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InfoGovANZ

Information Governance Think Tank

InfoGovANZ

UK – AI and its impact on Public Standards

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UK AI

On 10 February 2020, the UK’s Committee on Standards in Public Life published its report on AI and its impact on Public Standards to ensure that high standards of conduct are upheld as technologically assisted decision making is adopted more widely across the public sector.

The report makes clears that on issues of transparency and data bias in particular, there is an urgent need for guidance and regulation. The report also emphasises that public bodies must comply with the law surrounding data-drive technology and implement clear, risk-based governance for their use of AI.

 

US  – Draft Guidance for AI regulation

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White House

On 7 January 2020 the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a draft Guidance for Regulation of AI for Federal Agencies to consider for the use of AI including: public trust, public participation, fairness, scientific integrity, risk assessment, benefits and costs, flexibility, fairness, transparency, safety and security, and interagency co-ordination.

In contrast to the position taken by the Europeans, the US government position is that it does want AI to be highly regulated, with the OSTP draft Guidance stating, ‘Federal agencies must avoid regulatory or non-regulatory actions that needlessly hamper AI innovation and growth’.

On 24 February 2020, the Department of Defense adopted 5 Principles for AI: Responsible, Equitable, Traceable, Reliable and Governable. Secretary Esper stated, ‘AI technology will change much about the battlefield of the future, but nothing will change America’s steadfast commitment to responsible and lawful behaviour’.

Singapore  – Model AI Governance Framework

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Singapore City, Singapore - July 17, 2015: Marina Bay is a bay near Central Area in the southern part of Singapore, and lies to the east of the Downtown Core. The area surrounding the bay itself, also called Marina Bay
The Singaporean Privacy Data Protection Commission (PDPC) released the second edition of the Model AI Governance Framework in January 2020. The Guiding Principles includes that decisions made by AI should be explainable, transparent and fair and that AI systems should be human-centric.

Along with the framework is a Compendium of Use Cases, demonstrating how local and international organisations, across different sectors and sizes, implemented or aligned their AI governance practices with all sections of the Model Framework. There is also an Implementation and Self-Assessment Guide for Organisations (ISAGO), which is a collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Active Navigation – Equifax Case Study

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Active Navigation - Equifax

Following the highly publicised Equifax data breach in 2017, Active Navigation’s software was deployed into a complex tech stack and worked to identify, classify and protect sensitive data assets.

While IG, Legal, Risk and eDiscovery practitioners understand the need to minimise data in accordance with justifiable disposition of data and records, privacy regulations are now also drivers for organisations to review the personal information they are collecting.  GDPR’s principle of data minimisation is making organisations rethink what constitutes acceptable data use.  Australian Privacy Principle 11.3  requires an APP entity to take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify personal information that is no longer needed for any purpose for which the personal information may be use or disclosed under the APPs.

You can read more about how Equifax is using Active Navigation’s software, Discovery Center, to identify and delete unnecessary records, which proactively reduces overall data surface footprint and facilitates data privacy compliance.

Read the case study here.

What is Good Government Data Sharing?

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parliament house, canberra, australia

The Australian Federal Government has been conducting an extended consultation as to how data linkage and data sharing between government agencies might be accommodated through a special purpose statute that walks the fine line of maintaining digital trust and meeting data privacy concerns of citizens and civil society organisations, while facilitated controlled good data sharing between agencies.  The Data Availability and Transparency Bill (DATA), is proposed to be released in this calendar quarter.

In this in depth analysis, Professor Peter Leonard has canvassed the challenges which this new federal data sharing law will need to address and compared current proposals with existing government agency data sharing laws in NSW, Vic and SA. While Peter concludes that the DATA is a welcome development, he also notes that bigger questions loom about use of the powerful tools which data sharing puts into the hands of Governments, as illustrated by the Robodebt controversy.  Questions include whether there should there be restrictions should apply to automated algorithmic decision making with individualised effects, should a citizen have a legislated right to inferences about them being transparent, fair and reasonable, and do we need to rethink how administrative law review applies to cases where humans are only partly in the loop, or out of the loop, of decision-making with individualised effects.

