Policy Velocity 2014 Year in Review

So what topics were discussed in this blog during 2014?

Topics	Number of times covered
Cybersecurity	4
Drones	4
New vehicles	3
Policy issues	3
Nanotechnology	2
Digital	2
Uber	2
Mining	1
Labour markets	1
Bitcoin	1

So Cybersecurity and drones were tied for equal place. I think with recent high profile cases such as the Sony hacking this is completely appropriate, perhaps even a little under covered here.

Drones may have been a bit of surprise for some readers, but it seems important, coming up again in the Economist Technology Quarterly in December 2014.


My reading of the velocity of the relevant technologies is depicted here.

So to analyse...

	Direction of change	Rate of change	Policy Implications
New vehicles	There is no doubt that the new vehicle transport represents a discontinuous change. For example look at where it is implemented already – the Australian mining industry.	However the rate of change is slow.	There is time to develop appropriate policies but it needs to be taken seriously now.
Mining	The mining industry has been on the track to reduce labour and replace it with capital for decades, although the new technologies will speed this up. The possibility of remote mining control is not a new direction as such but it will be disruptive.	The rate of change is slow but technologies will often be adopted in large industrial contexts such as mining first.	Mining should be understood as a great laboratory for policy experiments. What policies will and won’t work in other context – autonomous vehicles/ drones etc.
Drones	The technology obviously offers new possibilities but the degree to which the technology can deliver on the current hype is open to question.	The pace of change is certainly there, it is not slow but neither is it terribly fast. Some extraordinary capabilities obviously exist – just about any aircraft can be automated. However, the drones which are getting the media attention do not yet have the power capabilities to really ‘deliver’.	If this analysis is accurate then governments have some time to play at new policies – more perhaps than the news reporting. But neither do they have a long time to sit back and ‘see what happens’. It is happening.
Digital policy	It takes no reinforcing here that the general trend of digital technology is definitely disruptive.	Similarly, the rate of change is fast.	I am often surprised that governments around the world are not devoting more brain power to the topic.
Cybersecurity	We have been seriously fighting cybersecurity issues for more than a decade and a half. The direction seems no different.	The rate of change seems to be picking up, however. It seems that NO system is safe from hacking.	This URGENT – what more can be said.
Bitcoin	True possibilities for disruption – destabilising currencies is always a big deal. It is not yet delivering on that promise, but if bitcoin gets linked with tax havens and there will be important issues for tax agencies around the world.	Bitcoin, is just the first cybercurrency. Others exist and more will come.	The announcement by the Bank of Canada is really important policy step forward.
Uber	How much more disruptive can change be than Uber. With the prospect of quickly disrupting thousands of jobs in the near future needs to be understood.	The rate of change for this technology is potentially very fast.	This topic requires economic, sociological, policy, legal, labour market analysis amongst others. Debates over Uber desperately need facts not rhetoric and pure politics.

Money is not static because it is a technology

Each time the technology of money changes what it is - its essence seems to change with it. Its not that money is transformed by technology it is a technology and  therefore some of the same rules that apply to other technologies apply to it. This is almost entirely ignored by economists. However, cryto-currencies are sure going make this impossible to ignore any longer.

The Bank of Canada has announced that it will be doing its own watching and analysis of digital money.

Two links: this one http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2014/11/money-digital-world/

and this one http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2014/11/keeping-close-eye-e-money-carolyn-wilkins/

I'll watch this space with interest.

Cryto-currencies may be moving slightly slower than other technologies at the moment but for money its changing its landscape at high velocity

FAA drone update

25 September 2014

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced that the Federal Aviation Administration has granted regulatory exemptions to six aerial photo and video production companies, the first step to allowing the film and television industry the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System.  Secretary Foxx made the announcement on a conference call with FAA Administrator Michael Huerta and Chris Dodd, chairman and chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. 

Secretary Anthony Foxx also determined that the UAS to be used in the proposed operations do not need an FAA-issued certificate of airworthiness based on a finding they do not pose a threat to national airspace users or national security. Those findings are permitted under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012.

