Access - Policy Workshop Report

Access
Differential access to internet services will continue to be a problem. NGI could attempt to address this issue through a number of strategies, including subsidies for the least able to afford internet access and universal free Wifi.
Security concerns were agreed to be a serious barrier to personal internet access. One strategy for mitigating concern could be a shift from the model of “security as a private responsibility” (i.e. one in which citizens purchase anti-virus software as individuals) to a model of collective internet security, in which the state assumes responsibility for providing or subsidising security software.
Participants also noted that the NGI will need to consider its impact on non-EU citizens and their experience of the internet.
Day 2
The workshop on 2 March aimed to develop the discussion from 1 March, and distil a series of concrete aims and suggestions for the EC’s NGI initiative. The day’s activities were structured around three questions:
What should the NGI do?
How can the EC achieve these aims?
Who are the stakeholders in NGI? And what are the early indicators of success or failure?
Programme
09:00 Welcome
09:15 Introduction to purpose of workshop (Jesus Villasante)
09:30 Summary of day 1 and plan for day 2 (Steven Wooding)
09:45 Session 1: “What should the NGI do?”
10:40 Perspective talk (Lorna Woods)
10:45 Coffee
11:00 Session 2: “How can the EC achieve these aims?”
12:10 Perspective talk (Lucie Burgess)
12:15 Lunch
13:15 Session 2 (feedback session)
14:10 Perspective talk (Lani Cosette)
14:15 Tea
14:30 Session 3: “Who are the stakeholders in NGI? And what are the early indicators of success or failure?”
15:45 Wrap up & next steps (Jesus Villasante and Peter Fatelnig)
16:15 Close
Session 1: What should the NGI do?
Building on Day 1, this session aimed to identify key objectives for the NGI. Participants were invited to make suggestions, which were recorded on flipcharts. At the end of the session, each attendee was handed three stickers and invited to vote on the objectives they considered most important. The results of the vote are recorded below:
Avoid the concentration of power 17
Promote broader access 13
Promote sovereignty over personal data 13
Promote access to data as a common good 11
Promote public goods (commons) 9
Promote a la carte citizenship/subsidiarity 8
Promote and facilitate choice 5
Promote a balance between virtual and physical lives 5
Enhance economic welfare 4
Promote diversity 3
Promote cyber-security as a public good 3
Promote net neutrality 3
Avoid the concentration of wealth 3
Establish appropriate regulatory regimes 2
Promote cyber-physical security 1
Establish individualised trusted intermediaries 1
Promote open intellectual property 1
Promote the right to disassociate 1
Session 2: How can the European Commission achieve these aims?
Small groups were organised around the most popular objectives identified in Session 1: (i) broadening access; (ii) à la carte citizenship; (iii) promotion of public good; (iv) sovereignty over personal data vs data as a public good; (v) preventing the concentration of power. Each group was then asked to discuss the objective with reference to: technical feasibility; legislative tools that the EC could use; and potential barriers. Groups recorded their discussions using flipcharts, images of which are available in the appendix (see: Appendix XXI – XXII).
Group 1: Broadening access
NGI should conceive of the internet as the “fourth utility”, in recognition of its ubiquitous use and central role in accessing state services (e.g. NHS Choices).
NGI could uncouple bandwidth from income by implementing a “TV-licence model” of internet access, based on the principle of a single fee and a single level of service.
“Access” was interpreted as referring to how the internet will transform access to societal goods (e.g. work), not just access to the internet itself.
Participants echoed Bill Gates in suggesting a tax on AI. The funds raised could be invested into retraining those that AI will make redundant.
The EU’s role in access to online services (e.g. Facebook) remains unclear. These spaces are private, but are treated as though they were public. Shopping malls were raised as an analogue corollary to this debate.
Access is not just a technical issue - it is also social. Education schemes could build the trust and technical literacy necessary for access.
Trust can also be built by making the rights of citizens over their data clear. Participants suggested that the NGI promote the “right to be forgotten” and the right to opt out of data collection.
