s04E06: Trust Indicators
Berlin at dawn
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It's 07:17am on flight SN2592 from Berlin Tegel to Brussels. I'm headed there for a workshop with FEPS, the Foundation of European Progressive Studies, to discuss the development of a progressive digital agenda for Europe. It's exciting, and would be even more exciting if it wasn't an early flight in the busiest time of my year, and—oh the irony!—also the day before a short vacation before heading back into the fray to launch the Trustable Technology Mark in December.
It's excellent timing, though, as in December I was kindly invited to continue another directly related thread in a similar space: The Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, which I got to participate as a representative of civil society and as a Mozilla Fellow in London last month, goes into the next round, this time in NYC. We'll be discussing how the trust indicators we developed for the Trustable Technology Mark might be translated into the smart city context, and if procurement guidelines might provide the necessary leverage to ensure these trust indicators are met.
It's all Chatham House rules, but beyond that nothing secret, so I hope to share bits and pieces, time permitting. Or otherwise, hopefully we'll see results some time down the line. Because results are better than info crumbs anyway.
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What's been going on / what I've been working on
Smart Cities & Digital Rights
By the time you read this, I hopefully managed to post my thoughts on how to translate the Trustable Technology Mark trust indicators for other areas of policy like smart cities, over on thewavingcat.com. In the meantime, though, here's the important bit:
The main difference between consumer context and publicly deployed technology—infrastructure!—means that we need to focus even most strongly on safeguards, inclusion, and resilience.
- Privacy & Data Practices: Privacy and good data protection practices are as essential in public space as in the consumer space, even though the implications and tradeoffs might be different ones.
- Transparency & Accountability: Transparency is maybe even more relevant in this context, and I propose adding Accountability as an equally important aspect. This holds especially true where commercial enterprises install and possibly maintain large scale networked public infrastructure, like in the context of smart cities.
- Security: Just as important, if not more so.
- Resilience: Especially for smart cities (but I imagine the same holds true for other areas), we should optimize for Resilience. Smart city systems need to work, even if parts fail. Decentralization, openness, interoperability and participatory processes are all strategies that can increase Resilience.
- Openness: Unlike in the consumer space, I consider openness (open source, open data, open access) essential in networked public infrastructure—especially smart city technology. This is also a foundational building block for civic tech initiatives to be effective.
There are inherent conflicts and tradeoffs between these trust indicators. But **if we take them as guiding principles to discuss concrete issues in their real contexts, I believe they can be a solid starting point. **
I'm keen to hear your thoughts on this; it's all fairly early stage thinking, and we'd better get this right. I know that some of you have been thinking about these things, so please don't feel shy!
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Side note on self-regulation
Just as a side note: I do believe in regulation. By, y'know, governments acting on behalf of the people they represent. As David Meyer points out in his newsletter Connected Rights:
BIG TECH'S NEWFOUND KEENNESS FOR REGULATION is gathering pace, with Intel literally drafting a U.S. privacy bill for which it is now seeking sponsors. The bill describes a self-certification system through which companies could attest to their strong data protection measures – companies that lie could face fines of up to $1 billion (which is lower than the GDPR's maximum fine level) and executives could even face jail. Meanwhile, Apple's Tim Cook has called for a U.S. GDPR equivalent, and Google and Facebook have also called for a comprehensive federal privacy law.
This is interesting but of course if a company knows regulation is coming and there's pressure to show you have your house in order, you'd prefer to write that regulation yourself. I would have—in fact, might have—proposed a similar approach when I worked with policy teams from big tech companies in the past. Not to write a watered down thing yourself, mind you, but to do better proactively now and establish a new, better standard through active leadership rather than wait for the regulatory shoe to drop and then look dumbfounded (and dumb).
Back to David:
Of course tech companies should have a voice when rules that apply to them are being formulated. But the same applies to all stakeholders, the public included. For that reason, it's essential that U.S. lawmakers give as much time to civil society and consumer groups as they do to Big Tech.
🙌
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Sci-Fi isn't a guide to the future, or is it?
… or so I always thought. After all it reflects on the presence more than predicting the future, right? Well, the thing is, I'm not so sure anymore. This sounds strange, but reading Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent New York 2140, I'm increasingly convinced that this is a different beast altogether. One that the author maybe intended to be read more as a manual than just a story, the same way than many of Cory Doctorow's young adult novels have clearly instructive elements to them.
There are whole bits in New York 2140 that essentially propose ways to restructure finance and the world economy to align policy & economic incentives away from exploitation towards radical perfectly reasonable sustainability. All of which chimes perfectly in harmony with some of [Mariana Mazzucato's thinking](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/measure-economic-performance/, via Laura James) about building a better economy (first step: measure value better).
Now I'm not an economist but it appears you don't have to be one to tell that things are going the wrong direction, and have for a long time. If we want to live our lives in relative peace (meaning: breathable air and less than half the world's population being climate refugees) and give our kids a chance to do the same, some things have got to change, and finding a remidy for the excessive, overly extractive/exploitative aspects of capitalism seems to be a good starting point.
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What's next?
Trips to Tokyo, Rotterdam, NYC to for a wedding, to launch a Trustmark, to co-host ThingsCon, to translate Trustmark principles for the smart city context, to prep a US-based ThingsCon conference. Hey ho, let's go!
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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TXL airport
Pictures: my own.