tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/databases-9166/articles
Databases – The Conversation
2021-09-08T15:27:55Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166258
2021-09-08T15:27:55Z
2021-09-08T15:27:55Z
Google and Microsoft are creating a monopoly on coding in plain language
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419875/original/file-20210907-22-krsb6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C28%2C6366%2C4221&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coding is a specialized skill that requires learning one or more computer languages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sometimes major shifts happen virtually unnoticed. On May 5, <a href="https://developer.ibm.com/technologies/artificial-intelligence/data/project-codenet/">IBM announced Project CodeNet</a> to very little media or academic attention. </p>
<p>CodeNet is a follow-up to <a href="https://www.image-net.org/">ImageNet</a>, a large-scale dataset of images and their descriptions; the images are free for non-commercial uses. ImageNet is now central to the <a href="https://deepai.org/machine-learning-glossary-and-terms/imagenet">progress of deep learning computer vision</a>.</p>
<p>CodeNet is an attempt to do for Artifical Intelligence (AI) coding what ImageNet did for computer vision: it is a dataset of over 14 million code samples, covering 50 programming languages, intended to solve 4,000 coding problems. The dataset also contains numerous additional data, such as the amount of memory required for software to run and log outputs of running code. </p>
<h2>Accelerating machine learning</h2>
<p>IBM’s own stated rationale for CodeNet is that it is designed to <a href="https://research.ibm.com/blog/codenet-ai-for-code">swiftly update legacy systems programmed in outdated code</a>, a development long-awaited since <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/Y2K-bug/">the Y2K panic over 20 years ago</a>, when many believed that undocumented legacy systems could fail with disastrous consequences. </p>
<p>However, as security researchers, we believe the most important implication of CodeNet — and similar projects — is the potential for lowering barriers, and the possibility of Natural Language Coding (NLC). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1mfcxGZ2I68?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An IBM-produced video looks at the quest to produce an AI that can understand human language.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent years, companies such as <a href="https://openai.com/blog/gpt-3-apps/">OpenAI</a> and <a href="https://cloud.google.com/natural-language">Google</a> have been rapidly improving Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. These are machine learning-driven programs designed to better understand and mimic natural human language and translate between different languages. Training machine learning systems requires access to a large dataset with texts written in the desired human languages. NLC applies all this to coding too.</p>
<p>Coding is a difficult skill to learn let alone master and an experienced coder would be expected to be proficient in multiple programming languages. NLC, in contrast, leverages NLP technologies and a vast database such as CodeNet to enable anyone to use English, or ultimately French or Chinese or any other natural language, to code. It could make tasks like designing a website as simple as typing “make a red background with an image of an airplane on it, my company logo in the middle and a contact me button underneath,” and that exact website would spring into existence, the result of automatic translation of natural language to code. </p>
<p>It is clear that IBM was not alone in its thinking. GPT-3, OpenAI’s industry-leading NLP model, has been used to allow <a href="https://debuild.co/">coding a website or app by writing a description of what you want</a>. Soon after IBM’s news, Microsoft announced it had <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/09/22/microsoft-teams-up-with-openai-to-exclusively-license-gpt-3-language-model/">secured exclusive rights to GPT-3</a>. </p>
<p>Microsoft also owns GitHub, — the largest collection of open source code on the internet — acquired in 2018. The company has added to GitHub’s potential with <a href="https://copilot.github.com/">GitHub Copilot</a>, an AI assistant. When the programmer inputs the action they want to code, Copilot generates a coding sample that could achieve what they specified. The programmer can then accept the AI-generated sample, edit it or reject it, drastically simplifying the coding process. Copilot is a huge step towards NLC, but it is not there yet.</p>
<h2>Consequences of natural language coding</h2>
<p>Although NLC is not yet fully feasible, we are moving quickly towards a future where coding is much more accessible to the average person. The implications are huge.</p>
<p>First, there are consequences for research and development. It is argued that <a href="https://itif.org/publications/2016/02/24/demographics-innovation-united-states">the greater the number of potential innovators, the higher the rate of innovation</a>. By removing barriers to coding, the potential for innovation through programming expands. </p>
<p>Further, academic disciplines as varied as <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/11/what-computational-physics-is-really-about/">computational physics</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0022250X.1995.9990155">statistical sociology</a> increasingly rely on custom computer programs to process data. Decreasing the skill required to create these programs would increase the ability of researchers in specialized fields outside computer sciences to deploy such methods and make new discoveries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Children sit in front of screens in a classroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419876/original/file-20210907-26-19sf7le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plain-language coding will make programming and design more accessible and remove the need for specialized training.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, there are also dangers. Ironically, one is the de-democratization of coding. Currently, numerous coding platforms exist. Some of these platforms offer varied features that different programmers favour, however none offer a competitive advantage. A new programmer could easily use a free, “bare bones” coding terminal and be at little disadvantage. </p>
<p>However, AI at the level required for NLC is not cheap to develop or deploy, and is likely to be monopolized by major platform corporations such as Microsoft, Google or IBM. The service may be offered for a fee or, like most social media services, for free but with unfavourable or exploitative conditions for its use.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-its-free-online-you-are-the-product-95182">If it’s free online, you are the product</a>
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<p>There is also reason to believe that such technologies will be dominated by platform corporations due to the way machine learning works. Theoretically, programs such as Copilot improve when introduced to new data: the more they are used, the better they become. This makes it harder for new competitors, even if they have a stronger or more ethical product.</p>
<p>Unless there is a serious counter effort, it seems likely that large capitalist conglomerates will be the gatekeepers of the next coding revolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Natural language coding means that people won’t need to learn specialized coding languages to write programs or design websites. But large corporations will control the means of translation.