“Today’s announcement is a significant milestone in broadening commercial UAS use while ensuring we maintain our world-class safety record in all forms of flight,” said Secretary Foxx. “These companies are blazing a trail that others are already following, offering the promise of new advances in agriculture and utility safety and maintenance.”

https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=17194

Digital economy labour impact starts to concern the The Economist

In a recent Economist one of its Leader articles was called Wealth without workers, workers without wealth: The digital revolution is bringing sweeping change to labour markets in both rich and poor worlds. 

It read in part

Nonetheless, the growing wedge between a skilled elite and ordinary workers is worrying. Angry voters whose wages are stagnant will seek scapegoats: witness the rise of xenophobia and protectionism in the rich world. In poor countries dashed expectations and armies of underemployed people are a recipe for extremism and unrest. Governments across the globe therefore have a huge interest in helping remove the obstacles that keep workers from wealth.

The answer is not regulation or a larger state. High minimum wages will simply accelerate the replacement of workers by machines. Punitive tax rates will deter entrepreneurship and scare off the skilled on whom prosperity in the digital era depends. The best thing governments can do is to raise the productivity and employability of less-skilled workers. That means getting rid of daft rules that discourage hiring, like protections which make it difficult to sack poor performers. It means better housing policy and more investment in transport, to help people work in productive cities such as London and Mumbai. It means revamping education. Not every worker can or should complete an advanced degree, but too many people in poor countries still cannot read and too many in rich ones fail to complete secondary school. In future, education should not be just for the young: adults will need lifetime learning if they are to keep up with technological change.

Yet although governments can mitigate the problem, they cannot solve it. As technology progresses and disrupts more jobs, more workers will be employable only at lower wages. The modest earnings of the generation that technology leaves behind will need to be topped up with tax credits or wage subsidies. That need not mean imposing higher tax rates on the affluent, but it does mean closing the loopholes and cutting the giveaways from which they benefit.

In the 19th century, it took the best part of 100 years for governments to make the investment in education that enabled workers to benefit from the industrial revolution. The digital revolution demands a similarly bold, but swifter, response.

Given The Economist usually prefers an optimist tone, encourages technological innovation and generally is negative towards government this is increasingly bold analysis of the situation should be noted.

Drone (over) Regulation

This is excerpted from the Washington Post 8 Oct 2014 by Larry Downes . 
There is much more to the original piece so go read it, I recommend it.

(a commentary is included at the bottom)

America can’t lead the world in innovation if the FAA keeps dragging its feet on drone rules.

As the latest revolutionary digital technology takes off, entrepreneurs are finding themselves battling federal regulators for permission just to experiment with new applications. This time, it’s not the FCC (smartphone apps), the FTC (the Internet of Things), the FDA (genetic testing), the Department of Transportation (driverless cars), the Federal Reserve (bitcoin), state and local utility commissions (the sharing economy) or the SEC (crowdfunding). This time it’s the Federal Aviation Administration, which has been struggling since 2012 to develop rules for safely integrating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), aka drones, into U.S. airspace.

To be clear, we’re not talking here about the lethal, multi-million dollar military aircraft that are changing the nature of warfare. We’re talking about small, consumer-friendly devices that sell today to hobbyists and others for less than $300. That’s about the same as the price of a smartphone, and the similarity is no coincidence. Most of the parts used in today’s fast-growing drone market come from smartphone component suppliers. The CPUs, GPS hardware, sensors, cameras, accelerometers, gyroscopes and even software are the same. And drones often use phones and tablets as their remote control. UAVs are basically flying smartphones.....UAVs have already proven themselves ready to disrupt everything from agriculture and natural resource management to law enforcement, delivery services, photography and mapping. 
...The FAA conservatively estimates that, within a decade, private drones will constitute a $90 billion industry. Already, according to the Consumer Electronic Association, 2014 sales of UAVs are forecast at $84 million and 250,000 units. ... Pretty impressive, especially for a technology that is technically illegal. That’s right: for now, consumers may only operate UAVs below 400 feet, and only for noncommercial uses. All other uses are prohibited. (After a small drone crashed in New York, the FAA has argued inconsistently that drones may not be operated anywhere near major airports.)...That could soon change. In 2012, Congress ordered the FAA to develop rules that would allow commercial UAVs to operate safely in U.S. airspace by 2015. (Safety, obviously, is key.) But we’re still waiting for the rules. The agency has already missed several self-imposed deadlines, and in June a government audit concluded the agency will miss Congress’s deadline. Rules for small drones were promised three years ago, with the FAA now saying they will come later this year. That delay could prove disastrous. ....Some communities have been motivated by obvious safety concerns, but more often the proscriptions are motivated by unease about privacy. So far, the privacy concerns have mostly been speculative. UAVs, like nearly every other mobile device, have high-definition cameras that continue to improve exponentially in both quality and capacity. So, like Google Glass and other new video technologies, UAVs tend to invoke a visceral “creepy” response in consumers, who imagine the worst possible uses such technologies might be put to against unsuspecting victims. They imagine drones hovering at their windows, back yards, or public protests....With the launch of the drone economy, the FAA has now joined the list of federal, state, and local agencies whose core markets are or are likely to be transformed by better and cheaper technologies. But so far, the agency hasn’t displayed much urgency in responding to the challenge and opportunity.

The fate of a multi-billion dollar industry is hanging in the balance. And as history has amply demonstrated, regulators who move too slowly often wind up sidelined or obsolete. Which would prove especially dangerous here. There is, after all, quite a difference between the crash of a smartphone app and a drone.

Larry Downes is co-author with Paul Nunes of “Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation” (Portfolio 2014). He is a Project Director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.

Commentary

The article is a very well written statement for a light touch regulatory approach that favours innovation in disruptive contexts. I am not sure that I entirely buy the its going to be okay and old rules apply scenario but this article is completely in alignment with the argument of this blog - innovation does not end with commercialisation and regulation in times of disruption is irrelevant. Aviation authorities do urgently need to wrap their heads around commercial and non-commercial use  of drones and work out the rules they want to apply. 

Manufactured nanomaterials regulations

From Frogheart

On September 16, 2014, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a document entitled Report of the Questionnaire on Regulatory Regimes for Manufactured Nanomaterials 2010-2011. … The Report summarizes responses to the Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN) Questionnaire on Regulated Nanomaterials: 2010-2011, which was issued July 12, 2012. The Questionnaire contained four sections related to the oversight of nanomaterials in various OECD jurisdictions: regulatory updates; definitions and/or legal approaches for nanomaterials by jurisdiction; regulatory challenges; and opportunities for collaboration.

You can find all of the reports from the OECD’s WPMN here, including this latest report, which is no. 42, Report of the questionnaire on regulatory regimes for manufactured nanomaterials 2010-201, ENV/JM/MONO(2014)28. This is the third time there’s been a questionnaire and subsequent report.I have quickly skimmed through the report and found a few interesting items about Canada’s current activities and collaborations vis à vis manufactured nanomaterials and risk. From the REPORT OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE ON REGULATORY REGIMES FOR MANUFACTURED NANOMATERIALS 2010-2011 which appears to have been published Sept. 4, 2014. 

 Go to the original OECD documents or the frogheart website for extensive excerpts on Canadian regulations and policy issues.

Asteroid Mining - US considers legalisation

This has got some buzz recently. 

From Vox [ 11 September 2014]

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 — a UN treaty signed by 102 countries, including the US — bans countries from appropriating any astronomical bodies. But there's a dispute over whether this would apply to private companies mining asteroids. Congress seems to be arguing that it does not. On Wednesday, a House subcommittee discussed a new law that would explicitly give companies ownership over any materials they extract from an asteroid. Still, experts disagree over whether this would be compatible with international law — and whether it'd actually legalize asteroid mining.  The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is the foundation of most current international space law. It's crystal-clear on a few different things: it bars countries from putting nuclear weapons in space, using the moon as a military base, or otherwise claiming ownership over the moon or planets. But it's frustratingly vague — and a little self-contradictory — when it comes to asteroid mining. The relevant clause says "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." Proponents of asteroid mining argue there are a few loopholes that would permit them to do their thing.

