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?