Algorithmic discrimination: Big data analytics and the future of the Internet

Book chapter from: J. S. Winter & R. Ono (Eds.)., The future Internet: Alternative visions (pp.125–140). Cham: Springer. 2015

Is Internet access a human right? Linking information and communication technology (ICT) development with global human rights efforts

Peer-reviewed journal article; preprint.The wave of uprisings and protests in Arab nations since late 2010, in part attributed to the use of social media and Internet access, has demonstrated the immense potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) channeled for democracy. This paper argues that universal access to the global Internet is essential for the preservation of democracy and human rights and places the recent United Nations declaration that Internet access is a human right in the context of ongoing debates about the right to communicate, clarifying the distinction between universal service and the right to communicate. In particular, access to online content, required infrastructure, and ICTs is addressed, underscoring “the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, but also a range of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a whole” (United Nations Human Rights Council, 2011, p.1). A basic right to communicate should also include access to developments such as the World Wide Web and emerging social media, as these are increasingly enabling active citizen participation (Winter & Wedemeyer, 2009). Envisioning participatory policy as grass-roots engagement, I address claims that modern ICTs can be employed to create public spaces for discourse and a reinvigoration of democratic processes (e.g., the Internet as a platform for the “public sphere” as imagined by Habermas, 1991) and emphasize the need to link ICT development with human rights efforts worldwide

Governance of artificial intelligence and personal health information

Peer-reviewed journal article: Winter, J. S., & Davidson, E. (2019). “Governance of artificial intelligence and personal health information.” Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance (DPRG), 21(3), 280-290. Special issue on “Artificial Intelligence: Beyond the hype?” doi:10.1108/DPRG-08-2018-0048Purpose – This paper aims to assess the increasing challenges to governing the personal health information (PHI) essential for advancing artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning innovations in health care. Risks to privacy and justice/equity are discussed, along with potential solutions. Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual paper highlights the scale and scope of PHI data consumed by deep learning algorithms and their opacity as novel challenges to health data governance. Findings – This paper argues that these characteristics of machine learning will overwhelm existing data governance approaches such as privacy regulation and informed consent. Enhanced governance techniques and tools will be required to help preserve the autonomy and rights of individuals to control their PHI. Debate among all stakeholders and informed critique of how, and for whom, PHI-fueled health AI are developed and deployed are needed to channel these innovations in societally beneficial directions. Social implications – Health data may be used to address pressing societal concerns, such as operational and system-level improvement, and innovations such as personalized medicine. This paper informs work seeking to harness these resources for societal good amidst many competing value claims and substantial risks for privacy and security. Originality/value – This is the first paper focusing on health data governance in relation to AI/machine learning. Keywords – Big data, Governance, Artificial intelligence, Deep learning, Personal health informatio

Big data governance of personal health information and challenges to contextual integrity

Pervasive digitization and aggregation of personal health information (PHI), along with artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced analytical techniques, hold promise of improved health and healthcare services. These advances also pose significant data governance challenges for ensuring value for individual, organizational, and societal stakeholders as well as individual privacy and autonomy. Through a case study of a controversial public-private partnership between Royal Free Trust, a National Health Service hospital system in the United Kingdom, and Alphabet’s AI venture DeepMind Health, we investigate how forms of data governance were adapted, as PHI data flowed into new use contexts, to address concerns of contextual integrity, which is violated when personal information collected in one use context moves to another use context with different norms of appropriateness

Cloud-based facial recognition: Establishing the citizen at the center of policy and design

This paper argues that data collection via cloud-based facial recognition technologies poses a grave threat to privacy, potentially hindering free speech and democratic discourse, and that related policies and systems must focus on citizens’ perceptions of appropriate use of personal data

IT-based Regulation of Personal Health: Nudging, Mobile Health Apps and Personal Health Data

journal articleMobile health applications and devices (“mobile health apps”) are increasingly embedded in organizational programs to regulate the personal health behaviors of individuals and populations. In this paper, we draw on de Vaujany et al.’s (2018) framework for IT-based regulation systems to consider how regulatory outcomes can develop in such settings, in which individual actors have strong agency and regulation is indirect and voluntary. Through an instrumental case of a continuous glucose monitoring system used for self-regulation of diabetes, we examine how IT artifacts become embedded in self- regulation practices, how data generated by these apps are implicated in regulatory feedback loops, and how networks of individual, organizational and technological actors are mobilized in regulatory regimes. We examine how data about bodily states and IT features such as displays and alarms ‘nudge’ individuals towards compliance with expert rules materialized in the IT artifact. We then identify regulatory affordances of mobile health apps for predicting and surveilling personal health. We also theorize how multilevel networks of trifecta of rules, IT artifacts, and practices develop through regulatory episodes as a regulatory lattice, and how social regulation is realized as a result. We conclude by considering the theoretical and practical implications of this analytical approach to investigate IT-based regulation in the open, distributed, and indirect regulatory contexts

Do platforms favour dissidents? Characterizing political actor types based on social media uses and gratifications

BACKGROUND:The rise of social media has resulted in a dramatic change in citizen engagement in political processes. This raises the question of whether affordances of social network sites motivate alternative politics more than more conventional form of political engagement. OBJECTIVE:1) identify differences in social media uses and gratifications among four political personality types (i.e., potential dissidents, allegiants, subordinates, and the alienated), and 2) examine the extent to which political personality types can be discerned using social media uses and gratifications. METHODS:313 United States citizens above the age of 18 completed a survey using the revised MAIN model scale to measure social media uses and gratifications. Subjects were categorised into political personality types based on the Gamson Hypothesis and Paige’s conceptualisation of actor types. We developed a multinomial logistic regression model to examine the relationship between predictors (uses and gratifications) and political personality types. RESULTS:Potential allegiants and dissidents are driven by a similar set of social media uses and gratifications as opposed to political subordinates and the alienated. CONCLUSION:Social media can provide more gratifications for potential dissidents and allegiants, ‘favouring’ personality types with high political efficacy

Emergence, convergence, and differentiation of organizational forms of health data governance: The U.S. All-payer Claims Databases (APCD) movement

In this research we are investigating how different organizational forms of data governance develop in response to the opportunities and challenges to aggregate, curate, and utilize digital health data for health systems improvement and market regulation. We are examining (i) how/when do governance arrangements coalesce around specific domains of health data resources as identifiable organizational forms; (ii) what influences how (or whether) these forms develop in a health care market, and (iii) what factors contribute to convergence or divergence in organizational forms across markets? To address these questions, we are conducting an in-depth, multi-level field study of the movement to establish all payer claims database (APCD) organizations in the U.S. healthcare sector. Among states with an APCD there is substantial variety in the data domains, stakeholders, governance goals and structures of the organization, indicating local variation and divergence, as well interstate and national initiatives to encourage convergence along some dimensions. This provides a rich opportunity to study institutional and market factors that contribute to (or inhibit) emergence, convergence, or divergence of health data governance forms and the implications for health care sector management and improvement that may result. In this paper we report preliminary findings and analysis of this study

Information systems ethics – challenges and opportunities

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI linkThe purpose of this paper is to explore the ethical issues surrounding information systems (IS) practice with a view to encouraging greater involvement in this aspect of IS research. Information integrity relies upon the development and operation of computer-based information systems. Those who undertake the planning, development and operation of these information systems have obligations to assure information integrity and overall to contribute to the public good. This ethical dimension of information systems has attracted mixed attention in the IS academic discipline