Meanwhile in Japan there are plans for a mineral exploration experiment From Business Insider

Japanese space scientists have unveiled the asteroid hunting space probe they hope to launch later this year on a mission to mine a celestial body. The probe, named Hayabusa-2, is expected to be flung into space on a rocket for a mammoth four year voyage to the unpoetically-named 1999JU3 asteroid. When it gets there, some time in 2018, it will release a powerful cannon which will fire a metal bullet at the asteroid's barren crust, once the probe itself has scuttled to safety on the far side of the rock. It will then return to scoop up material uncovered by the cannon blast. If all goes well, these pristine asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020.

New Vehicle categories

While autonomous vehicles takes the limelight, there is more much more to the story of transportation. The somewhat derided Segway was not so much the birth and death of a bad idea but the very tip of the beginning of a new class of mobility.

First I will point out that Segways are very useful for people with disabilities because it raises them from the seated position to the standing position. So first people with disabilities can use Segways safely and effectively.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17964882


Second, an interesting feature of the Segway is that it appears to also give therapeutic benefit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9W6XB8Nzmec

But beyond the segway there is a whole ecosystem of self-stabilising transport devices out there.
For example INMOTION builds mini-segways that can be used conventionally or for people with a particular disabilities.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocZyjW_hyfE


Then there is the airwheel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0wdWLJPGLY

And the Ryno moncycle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1YoCfm7nxU  

The legal status in many jurisdictions of these alternative - third vehicle class is entirely unclear. Even for people with disabilities using the Segway legally is often problematic.

Legal status of autonomous vehicles - the US case

Came across this, could be an interesting read.

SUE MY CAR NOT ME: PRODUCTS LIABILITY AND ACCIDENTS INVOLVING AUTONOMOUS VEHICLESJeffrey K. Gurney


AbstractAutonomous vehicles will revolutionize society in the near future. Computers, however, are not perfect, and accidents will occur while the vehicle is in autonomous mode. This Article answers the question of who should be liable when an accident is caused in autonomous mode. This Article addresses the liability of autonomous vehicle by examining products liability through the use of four scenarios: the Distracted Driver; the Diminished Capabilities Driver; the Disabled Driver; and the Attentive Driver. Based on those scenarios, this Article suggests that the autonomous technology manufacturer should be liable for accidents caused in autonomous mode because the autonomous vehicle probably caused the accident. Liability should shift back to the “driver” depending on the nature of the driver and the ability of that person to prevent the accident. Thus, this Article argues that an autonomous vehicle manufacturer should be liable for accidents caused in autonomous mode for the Disabled Driver and partially for the Diminished Capabilities Driver and the Distracted Driver. This Article argues the Attentive Driver should be liable for most accidents caused in autonomous vehicles. Currently, products liability does not allocate the financial responsibility of an accident to the party that is responsible for the accident, and this Article suggests that courts and legislatures need to address tort liability for accidents caused in autonomous mode to ensure that the responsible party bears responsibility for accidents.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2352108

Regulation of Nanotechnology and nano particles

The ISSP (Institute for Science Society and Policy) in Ottawa has released a paper that outlines a timeline for regulating Nanotechnology in OECD countries.

Over here and here there is some useful information on joint Canadian - U.S. and OECD activities to regulate nano related materials etc.

The important take away from the Canada-U.S policy work was the following.

The Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council Nanotechnology Initiative is now complete. Canada and the U.S. are implementing the new approaches and lessons learned in risk assessments of nanomaterials. An important outcome of the initiative is the development of consistent policy principles on the regulatory oversight of nanomaterials, which have now been endorsed by the Government of Canada. Watch for the publication of the final reports from the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council Nanotechnology Initiative this summer. The reports will include recommendations about ways in which Canada and the U.S. can align their nanomaterial regulatory work, including the application of consistent risk assessment approaches and methodologies and identifying categories of nanomaterials.

Ref http://www.frogheart.ca/?m=201407

'Emergency' legislation is the UK.