Read the article here (PDF)

FOI and Building Trust

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Right To Know - UTS

The theme of Building Trust was the focus of the FOI in WA conference recently.  Trust was explored in two ways. Firstly, considering how Freedom of Information (FOI) can build public trust in government; and secondly, advice and inspiration to help practitioners trust themselves and the FOI process to meet the objects of the FOI Act (WA):

to enable the public to participate more effectively in governing the State’ and to make the persons and bodies that are responsible for State and local government more accountable to the public.

Emeritus Professor Geoff Gallop AC gave the keynote presentation. He discussed the role of openness as a foundation for democracy. This is based on the view that information held by government is a public resource which should be used for public benefit; and that the community has a right to be informed about government operations.

FOI and information governance

FOI is focused on making government information accessible to the public and access is at the heart of information governance.

Information governance in the FOI context involves balancing the rights of different stakeholders and protecting their interests in relation to certain information – and then enabling or preventing access, accordingly.

Much of the conference conversation focused on the challenge of balancing transparency and openness with requirements for privacy, data protection and security. The challenges are both practical, emphasising the need for strong information governance; and personal, requiring an organisational culture that embraces information rights.

Challenging regulatory landscape

The role and impact of information is growing, in all aspects of life, work and society. People are demanding greater transparency, accountability and participation in decision making – not only from government but from organisations as diverse as financial institutions, extractive industries, the media and NGOs. We see emerging and changing views of data ownership and information rights in an evolving regulatory landscape.

Catherine Fletcher, WA Information Commissioner, considered a variety of statistics on information access and trends across Australian jurisdictions. She described ‘first generation’ FOI laws which rely on requests to ‘pull’ information out of an organisation’s systems.

Catherine contrasted this with ‘second generation’ FOI laws that emphasise proactive disclosure to ‘push’ information into the public domain. She highlighted an apparent correlation in the data, suggesting that ‘push’ laws can reduce the number of requests that have to be processed, encouraging requests that are more complex and require greater consideration prior to release.

For staff in agencies, trying to navigate a growing and increasingly fragmented regulatory landscape, fear of making a mistake can lead to risk-averse (information-withholding) behaviours.

This challenge was well illustrated in the presentation by Patrick Ky from State Solicitor’s Office, who spoke about balancing rights and managing conflicts. He noted there are many different types of privacy, not only information privacy. These different types are converging with the evolution of technology and as such, privacy is becoming increasingly important.

Rather than being opposing forces, Patrick described the common purpose of both privacy and FOI to ‘render transparent the activities of the State, but render non-transparent the activities of individuals.’ Privacy facilitates free speech and freedom of association, so the two concepts are intertwined and there is a strong public interest in protecting privacy.

The human factors: culture and practice

The Victorian Deputy Commissioner for Public Access, Joanne Kummrow, reflected: Information rights are human rights, and empathy is essential in making decisions about information access.

In the digital environment, our trust in people, organisation and systems enables things to run; and transactions to take place. Openness is essential for effective government and successful business, but it’s not yet business as usual.

Throughout the day, conference participants had the opportunity to respond to a number of survey questions. Some of the interesting responses were:

  • 83% of respondents consider it part of their role to promote the proactive release of information
  • 83% felt the most effective way to improve access to information is by changing organisation culture and practice
  • 44% “somewhat agree” that their organisation has a pro-disclosure culture; 27% agree or strongly agree; and 29% disagree or strongly disagree.

In a panel discussion, Ian Cowie spoke about the role of leadership and his responsibility as CEO of the City of Gosnells to create a culture where people feel empowered and confident to release information.

I presented a session about my Open By Design research, which looks at how information governance and automation can change the way people think and feel about openness. Making openness safer and easier can drive culture change and move organisations beyond the ‘push’ or ‘pull’ of information, towards the exchange of knowledge.

Damian Shepherd, Director State Records WA, argued that the value of information is lost if it is not accessible and cannot be used. He highlighted the role of information in reconciling with the past or planning for the future.

Damian emphasised the importance of recordkeeping to ensure information is easily accessible for FOI, remains accessible for the long term, and the need for an interdisciplinary approach. He noted the massive investment in digital transformation initiatives across every jurisdiction and suggested this is the perfect opportunity to reform information policy and practice.

You can read more about the conference and access the session presentations here.

 

Sonya Sherman, Industry Solutions Director (Public Sector) and InfoGovANZ Advisory Board member