David Murakami Wood, Associate Professor in Sociology, Queen's University, Ontario
David Eliot, Masters Student, Surveillance Studies, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/119623
2019-07-22T19:39:44Z
2019-07-22T19:39:44Z
Our database of police officers who shoot citizens reveals who shot citizens
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283159/original/file-20190708-51284-1g80gce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial display with a drawing of Antwon Rose II sits in front of the Allegheny County courthouse. Police officer Michael Rosfeld shot Rose three times as he fled a car after a traffic stop.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Pennsylvania-Police-Shooting/460143f8932b413a8d94fdf3f0803dee/78/0">AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the debate over fatal police shootings of minority citizens, one theme is persistent: White officers, rather than nonwhite officers, are primarily responsible for black Americans being shot by the police. </p>
<p>For example, look to Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/24/we-dont-trust-you-after-fatal-police-shooting-black-residents-confront-buttigieg/">handling of the recent shooting of black resident Eric Logan</a> in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. This shooting has consistently been tied to the race of the officer, who was white. When Buttigieg was asked about the city’s attempts to increase diversity on the police force, he apologized that he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-debate-south-bend.html">“couldn’t get it done.”</a></p>
<p>Is it true, however, that a black person fatally shot was more likely to be shot by white officers?</p>
<p>To answer this question, we spent over 1,500 hours creating a national database of information about all officers involved in fatal police shootings in the U.S. in 2015. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/16/1903856116">Our paper based on this data</a>, published on July 22, reveals that white officers are not more likely to fatally shoot minority civilians compared to black or Hispanic officers.</p>
<h2>An answer, finally</h2>
<p>Until now, there have been no federal databases on the officers involved in fatal shootings. </p>
<p>Although organizations such as The Washington Post have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/">tracked fatal officer-involved shootings</a> in recent years, these databases have primarily focused on information about civilians. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12956">The few studies</a> that have looked at officer information have been able to obtain data for only a small number of shootings.</p>
<p>Our database includes 917 fatal shootings by on-duty police officers in 2015 from over 650 different police departments. </p>
<p><iframe id="oUtLw" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/oUtLw/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The initial list was developed from lists of fatal shootings compiled by news organizations such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/">The Washington Post</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database">The Guardian</a>. We then contacted all police departments listed in the original lists and asked them to report on the race of every officer involved in a shooting. If follow-up calls were unsuccessful, we searched news reports to uncover officer information.</p>
<p>The characteristics of police officers who shoot civilians closely reflect the pool of all police officers. Nationwide, 73% of all police officers are white, 12% are Hispanic and 12% are black. By comparison, 79% of officers involved in shootings in 2015 were white, 12% were Hispanic and 6% were black. </p>
<p>Of those civilians fatally shot, 55% were white, 27% were black and 19% were Hispanic.</p>
<p><iframe id="h6lsI" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/h6lsI/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>If fatal shootings of minority civilians are due to bias by white officers, we would expect that when white officers are involved in a fatal shooting, the person fatally shot would be more likely to be black or Hispanic. </p>
<p>This is not what we found. In contrast, when all the officers that fired at a civilian were black, a person was 2.0 times more likely to be black than when all the officers who fired were white. When all the officers that fired at a civilian were Hispanic, a person was 9.0 times more likely to be Hispanic than when all the officers who fired were white. </p>
<p>This finding, however, does not mean that black or Hispanic officers are biased in their shooting decisions. Cities with larger populations of nonwhite civilians also have a higher proportion of nonwhite officers. Once these factors were taken into account, black and Hispanic officers were no longer more likely to shoot black or Hispanic citizens.</p>
<p>Officer sex, experience and the total number of officers who fired also did not predict racial disparities in fatal shootings.</p>
<h2>Crime and shootings</h2>
<p>However, there was one factor that did predict the race of a citizen fatally shot: violent crime rates. </p>
<p>In counties where whites committed a higher percentage of homicides, a person fatally shot by the police was 3.5 times more likely to be white. In counties where blacks committed a higher percentage of violent crime, a person fatally shot by the police was 3.7 times more likely to be black. And in counties where Hispanics committed a higher percentage of violent crime, a person fatally shot by the police was 3.3 times more likely to be Hispanic. </p>
<p><iframe id="5Krfo" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5Krfo/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Once crime rates were taken into account, civilians fatally shot by the police were not more likely to be black or Hispanic than white. </p>
<p>This is consistent with <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550618775108">our earlier work</a>, which showed that black Americans have more contact with the police through greater involvement in violent crime, which at least partially explains why black Americans are shot by police at higher rates than their population representation in the U.S.</p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>Our results have important implications for reducing racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings, by suggesting what will and what will not be an effective solution.</p>
<p>Since officer race did not relate to racial disparities in civilians fatally shot by the police, we believe that policies that promote hiring more diverse officers are unlikely to reduce racial disparities in fatal shootings. </p>
<p>However, they may still have merit by <a href="https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-studies/blog/diversity-in-law-enforcement/">increasing public trust in law enforcement</a>.</p>
<p>The best predictor of the race of a person fatally shot was the amount of violent crime committed by members of that racial group. This suggests that reducing fatal shootings of racial minorities by police will require policymakers, civic leaders and ordinary citizens to address factors that lead to racial differences in violent crime, such as racial disparities in <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/media/_media/working_papers/mckernan-et-al_less-than-equal.pdf">wealth</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240907400505">employment</a>, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-05853-005">education</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134549">family structure</a>.</p>
<p>A more thorough understanding of this topic will require better records. In 2019, the FBI launched the <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announces-the-official-launch-of-the-national-use-of-force-data-collection/layout_view">National Use-of-Force Data Collection</a>, which aims to provide comprehensive information about civilians, officers and circumstances surrounding shootings and other types of force. When this database is released, it will enable researchers like us to better understand police shootings in the U.S. today.</p>
<p><em>The headline and text of this story has been updated to reflect the fact that the study did not estimate the likelihood of officers making shooting decisions, but the data on those who were fatally shot.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119623/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Cesario has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information (ZPID). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new project looks at the race of on-duty police officers and civilians involved in 917 fatal shootings in 2015.
David Johnson, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Maryland
Joseph Cesario, Associate Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104527
2018-10-09T15:11:50Z
2018-10-09T15:11:50Z
Proposed police super-database breaks the law and has no legal basis – but the Home Office doesn’t care
<p>The announcement from human rights organisation <a href="https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/">Liberty</a> that it would <a href="https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/news/blog/why-we%E2%80%99re-no-longer-taking-part-consultation-police%E2%80%99s-new-super-database">boycott</a> the UK Home Office’s consultation on the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721542/NLEDP_Privacy_Impact_Assessment_Report.pdf">Law Enforcement Data Service</a>, a new super-database for the police, is an indication of how far from acceptable the project is. </p>
<p>The proposed LEDS would combine the current <a href="http://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/Learning/Professional-Training/Information-communication-technology/Pages/PNC-Police-National-Computer.aspx">Police National Computer</a> (PNC) of people and property involved in lines of enquiry and the <a href="http://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/Learning/Professional-Training/Information-communication-technology/Pages/PND-Police-National-Database.aspx">Police National Database</a> (PND) of intelligence with <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721542/NLEDP_Privacy_Impact_Assessment_Report.pdf">others at a later date</a>. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/01/police-super-database-prompts-liberty-warning-on-privacy">would include</a> sensitive information on victims and on people unrelated to or cleared of wrongdoing. </p>
<p>The UK government has accepted that large amounts of data on the super-database <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/01/police-super-database-prompts-liberty-warning-on-privacy">would have nothing to do with crime</a>, and intends to open up access to other organisations, such as the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/border-force">UK Border Force</a>.</p>
<p>The UK does not have a good reputation for managing large IT projects of this kind, and the actions of the Home Office particularly have been repeatedly ruled unlawful in various cases regarding unlawful retention of <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-court-privacy/eu-court-says-mass-data-retention-illegal-idUKKBN14A0YD">surveillance</a> or <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/04/visa_eu_schengen/">biometric data</a>. </p>
<p>One of Liberty’s concerns is that the proposed database has no data retention policy - its contents would never expire or be removed – and the police have admitted that various types of data it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/01/police-super-database-prompts-liberty-warning-on-privacy">has no legal right to hold</a> will be transferred to the new database too. Another point Liberty highlights is that the system could allow data to be shared with non-policing organisations if there is a business case to do so. Excluded from the terms of the Home Office consultation was any consideration of how the database might be linked to the <a href="https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/human-rights/privacy/police-surveillance-technology">currently unregulated</a> use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/close-up-the-governments-facial-recognition-plan-could-reveal-more-than-just-your-identity-92261">facial recognition technology</a> that is fast becoming popular with police forces.</p>