The BBC reports.

In the UK...Emergency powers to ensure police and security services can continue to access phone and internet records are being rushed through Parliament.

Prime Minister David Cameron has secured the backing of all three main parties for the highly unusual move.He said urgent action was needed to protect the public from "criminals and terrorists" after the European Court of Justice struck down existing powers. But civil liberties campaigners have warned it will invade people's privacy. Mr Cameron defended the move in a joint news conference with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, saying it was about maintaining existing capabilities - not introducing new snooping laws. But it will make legally clear the requirements include companies based abroad, whose phone and internet services are used in the UK. A former senior diplomat will also be appointed to work with other nations to speed up the "lawful and justified" transfer of data across borders. ...

ref for more information http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28237111

Digital Identity

One of the really big issues for the digital era is identity. There seems no end of problems but one country may be on the right track.

The Economist Reports (28 June 2014)

Private providers are offering their own schemes; miiCard, for example, uses bank accounts as a way of issuing a verified online identity. But these fall short of the reliability of a state-backed identity, issued by a government official, checked against other databases, using biometric data (such as fingerprints and retinal scans) and backed by law—in effect an electronic passport.There is one place where this cyberdream is already reality. Secure, authenticated identity is the birthright of every Estonian: before a newborn even arrives home, the hospital will have issued a digital birth certificate and his health insurance will have been started automatically. All residents of the small Baltic state aged 15 or over have electronic ID cards, which are used in health care, electronic banking and shopping, to sign contracts and encrypt e-mail, as tram tickets, and much more besides—even to vote.Estonia’s approach makes life efficient: taxes take less than an hour to file, and refunds are paid within 48 hours. By law, the state may not ask for any piece of information more than once, people have the right to know what data are held on them and all government databases must be compatible, a system known as the X-road. In all, the Estonian state offers 600 e-services to its citizens and 2,400 to businesses.Estonia’s system uses suitably hefty encryption. Only a minimum of private data are kept on the ID card itself. Lost cards can simply be cancelled. And in over a decade, no security breaches have been reported. Also issued are two PIN codes, one for authentication (proving who the holder is) and one for authorisation (signing documents or making payments). Asked to authenticate a user, the service concerned queries a central database to check that the card and relevant code match. It also asks for only the minimum information needed: to check a customer’s age, for example, it does not ask, “How old is this person?” but merely, “Is this person over 18?”

 I remember, a long time ago, that is Before the Internet  Era (BIE) the Australian government wanted to issue an identity card - in effect a social security card which other countries have. There was the usual controversy and at the time it became to hot too touch. The problem is the world has changed radically and now the identity crisis needs an answer - perhaps Estonia is on the right track. We look forward to more serious experiments. It seems contradictory but perhaps to protect privacy and individuality we need a step like this - digital birth certificate.

Facebook a digital landlord

The BBC reports that Facebook has been described by a court as a digital landlord.

Facebook is fighting a US court order in which it was forced to hand over data belonging to almost 400 people involved in a benefit fraud trial. The social media site said the request was "by far the largest" it had ever received from a government body. Photographs, private messages and other information were supplied to a New York court last year, but the process was only made public by a judge this week. The ruling defined Facebook as a "digital landlord". A judge said this definition meant the company must comply with search warrants. The original case investigated fraudulent claimants of US federal disability benefits, whose Facebook accounts apparently showed that they were in fact healthy. The web giant was ordered to hand over information from the 381 accounts, which the court said contained "evidence of criminality".

The courts continue to define the digital policy in the absence of legislation. The web of court orders relating to data companies such as google and facebook continues to evolve fast.

This is really smart practice for the digital age

The Government of Canada - at least in the justice Depart tests its employees with fake emails. 

The CBC reports

An internal survey shows almost 2,000 staff were conned into clicking on a phoney "phishing" link in their email, raising questions about the security of sensitive information. The department launched the mock scam in December as a security exercise, sending emails to 5,000 employees to test their ability to recognize cyber fraud. The emails looked like genuine communications from government or financial institutions, and contained a link to a fake website that was also made to look like the real thing.

... A February briefing note on the exercise was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. The document indicates there are more such exercises planned — in June, August and October — and that the simulations will be "graduating in levels of sophistication." Those caught by the simulation are notified by a pop-up window, giving them tips on spotting malicious messages.

 I think this is very smart practice and shouldn't it be government wide, not just the Justice Department? That is a great place to start though! Actually, this seems like like a great thing to do for the population. As we move toward a digital society we need a head shift about how we protect people and educate them. Some of us who have grown up more digital than others can get pretty smug; oh we don't fall for those emails! But I joke with my wife that as we get older and new strategies emerge then what will we fall for later in life? Government phishing with education behind it could be a great tool for keeping society up to speed on the latest tricks.

I like it I like it alot!

Oh to be forgotten - courts and policy

From the Economist

Now the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s highest court, has boosted this cause in a landmark case (see article (http://www.economist.com/news/business/21602239-europeancourt-justice-forces-google-remove-links-some-personal-information-cut) ). A Spanish lawyer, Mario Costeja González, sued Google because its search results linked his name to a newspaper article from 1998 about a now-resolved lawsuit. The court ruled that Google was a “data controller” under the 19-year-old European law on data protection, which gives individuals strong rights over data that others hold on them. It said Google could be required not to display links to information that is “inadequate, irrelevant...or excessive”, given the purpose for which they are processed, and the time elapsed. Individuals will be able to appeal to their national data watchdogs if they are turned down.

And now from British Columbia, Canada comes this case. From the Vancouver Sun 17 June 2014.

In the case of Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, the court granted an interim injunction ordering Google to block websites associated with a company selling products in contravention of court orders. Google is appealing the decision, which was released Friday. The verdict comes not long after a European Court of Justice ruling compelling Google and other search engines to comply with requests by people to remove links to unflattering or objectionable personal data. But the B.C. ruling is even more precedent-setting because it covers the blocking of entire websites, not just links to particular posts. And unlike the European ruling, which includes only Europe, the B.C. decision covers all of Google’s search engine activity around the world. “I don’t know if the court took into account the full potential impact of this when it issued its decision,” said Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. For example, he said the ruling opens the door to the possibility of a country blocking websites from search engine results to quash political dissent online.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Google+court+ruling+reaching+implications+experts/9948340/story.html#ixzz3568c2Sqo

This week - drones, Uber and more on the sharing economy.

First, drones.

The City of Vancouver (yes municipal policy) is reviewing Drone policy.

A drone crash in downtown Vancouver last month has triggered a review by the city on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the film industry.  The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was being used to shoot a commercial near the intersection of Hastings and Hornby streets when it hit a building and crashed to the ground. ... 

No one was injured and Transport Canada says no one will be charged. The City of Vancouver confirmed that immediately after the incident, staff imposed a moratorium on UAV filming while Transport Canada conducted a review. That moratorium has been lifted and City of Vancouver staff plan to meet next week to review the city's policies to see if they need to be updated. City engineer Peter Judd says the main objective is to ensure no one gets injured by a drone. "We want to make sure it's safe for the public. Obviously we want to facilitate filming as well. It's an important industry in this city."

 The number of drone permits issued in B.C. annually has risen from just six in 2007 to 178 last year.

Uber.

Taxi strikes in Europe 10 June 2014

Commuters faced a day of traffic chaos in London, Berlin, Paris and Madrid on Wednesday as taxi drivers mounted one of the biggest protests against Uber, a U.S. car service which allows people to summon rides at the touch of a button.Paris commuters faced gridlock getting into the city on Wednesday morning when taxis slowed traffic on major arteries into the centre. In London, up to 12,000 taxi drivers plan to tie up the streets around Trafalgar Square, just a stone's throw from Prime Minister David Cameron's official residence, from 2 p.m. (1300 GMT).Taxi drivers across Europe say applications of companies like San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc. are breaking local taxi rules across the European Union and threatening their livelihoods....

