Participative Web : oecd-pw-session4b

Government 2.0 is more about culture change than technological change

Richard Akerman — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:16:00 GMT

The main themes I heard in the Government 2.0 session were:

* you have to change the culture of the organisation, change the expectations and processes for engagement, before you can take advantage of technology change

* government can gain a lot simply by freeing its data (creating APIs, to put it technically) for citizens to analyse and present as they see fit - the idea that there is more capacity for creation and innovation outside the walls of your organisation

Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation used a phrase beloved in the open source and Wisdom of Crowds communities: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", in the sense of (in my understanding) "given enough citizens examining the government, all legislation and politics is transparent".

Don Lenihen of Crossing Boundaries stated that the challenge was "more about engagement than technology". He said that rather than citizens fighting one another for the attention of the government, we should get citizens talking to one another, with the government as facilitator. He was concerned with the idea that Web 2.0 and technology are "inherently democratic", he said it takes a conscious effort to use the technology in positive, productive ways.

Quitterie Delmas talked about the use of blogs in the recent French presidential election, and showed a tool for visualisating the political affiliations and activities in the French blogosphere, blogopole.fr

Wolfgang Blau stated that we need a new narrative: from the pyramid to the circle, from hierarchy to collaboration. He saide he felt we are returning to a culture and notion of government from before the age of broadcasting - local, non-commercial, and amateur (in a positive sense).

In the Q&A it was recognised that for most politicians the risk of moving to a collaborative system is high.

At the conclusion, it was suggested that a wiki could be created to gather examples of exemplary and innovative government use of the Internet.

backgrounder: privacy

Richard Akerman — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:33:00 GMT

As nations have a variety of privacy legislation, I will focus on some recent issues raised in Canada, which may help to inform the discussion.

Canada's privacy legislation is modeled on the EU, and Canada has a Privacy Commissioner.

One of the issues the Office of the Privacy Commissioner expressed concerns about recently was Google Street View.

This is an example of how what is normally public information available locally to a limited number of people (the local streetscape) can take on a different aspect when it becomes viewable by millions of people over the Internet.

Google Street View provides the ability to "View street level photographs" (they are not live images, they are gathered by vehicles equipped with special cameras). These cameras have high enough resolution to capture recognisable images of individuals.

This is an example of an individual's "lifestream" unintentionally being captured and made available. The concept of "lifestream" is all of the events and activities of someone's life, in their different manifestations, whether its writings, photos, audio, video... But intentionally providing these types of content is an integral aspect of the Participative Web. How do we balance a desire to share our activities and our creativity with a desire to maintain control over our personal information?

Another example of the unexpected consequences of image sharing and the international nature of the Internet was a Virgin Mobile advertising campaign in Australia, which used images obtained from the photo sharing site Flickr. In one case, a 16-year-old American girl discovered a photo of herself was being used in their campaign. The Associated Press reports her family (in the United States) has accused Virgin Mobile (in Australia) of invasion of privacy.

Both of these cases illustrate the policy challenges when legal frameworks that depend on geography or nationality collide with the transborder nature of the participative web.

Session 4, Stream B: Confidence and Competition in the Internet Economy: Opportunities and Challenges of the Participative Web

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:23:00 GMT

STREAM B Confidence, privacy, and security

15.05-16.25

TK: 4.05am
PA: 9.05pm
NY: 3.05pm
LA: 12.05pm

Hugh Stevenson (Chair), Deputy Director, Office of International Affairs, Federal Trade Commission, USA
Gary Davis, Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Ireland
Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy, Facebook
Jennifer Mardosz, Vice President of Business & Legal Affairs for Fox Interactive Media (parent company of MySpace)
John Lawford, Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Canada

Click here for a rundown of all blog posts covering this session.

Maintaining user trust is essential to reaping the benefits of the participative web, but individuals are becoming increasingly sensitive to real and perceived risks related to privacy, security and safety. To which extent do individuals, and particularly younger generations, make informed choices when they upload increasing amounts of detailed personal information to the web? Questions arise about how the data are used, who has access and whether it can be effectively secured in the long term. What are safety issues -particularly related to children? And what about the longer term implications?

Questions to be addressed include:

What are the new challenges that emerge from the participative web, in terms of privacy, security and consumer protection?
Do policy approaches and legal frameworks need to be modified to address these changes?
What are the best communication and education strategies to help individuals understand how to miminise their risks while taking advantage of new opportunities?

TK	PA	NY	LA
Tokyo	Paris	New York	Los Angeles

Gary Davis

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:18:00 GMT

Gary Davis joined the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland as Deputy Data Protection Commissioner in April of last year. Previously he worked in the Office of the Prime Minister specialising in turn in Economic and Social policy matters, the Information Society, European Affairs and more recently he was Head of the Government Secretariat in that Office where his responsibilities included the development and implementation of the innovative eCabinet project for the electronic organisation of Government business.

Chris Kelly

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:59:00 GMT

Chris Kelly is the Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at Facebook, where he brings more than a decade of business, information privacy, public policy and legal experience. Previously, Chris served as Chief Privacy Officer at Excite@Home, Kendara (which was acquired by Excite@Home) and Spoke Software.

