Ushahidi founder talks about Big Data, Privacy, Citizen Engagement & Facebook
“There are people coming online who think that Facebook is the internet. That is worrisome in many ways because it can remove possibilities of creation and adding to the web. If somebody thinks this is the only thing you can do on the internet, they couldn’t possibly know you could learn online, or even contribute to the web.”
The founder of Ushahidi, a project that uses crowdsourced information to uncover crisis areas and violence around the world, has been applying her skills as an information technology professional to data driven development at the World Economic Forum, among other things.
I sat down with Juliana Rotich after her keynote at the Smart City Expo World Congress last month.
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, uses geolocation, mobiles, and web reporting data to create live online maps and has been adapted for disaster situations. It was first put into practice during the Kenyan presidential crisis in 2007 and has since been used in countries as far flung as Chile, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Tanzania and Haiti.
As a technologist, strategic advisor, prolific blogger, and senior TED fellow, Rotich shared with us her views on data privacy concerns, the price of ubiquitous connectivity, inclusive tech and its role in building democracies.
With the advent of Big Data tools, there is a lot of buzz around technology advances made, but little discussion of privacy concerns for the citizens they are designed for. What is your perspective on data privacy and how do you incorporate this into Ushahidi?
"The first thing is to do with the Privacy By Design guidelines set by the GSMA. This is a report that I share with the team at Ushahidi and say, Look, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. These questions of privacy and application design to respect privacy, well some of this work has been done already. It was presented at the Internet Governance Forum two years ago.
Two: We need to talk about this option of either sharing or not sharing data. It shouldn’t be about sharing by default. It can be designed with just the click of a button, making it very simple to do, or equally not to do, you see? That’s something that one of our developers who is really well-versed in privacy takes quite seriously. It’s an issue the Ushahidi board has been discussing over the last couple of years that has helped guide the organisation into making sure the software that is made adheres to some of those principles and considers questions of how to handle and protect personally identifying information in the system. So if somebody decides to use the platform for sensitive information, for example, how to anonymise that data.
Then there is this additional question: How could we possibly use this Big Data for good? How could we possibly use anonymised cell records, for example, to figure out indicators and to give us information?
Moreover, data is not the same as information. Information is analysis of data that helps to answer certain questions. Data by itself is just data. The question is, what are the key questions that we need answered, and to what end? Some of the work being done by Nicolas De Cordes of Orange (on Big Data for Development), highlights a way to find solutions to these issues.
…but don’t get me wrong, I still think surveillance is not necessarily the answer to a lot of things. We have, and have had, a lot of surveillance and yet we still have issues around the world.
The idea of gatekeeping of access to technology, for instance zero-rated services such as Internet.org and Wikipedia Zero where Internet Service Providers do not charge end customers for data used. How do you feel about gatekeeping access to technology — this question of increasing access to data for social good vs. the monopoly of technology for potentially corporate gain, only allowing people to access these services in a particular way or through a particular platform?
There was a disturbing report published earlier this year by Mozilla and the GSMA about web literacy. There are people coming online who think that Facebook is the internet. That is worrisome in many ways because it can remove possibilities of creation and adding to the web. If somebody thinks this is the only thing you can do on the internet, they couldn’t possibly know you could learn online, or even contribute to the web.
I worry about that because in providing an on-ramp to the internet that makes people think it is one platform or one company, we have a problem. What is the pipeline for innovation and ingenuity going to be if people think the internet is only one thing?
Wikipedia, I’m less worried about because it’s somewhat the sum of human knowledge, plus it’s so broad and typically used to look up information. I think it’s really great that people can access that for free. The next big challenge will be in providing internet connectivity to the millions of people who are not connected to the internet yet. And, more importantly, once they are connected, do they have avenues of self expression, of discovery and a way to add to the richness of the web? Or are they just going to be part of filter bubbles?"
In your talk you spoke about “the ethos of sharing”, how do you think that we can make technology more inclusive? There remains a risk that these tools could actually exacerbate social divides as they only give voice to people who are used to using those platforms and aren’t necessarily attractive to a diverse segment of the population. Clearly, Ushahidi is not an example of that because it’s very accessible in a global sense, in diverse projects. But in terms of Smart Cities, how do you think we can take steps towards being more inclusive?
"I think if there is something we can learn from the Ushahidi experience, it is that inclusivity is possible via a strategy that engages in a diverse way. This can be to do with mixed tech. When new media expert Clay Shirky talks of Ushahidi, he doesn’t talk about “high” or “low” tech; it’s neither. You can access the site on web, on mobile, but you can also participate with just a simple mobile phone. Firstly, this idea can help to broaden reach.
Then another idea is a strategy that includes offline engagement, online engagement and mobile engagement. So for example, for populations that do not have internet access, what sort of programmes or activities do they need? We can’t just be technology-centric, we should be problem-centric.
Unsung Peace Heroes and Building Bridges – An Ushahidi Project
An example from 2009: One of the earliest uses of the Ushahidi map was for Peace Heroes: people who were doing peaceful things for the country in Africa, in conjunction with Media Focus on Africa and a few others. The outcome of that project was this strategy of online, offline and mobile. They were able to text in and say they were at a peace rally. Simple flyers were distributed at the rally, causing the mobile and the online participation to jump.
This is still instructive, even in 2015, to remind us not to forget what the problem is and who we’re trying to reach. Let’s not be too enamoured by just mobile tools or just online tools. If we only reach the people who are online, or on mobile, we may be excluding other people on the ground who are just as important to whatever problem we’re trying to address."
Ushahidi has really democratised data collection in terms of providing a free and easy to use open-source tool that is available to everybody. How important do you view the role of technology in supporting democracy?
President Obama once said, “the role of the citizen does not stop after the ballot box:” Your role as a citizen in participating in the betterment of your city or your democracy does not end with the simple act of voting. We have the responsibility to be active, engaged citizens beyond the ballot box. That’s quite an inspiration, not only for myself, but also for other people who are involved in tech. We’ve had Todd Park and now Megan Smith as America’s CTO and there’s this cadre of smart techies who are now actually working in government to try and make things better in initiatives such as Healthcare.org etc.
As to the role of technology in democracies, one is to explore and create channels for citizens to participate in their democracies beyond the ballot. What we’ve seen with Ushahidi is that it can be useful during elections, where people can protect their votes, from Bangladesh to Panama, Zambia and Tanzania. Organisations are using a platform to crowdsource information relating to their votes or elections, crowdsourcing information about whether the polling stations are open or if there was a threat in a particular area, you know things like that.
So technologies like Ushahidi and others can be useful in protecting the vote, but also after that, in how local counties engage with citizens about things that these counties or cities are dealing with. They can help enlist citizens as on-the-ground sensors. You can have a sensor that says the street is dirty, or you can have a citizen who will not only take a picture of the problem, but can help to report it.
The question is, do you have a system for citizens to do that, to tell you what the issues are? Because at the end of the day, as a city, you have a mandate to help fix those problems, but are you listening? There’s a way to engage during and after the voting.
Ultimately, what we need is more adoption and more creation of technology to deal with this question of information."