Regulatory headaches..."What you are seeing today is an industry that has not faced competition for decades. Now finally we are seeing competition from companies such as Uber which is bringing choice to customers,"

 Uber's Regional General Manager for Western Europe, Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, told Reuters.

...Ordinances keep it out of cities such as Las Vegas and Miami while in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., Uber and similar companies have faced lawsuits from taxi companies hoping to keep the new competition out....Taxis were also striking in Madrid and Barcelona. The two biggest taxi unions in Madrid, who represent around 90 percent of cabs in the capital, have called for a 24-hour strike from 6 in the morning. The Ministry of Public Works has warned that companies or individuals offering Uber-type services faced fines of up to 6,000 euros, while users could be fined up to 600 euros. The ministry has not specifically named Uber, which is operating in Barcelona but not Madrid.

Sharing Economy

Whether you think the so called 'sharing economy' is great or have doubts in the back of your mind then you should read this. The sharing economy does have justice and welfare implications its not all a free 'good' for society. Anyway, I recommend reading it.  If the link breaks its called 'The Case Against Sharing' on medium.com

Future Tense

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a very interesting radio program called Future Tense.

A couple of months back they ran an interesting segment of regulating technologies.

The interviewee was Dr Matthew Sorrell from the University of Adelaide in Australia.

You can listen to the program here.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/how-regulatory-agencies-help-to-forecast-future-technologies/5359706#transcript


Or read what he has written here. http://theconversation.com/how-we-forecast-future-technologies-20313

This is the first person I have come across interested in the problem of regulating future technologies.

Making Innovation Policy Work ... well sort of.

The OECD and World Bank recently released a report called Making Innovation Policy Work.

For some time I have been looking for an easy example of my basic point in this blog that innovation policy only concerns itself with the production and adoption of innovation not the consequences.

Well this book is it. It doesn't come much clearer. An extract of the Preface reads.

The report recommends that we embed monitoring and evaluation in projects, beginning at the design stage in order to improve the quality and efficiency of public expenditures supporting innovation policy. It proposes that we cooperate closely with private and non-governmental actors, who are often better placed than governments to identify barriers and areas for productive investment or policy action. It suggests involving agencies and actors on the periphery of policy making to limit capture by vested interests, and to enable more creative and cooperative policies than those emerging from central agencies. Finally, it recommends that we share lessons early and periodically at the global level, as well as collect and deploy more data through rapid feedback and decision support.

Very nice but no word here about disruption, no word about changes to the way the economy works - just a souped up business as usual.

The Economist magazine on disruptive innovation policy

Back here, I said that we need new policies for a disruptive age.

My main point was:

Neo-Schumpeterians (innovationists) set themselves too easy a task if they say that the maximisation of the production of innovation will be good for growth and competitiveness in the long run but can give no guide to governments on transitions in periods of disruption (Brian Wixted)

Back in January 2014, no less than the Economist magazine said.

Anger about rising inequality is bound to grow, but politicians will find it hard to address the problem. Shunning progress would be as futile now as the Luddites’ protests against mechanised looms were in the 1810s, because any country that tried to stop would be left behind by competitors eager to embrace new technology. The freedom to raise taxes on the rich to punitive levels will be similarly constrained by the mobility of capital and highly skilled labour.

The main way in which governments can help their people through this dislocation is through education systems. One of the reasons for the improvement in workers’ fortunes in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution was because schools were built to educate them—a dramatic change at the time. Now those schools themselves need to be changed, to foster the creativity that humans will need to set them apart from computers. There should be less rote-learning and more critical thinking. Technology itself will help, whether through MOOCs (massive open online courses) or even video games that simulate the skills needed for work.The definition of “a state education” may also change. Far more money should be spent on pre-schooling, since the cognitive abilities and social skills that children learn in their first few years define much of their future potential. And adults will need continuous education. State education may well involve a year of study to be taken later in life, perhaps in stages.

Yet however well people are taught, their abilities will remain unequal, and in a world which is increasingly polarised economically, many will find their job prospects dimmed and wages squeezed. The best way of helping them is not, as many on the left seem to think, to push up minimum wages. Jacking up the floor too far would accelerate the shift from human workers to computers. Better to top up low wages with public money so that anyone who works has a reasonable income, through a bold expansion of the tax credits that countries such as America and Britain use.

Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. But the benefits of technological progress are unevenly distributed, especially in the early stages of each new wave, and it is up to governments to spread them. In the 19th century it took the threat of revolution to bring about progressive reforms. Today’s governments would do well to start making the changes needed before their people get angry.

Couldn't have said it any better myself, but have they been reading this blog?

Drone Regulation in The USA

an update on Drone regulations .... recently the New Scientist ran an article about Drone regulations

Drone law: Flying into a legal twilight zone - tech - 15 May 2014 - New Scientist

This part of the article.
 ...

Emfinger and others like him could be forgiven for failing to anticipate the agency's ire. Though he is one of thousands of drone-owners in the US – with most craft being the small, quadcopter variety – there are no official regulations on how to operate them in the US. Even the current ban against flying them for commercial purposes, which Emfinger flouted, comes from a 2007 policy statement, not a law.

Under congressional order, the FAA must open national airspace to commercial and civilian drones by the end of 2015. In the meantime, enthusiasts are taking to the air with little understanding of what's allowed and what's not. As they do, they are showcasing the many benefits of civilian drones while risking running afoul of local authorities. "I'd describe this as a car crash in slow motion," says Matthew Waite, director of the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "I'm afraid the situation we're in right now, the longer that this takes, the more people are just going to flout the rules."

Other countries are adjusting faster to the new air traffic. In Germany, drone operators are required to obtain licences and abide by a set of safety and privacy regulations. In Canada, businesses that use drones must submit detailed flight plans.

Wow that was quick - the Google car goes the next step

I have said in the past in this blog that the Google car is coming, I just didn't expect it to quite be speeding up this way.

It has been announced that Google will be producing a number of its own vehicles to up the number of prototypes on the road.

See.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-reveals-driverless-car-prototype

and...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-self-driving-car-how-does-it-work


What I will emphasise is that the second article includes the following comment.

What about legislation?One of the biggest hold-ups to the progression of the technology onto the open road of Britain, the US, Australia and the rest of the world will be legislation.
A law was passed in California over a year ago that made the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles on roads possible, as long as they had manual override controls. The Department of Motor Vehicles in California is expected to issue regulations on the operation of self-driving cars soon, after which self-driving cars may become a bit more common place. 

However, there is still much to work out, primarily revolving around what a passenger in a self-driving car and can’t do – will they have to be able to take control at any moment, for instance – as well as questions around what happens when an accident happens, who is at fault and who pays.

In the age of disruptive innovation, policy and regulation velocity matters. 

Uber, taxis, regulation the backlash...

Sorry to not keep this blog up to speed, but the flood of regulatory related news is a bit overwhelming and I tend to put it off.

Over the summer I plan to catch up a bit on the news but both drones and Bitcoin which I was blogging closely for a few months have really heated up.

Now it is Taxis apps. From Sydney Australia to London England, apps like Uber are as they say moving people. Its turning nasty in Europe with strikes and fights.

I feel sorry for the Taxi drivers - its tough economically but now apps like these will take their jobs. But this ain't the iceberg - that is still coming. Driverless cars will rally bite into the business models and probably sooner than people think.

Malware infects fridge

It has recently come to light that connected devices have been sending spam http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25780908 So malware can now infect your fridge - at least its communications system - can it also infect its control system?

The Current on CBC just did (20 January 2014)  a really well constructed program on the issue. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/01/20/whats-hidden-among-the-internet-of-things/

Okay, so that is one issue your fridge gets infected. But there is another issue why do companies want to connect your fridge in the first place? They sell it as smart to you but what's in it for you - they want your data.

In an interview on the program Prof Avner Levin, Director of The Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute, at Ryerson voiced many of the concerns dear to this blog. The legal structures are not just out of date but the very concepts they are based on are last century.

One person interviewed on the program linked about called for more informed consent - but is that workable - we would be inundated with paper.

So another example of the need for a more concerted effort to research new legal concepts.So the story continues....