Through his in-house work and service at international law firm Baker & Mckenzie and technology law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Chris advised major Internet and media clients on the increasing challenges of intellectual property and privacy protection for the digital age. Chris also served as an education advisor in the Clinton Administration. Chris holds a bachelors degree from Georgetown University, a masters from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

John Lawford

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:55:00 GMT

John Lawford is Counsel for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), a national non-profit organization providing legal and research services on behalf of average consumer, and, in particular, vulnerable consumer interests, concerning the provision of important public services. He has been with PIAC since July 2003 and has researched and co-written several reports for PIAC on e-commerce and privacy issues.

Prior to joining PIAC, Mr. Lawford was a research counsel at a major national law firm specializing in medical-legal research; he was also Research Director at a prominent Ottawa-based litigation firm. He was Special Projects Director and Webmaster for QUICKLAW Inc., a legal database company and now part of LexisNexis Canada, from 1992 to 1999. Mr. Lawford is active in the areas of e-commerce, privacy, financial services and health law from a consumer perspective. He has an undergraduate degree in English and a Law degree from Queen's University (1990).

Jennifer Mardosz

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:15:00 GMT

Jennifer Mardosz is Vice President of Business & Legal Affairs for Fox Interactive Media (parent company of MySpace), where she coordinates interaction with Law Enforcement in the US and abroad. She also advises the company on criminal and civil prosecutions related to security and manages global privacy and safety issues. Jen joined Fox Interactive Media after being Corporate Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer for Qwest Communications where she served a lead role in their online safety program.

Prior to Qwest, Jen was an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Colorado where her prosecutions focused mainly on crimes against children on the internet. Jen received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. She is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional with the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). She lives near Los Angeles with her husband and four children.

Hugh Stevenson

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:13:00 GMT

Hugh Stevenson is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Deputy Director for International Consumer Protection. He has served on the U.S. delegations of several international organizations, and currently heads the U.S. delegation to the OECD Committee on Consumer Policy.

He has also served as a moderator for various FTC and OECD workshops focusing on international issues, including jurisdiction, judgment recognition, alternative dispute resolution, and spam. He has made presentations to congressional committees, and to international organizations and other audiences on five continents. He coordinated FTC work on the 2006 U.S. SAFE WEB Act on international enforcement cooperation, and has led the negotiation of enforcement cooperation arrangements with agencies in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

As the FTC’s Associate Director for Planning & Information, he led the establishment of the FTC’s Consumer Response Center; the FTC’s identity theft program; and the Consumer Sentinel complaint system, now accessible to more than 1,000 U.S. and foreign enforcement partners. He has also litigated for the FTC, for state government, and in private practice. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, and is an Adjunct Professor teaching comparative privacy law at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Snapshot: What is the conference rundown?

Kieren Mccarthy — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:03:00 GMT

This is cut-down version of the full agenda. You can download the full agenda as a pdf here, or use the links below to learn more about each sessions and those taking part in it.

The conference runs from 9am to 6pm. It is based in Ottawa, Canada, so in terms of time that is Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) which is currently GMT -4 hours. See here for a time rundown according to different cities of the world.

The conference comprises five main sessions - three split into two different stream - running for 80 minutes each and with a five-minute conclusion at the end:

Participative Web conference agenda
Time	Event	People
9.00-9.20 TK: 10pm PA: 3pm NY: 9am LA: 6am	OPENING	Michael Binder Suzanne Huttner John Oxley (Facilitator)
9.20-10.50	The Future of the Participative Web	John Lettice (Chair) Jonathan Taplin Cyrus Beagley Ginsu Yoon Michael Gill
10.50-11.10	Coffee break
11.10-12.30	Creativity and the Internet Economy	Stream A	Stream B
TK: 12.10am PA: 4.10pm NY: 11.10am LA: 8.10am	Stream A: Business 2.0 and innovation Stream B: Research 2.0 - eScience and new ways of interaction	David Crane (chair) Bob Young Anthony Williams Paul Misener Daniel Bretonès Shenja van der Graaf	Walter Stewart (chair) Andrew Herbert Bill St. Arnaud Mario Campolargo Diana Rhoten
12.30-13.45	Lunch	Robert Sutor
13.45-15.05	Creativity and the Internet Economy	Stream A	Stream B
TK: 2.45am PA: 7.45pm NY: 1.45pm LA: 10.45am	Stream A: User-created content: What are the impacts? Stream B: Government 2.0 - Engaging citizens	Michael Leblanc (Chair) Jungwook Lim Andres Monroy-Hernandez Jennifer Corriero Manon Ress	Ellen Miller (Chair) Don Lenihan Alejandro Hernandez Pulido Wolfgang Blau Quitterie Delmas
15.05-16.25	Confidence and Competition in the Internet Economy	Stream A	Stream B
TK: 4.05am PA: 9.05pm NY: 3.05pm LA: 12.05pm	Stream A: Creation, access and competition Stream B: Confidence, privacy and security	William New (Chair) Kiyoshi Mori Urs Gasser Anne Bucher Martin Senftleben	Hugh Stevenson (Chair) Gary Davis Chris Kelly Jennifer Mardosz John Lawford
16.25-16.45	Coffee break
16.45-17.55 TK: 5.45am PA: 10.45pm NY: 4.45pm LA: 1.45pm	Policy Roundtable: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy	Michael Geist (Chair) Sangwon Ko Marc Rotenberg Daniela Battisti Joseph Alhadeff Keith Besgrove Neil Anderson
17.55-18.00	CONCLUSIONS and Priority-Setting for the OECD	Richard Simpson

TK	PA	NY	LA
Tokyo	Paris	New York	Los Angeles

Other snapshots: