Roundtable: Are current models of data protection fit for purpose? Understanding the consequences for economic development

WPF’s Executive Director Pam Dixon will be moderating a Center for Global Development roundtable May 20 to discuss data governance models from the perspective of low and middle income countries. This is part of her ongoing work as co-chair of the Governing Data for Development project working group.

Michael Pisa, CGD Policy Fellow and lead for the CGD project on Governing Data for Development, will kick off the event, followed by Dixon, who will moderate. Three keynote speakers will present snapshots and ideas from low and middle income jurisdictions, including Africa and India, which will be followed by an open discussion amongst the participants.

This event is by invitation only, and will utilize modified Chatham House rules. Dixon will write a rapporteur’s report about the roundtable, and the report will be made public.

Two additional roundtables will follow this first event, and will be open to the public.

The Data for Development Project began in 2019, with the launch of the project’s working group co-chaired by Pam Dixon and the late Benno Ndulu. The project has produced a deeply researched scoping report as well as a blog post series, with additional work to come.

See CGD for additional information about the Center for Global Development’s Governing Data for Development Working Group.

Related Working Group Materials:

Report: Governing Data for Development: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities (PDF, 61 pages) Report Authors: Michael Pisa, Pam Dixon, Benno Ndulu, Ugonma Nwankwo https://www.cgdev.org/publication/governing-data-development-trends-challenges-and-opportunities
Article: Addressing Cross-Border Spillovers in Data Policy: The Need for a Global Approach. February 3, 2021. https://www.worldprivacyforum.org/2021/02/addressing-cross-border-spillovers-in-data-policy-the-need-for-a-global-approach/ This is a joint article by the authors Michael Pisa (Center for Global Development) Pam Dixon (World Privacy Forum) and Benno Ndulu ((Late) Professor, Oxford University).

Posted May 19, 2021 in Best Practices, Data and Development, Governance, Region: Africa, Region: India
Tags: Data Governance, Event, LMIC

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
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Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.

Roundtable: Are current models of data protection fit for purpose? Understanding the consequences for economic development

Related Working Group Materials:

Report: Governing Data for Development: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities (PDF, 61 pages) Report Authors: Michael Pisa, Pam Dixon, Benno Ndulu, Ugonma Nwankwo https://www.cgdev.org/publication/governing-data-development-trends-challenges-and-opportunities