌
• Beware of data bias. Amazon built AI to hire people, but it discriminated against women (Business Insider): "Amazon worked on building an artificial-intelligence tool to help with hiring, but the plans backfired when the company discovered the system discriminated against women, Reuters reports." Beware of your data bias. But credit where credit is due, Amazon noticed this and stopped. Also, as folks on Twitter have rightly pointed out on Twitter, it's good Amazon noticed but also highlights very biased hiring practices that informed that data set. Also, what if a Wikipedia List of Data Biases like the Wikipedia List of Cognitive Biases?
• Data industrial complex. Apple CEO Tim Cook Slams Tech's Data Industrial Complex. He's Right To (Fortune): "Tim Cook took to the stage this morning in Brussels, at the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. And he went in with all guns blazing." I like a company taking a stand. Too many company's pretend to be a-political because it's just business, and I think companies should do better, and those of us who run organizations (large or small) have the responsibility to take a stand on political issues. Just as Kranzberg's famous first law states that Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral, I believe it is equally true that business is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.

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Shoutout

Good friend and excellent human and fantastically smart thinker Patrick Tanguay has been writing a newsletter Sentiers for quite some time now. If you've read my newsletter, you've seen it referenced a bajillion time. In Sentiers, Patrick does what he does best, which is contextualizing changes in tech and analyzing their effects on society. It's what he did brilliantly with The Alpine Review (one of my all time favorite collaborations to this day!). Here he does it in smaller weekly installments rather than one tomb to rule your coffee table until the end of time. Good! In fact, great! So I was super happy to see that he's offered to accept support from patrons, one of which you can become here. And boy do I appreciate that this won't change a thing for any one who cannot afford to be a patron:

"I’m operating under the idea of “unlocked commons” which means no paywall, no exclusives. The newsletter stays the same, will have the same breath of topics, same frequency, won’t be flooded with ads, and will remain free. Patrons help take some of the production pressure off while keeping the newsletter available to everyone." Best of both worlds. Well done!

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What's next?

Trips to Brussels, Rotterdam, NYC to discuss a European digital agenda, launch a Trustmark, co-host ThingsCon, translate Trustmark principles for the smart city context, prep a US-based ThingsCon conference. Also, a brief vacation in Japan on the occasion of a close friend's wedding. Can't wait!

I wish you an excellent weekend.

Yours truly,
Peter

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Who writes here? Peter Bihr explores the impact of emerging technologies — like Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of The Waving Cat, a boutique research, strategy & foresight company. He co-founded ThingsCon, a non-profit that fosters the creation of a responsible Internet of Things. In 2018, Peter is a Mozilla Fellow. He tweets at @peterbihr. Interested in working together? Let’s have a chat.

Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter or benefit from it? A shout out to tinyletter.com/pbihr or a forward is appreciated!

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Mordor. This picture is mine; the one at the top via the fantastic NYC Public Library.