Language will continue to be a barrier to access. NGI should aim to ameliorate this issue, possibly by supporting automated translation.
Recognising that personal data plays a vital role in optimising services, it was suggested that “donating” personal data to institutions could be reframed as a civic responsibility, or a “payment” for access to specific service.
Group 2: à la carte citizenship
The group’s concept of “à la carte citizenship” was inspired by Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Published in 1992, the novel describes an anarcho-capitalist society, where most services have been marketised and digital currency has largely supplanted notes and coins.
Drawing on Stephenson’s work, the group envisaged Europe’s conversion from the euro to a new digital currency: the e-Onion. This possible future served as a thought experiment to generate new ideas.
In this possible future, all citizens would be issued with an e-ID at birth. The proposed e-ID is modelled after Estonia’s e-residency scheme and would allow access to state services across Europe. This would enable EU citizens to move across Europe with greater ease, and enable free choice of services (e.g. healthcare, education, etc).
NGI could foster trust in government by promoting the use of smart contracts, participants suggested; coining the term “blockchain governance”. This possibility is currently being explored by the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions.
NGI could establish “personal clouds”. Each cloud would store all of a single individual’s data. Citizens could allow access to their cloud in exchange for services, creating a two-way market.
Group 3: Promotion of the public good
NGI will have to weigh the benefits of increased internet access against its environmental cost, participants cautioned; noting that the network already accounts for 10% of the UK’s energy consumption.
The environmental impact of digital innovation is often invisible, making it difficult to regulate. How did Facebook’s decision to make videos play automatically affect energy consumption, for example? And how could Facebook be held accountable?
NGI could reframe cybersecurity as a collective good, instead of a private responsibility. This would be consistent with national defence, policing and immunisation against disease.
The importance of collective security is illustrated by the rise of “credential stuffing” incidents, such as the 2016 O2 hacking. Exploiting the fact that many people use the same password on multiple sites, hackers gained access to thousands of O2 customers’ details by breaching XSplit: a relatively weakly protected gaming site.
Collective digital security could take the form of subsidies for the least able to invest.
It was suggested that attempts to promote collective security could be undermined by the free-rider problem.
Governments may also lack the expertise necessary to promote collective security.
Access to information and knowledge is a universal good and could be promoted by subsidising news and academic publishing.
However, promoting greater access to news outlets does not resolve issues surrounding the integrity of the information they are publishing.
Group 3 echoed Group 1 in arguing that NGI should promote internet access as a public good. It was suggested that this could be achieved by investing in infrastructure to provide free Wifi.
Group 4: Sovereignty over personal data vs data as a public good
Participants proposed a broad definition of “personal data”, that includes not just data produced by the individual (e.g. Facebook posts, emails) but data collected about the individual (e.g. internet footprint, satellite footage)
Participants also clarified that they were interested in the use of data for the public good, rather than data as a public good.
NGI could promote sovereignty over personal data, through mechanisms such as a legal “right to be forgotten”.
It was recognised that data sovereignty is in tension with the use of data to promote the public good (e.g. use of patient metadata to provide more efficient healthcare)
One possible compromise is to legislate the use of personal data, ensuring it can be used for essential services (e.g. healthcare) but not for profit.
The NGI will also have to establish the limits of data sovereignty. If someone aggregates and transforms data - for example - does this meta-data belong to them? Or is it still the property of the individuals who contributed the data?
Group 5: The concentration of power
Participants warned that a handful of companies (e.g. Facebook, Amazon, Google) could establish monopolies on data.
This would enable these companies to best exploit advances in machine learning, further enhancing their competitive advantage and establishing a positive feedback loop.
Economies of scale could also contribute to locking in the competitive advantage of these companies.
One means of preventing digital monopolies from emerging would be to cap the number of customers they can service (e.g. a cap on total Amazon Prime accounts), but this is politically unviable.
Concern was voiced that preventing the concentration of power falls under the remit of antitrust agencies, which have a limited understanding of this sector. NGI could address this issue by investing in developing multi-disciplinary teams, with a cutting edge understanding of legal and technical issues.
Promoting transparency is key to ensuring that legislation is enacted effectively, and data is not misused. But the difficulty of explaining AI systems to a general audience poses a challenge to making transparency meaningful.
Session 3: NGI stakeholders and early indicators of success/failure
The final session of the workshop was divided into two debates. The first concerned stakeholders in NGI. Participants were asked to evaluate how well engaged each stakeholder group was, and suggest strategies to foster engagement where it is lacking. In the second discussion, participants sought to discern what the early indicators of success or failure for the NGI might look like, as well as identify pertinent lessons from history. The discussions were recorded on flipcharts, images of which are available in the appendix (see: Appendix XXIII – XXVIII).
Session 3a: Stakeholders in NGI
Engaged stakeholders:
Governance leaders
Online platforms
ISPs
Mobile operators
Regulators
Device manufacturers
Digital rights groups
Military
Police
Questionably engaged stakeholders:
Academics
Security companies
Materials and suppliers
Civil Society
Foreign governments
Unengaged stakeholders and possible strategies for engagement:
Early-career researchers
Prizes/competitions
Incubators, where they can collaborate with event organisers, advertisers, etc. to deliver impact
Ring fencing funding
Providing data sets
Young people
Model EU
Popular culture (e.g. Robot Wars inspired children to become engineers)
Gamers
Art
Social media
Events and groups (e.g. meetup.com)
Blogs of thought-leaders
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Prizes/competitions
Providing infrastructure for growth
Disenfranchised
Celebrity endorsement
Invest in European internet presence (e.g. social media)
Promote net neutrality
Invest in translation systems
Presence in communities (e.g. townhall events)
Art and popular culture
Travelling exhibitions
Session 3b: What are the early indicators of success/failure?
Indicators of success
More accurate expectations of privacy
More accurate expectations about the use of personal data
Greater variety in sources of information (e.g. it is currently estimated that Facebook and Google account for 80% of traffic to news sites)
Rising number of companies in the internet sector (as an indicator of innovation)
Creation of new jobs and greater value
Technology used to tackle new problems (e.g. AI used to farm previously unused land)
Public debates keep pace with developments in technology
Warning signs
Increased opacity in how personal data is used
Increased disengagement from digital society
Scandals concerning data use reported by the media
Destruction of jobs and value
Aggressive patent enforcement (as an indicator of stagnation)
Media mergers
Continued proliferation of “fake news”
Lessons from history
Any system will have “free-riders”
Cognitive biases drive politics and should not be ignored
Controversies can develop around new technologies (e.g. GM foods), leading to a loss of public confidence
There is a price to “free”
Issues surrounding pollution and shared resources indicate the need to engage a “global public”
Conclusion
This workshop was not structured to generate a list of key conclusions. Nevertheless, an attempt to pick out a short selection of salient themes and actionable suggestions has been made below.
Key themes:
Transparency: Participants did not object to the use of personal data per se, but emphasised that users should understand how data is collected and processed, and to what ends. Recognising the value of personal data in optimising services, participants proposed a future in which individuals “donate” or “pay” for access to services with their data.
Concentration of data and power: The concentration of data on a handful of online platforms (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc) places them in a prime position to exploit advances in machine learning, further locking in their competitive advantages. It was noted that anti-trust agencies will be responsible for preventing the emergence of monopolies, but have limited expertise in the technological sector. Investing in developing this capacity is therefore a priority.
Sovereignty over personal data: There is a clear tension between the desire to promote sovereignty over personal data and the potential benefits that data analytics can deliver (e.g. optimising healthcare, preventing crime, etc.). It was particularly clear that there is a need to establish whether meta-data is owned by the individuals who have contributed their personal data, or the person who has aggregated and transformed the data.
Actionable suggestions:
e-ID: Repeated references were made to up-sizing Estonia’s model of e-citizenship to the European scale. This would allow EU citizens greater freedom of movement and choice of services.
Collective online security: A transition from private online security (i.e. purchasing security software individually) to collective online security (i.e. the state provides or subsidises security software) would lower barriers to access. This would also be consistent with our understanding of physical security.
Multi-disciplinary teams: Investing in drawing technical experts into legal institutions generally, and antitrust agencies specifically, was suggested as essential to ensuring that these organisations are effective.
Contributors
Dr Anne Alexander, Co-ordinator, Digital Humanities Network, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge
Professor Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Dr Andres Arcia-Moret, Research Associate, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Professor Jean Bacon, Professor Emerita of Distributed Systems, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Ted Barry, Senior Policy Officer, Cabinet Office
Katja Bego, Data Scientist, Technology Futures Team, Nesta
Lucie Burgess, Head of Personal Data and Trust, Catapult and Senior Research Fellow, Hertford College, University of Oxford
Guy Cohen, Strategy and Policy Lead, Privitar Ltd
Lani Cosette, Director, EU Government Affairs, Microsoft Europe
Professor Jon Crowcroft, Professor of Communications Systems, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge and CSaP Associate Fellow
Richard Dent, PhD student, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
Professor David De Roure, Director, Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford
Mark Devereux, Senior Principal, Promontory Financial Group
Dr Raluca Diaconu, Research Associate, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Dr Robert Doubleday, Executive Director, CSaP
Peter Fatelnig, Deputy head of unit, CONNECT E3 Next Generation Internet, DG Connect, European Commission
Jorge Gasos, Programme Officer, CONNECT E3 Next Generation Internet, DG Connect, European Commission
John Grant, Owner, Ninetiles
Dr Garrick Hileman, Senior Research Associate, Centre for Alternative Finance, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
William Janeway, Senior Adviser and Managing Director, Warburg Pincus
Dimitra Kamarinou, Research Assistant, School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Johannes Klinglmayr, Senior Engineer, International Projects, Sensors & Communication, Linz Center of Mechatronics GmbH
Professor Neil Lawrence, Professor of Machine Learning and Computational Biology, Department of Neuroscience, University of Sheffield
Dr Pietro Lio, Reader in Computational Biology, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Professor Christopher Marsden, Professor of Media Law, Sussex Law School, University of Sussex
Professor Christopher Millard, Professor of Privacy and Information Law, School of Law, Queen Mary
Dr Brent Mittlestadt, Postdoctoral research fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
Jessica Montgomery, Senior Policy Adviser, The Royal Society
Dr Ken Moody, (retired) Reader in Distributed Information Management, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Professor John Naughton, Emeritus Professor of Public Understanding of Technology, The Open University
Dr Magda Osman, Senior Lecturer in Experimental Cognitive Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London
Joerg Ott, Professor for Networking Technology, Department of Communications and Networking in the School of Electrical Engineering at Aalto University
Andrea Passarella, Researcher, Institute for Informatics and Telematics, National Research Council of Italy (CNR)
Dr Julia Powles, Researcher, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge
Professor Tom Rodden, Professor of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, University of Nottingham
Dr Jatinder Singh, Senior Research Associate, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Makoto Takahashi (note-taker), CSaP Policy Intern and PhD Student, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
Isabel Thornton, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
Michael Thornton, PhD Student, Department of History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk, Lecturer, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London
Georgios Tselentis, CONNECT E3 Next Generation Internet, DG Connect, European Commission
Alex van Someren, General Partner, Amadeus Capital Partners, Ltd
Michael Veale, PhD student, Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, University College London
Jesus Villasante, Head of Unit, CONNECT E3 Next Generation Internet, DG Connect, European Commission
Dr Sandra Wachter, Researcher in Data Ethics, Alan Turing Institute
Dr Adrian Weller, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Dr Damon Wischik, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Dr Steven Wooding (workshop facilitator), Lead for Research and Analysis, CSaP
Professor Lorna Woods, Deputy Director of Research (Impact), School of Law, University of Essex
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