<p>What legal basis has the UK to be doing any of this? Under the <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights</a> the UK is legally bound to protect and respect human rights – in this case under Article 8, the right to privacy. The <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=home">European Court of Human Rights</a> has ruled that <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-90051">merely storing private data</a> is enough to trigger the protections of Article 8, meaning that the government has a legal obligation to act to uphold the protections of the convention in respect of this proposed database.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239880/original/file-20181009-72117-1ngk2fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Data can easily reveal who we are and who we know. Should the police have access to that?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/user-data-privacy-abstract-personal-private-1062285074">Lightspring/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rule of law</h2>
<p>For the human rights protections not to apply to the Home Office’s super-database, <a href="https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/incorporated-rights/articles-index/article-8-of-the-echr/">three tests must be satisfied</a>.</p>
<p>First, is the super-database consistent with the rule of law? In other words, is there a <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-90051">legal framework in domestic law</a> within which it could exist compatibly with other laws? </p>
<p>Given that the police have admitted they have no legal basis for holding some of the personal information they currently hold, this would by itself <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-142398">be a violation of the rule of law</a>. For those following, this disregard for the rule of law is unsurprising: the High Court <a href="http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/1681.html">ruled</a> that a police policy of retaining 19m custody images for a minimum of six years was unlawful as far back as 2012, but rather than comply with the court ruling, the Home Office claimed that <a href="https://www.biometricupdate.com/201804/uk-home-office-balks-at-complying-with-face-image-deletion-order-due-to-expense">deleting the records would be too expensive</a>. </p>
<p>The police have also been extracting data – even deleted data – from the phones of victims, witnesses and suspects <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2018-03/Digital%20Stop%20and%20Search%20Report.pdf">without a clear legal basis</a>. Even if there was a justifiable legal basis (there isn’t), the police cannot be trusted with such powers: between 2011 and 2015 there were <a href="https://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Safe-in-Police-Hands.pdf">over 1,000 instances</a> of inappropriate or unauthorised use of data by police officers and police staff. This is not even considering the potentially <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2018-03/Digital%20Stop%20and%20Search%20Report.pdf">discriminatory practices</a> of the police, which even the European Court has been made aware of in relation to <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-96585">discrminatory stop and searches</a> in the past.</p>
<h2>Necessity</h2>
<p>Second, the government must prove its actions are necessary. While fighting crime is a legitimate aim, the government has admitted that much of the super-database’s contents will have nothing to do with crime, which would therefore <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-89062">violate Article 8</a>. Even with an established legitimate aim, the more or less indiscriminate mass storage of personal data would be of <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-58586">grave concern to the European Court of Human Rights</a>. And there is no allowable exception under Article 8 that would allow sensitive information to be shared with non-police organisations for merely commercial purposes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239881/original/file-20181009-133328-1xtdkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/strasbourg-france-051517-european-court-human-1170999274">Steve Allen/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Proportionality</h2>
<p>Finally, measures have to be proportionate. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that indefinite retention of private information of individuals who have not been convicted is incompatible with Article 8 as it <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-90051">does not strike a fair balance</a> between privacy and the obligation to fight crime. The <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-159324">storage of clearly irrelevant data</a> cannot ever be compatible with Article 8. Together these rule out the very idea of the proposed super-database storing information on victims and suspects in perpetuity. </p>
<p>Given the vast amount of records to be stored, this will also contain information on political opinions, affiliations and activities, and if a measure is unjustified under Article 8, it will also be <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-75591">unjustified under Articles 10 and 11</a>, the rights to freedom of expression and association and assembly, respectively.</p>
<h2>Rights after Brexit</h2>
<p>The scant disregard shown to the European Convention on Human Rights looks worse when we look to what lies ahead after Brexit. The <a href="https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/court-justice_en">European Court of Justice</a> has <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=186492&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=25572">ruled</a> that where data retention seriously interferes with privacy, access should only be granted by a court or independent administrative body. This is due to Article 8 of the European Union’s <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/what-are-human-rights/how-are-your-rights-protected/what-charter-fundamental-rights-european-union">Charter of Fundamental Rights</a>, which protects personal data. </p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/5/enacted">EU Withdrawal Act 2018</a> passed as part of the Brexit process will not incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law, which means that if this super-database were created there is no guarantee that there will be control and oversight by a judge or someone independent of the police. An additional concern is the new Data Protection Act 2018 which <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/schedule/2/enacted">contains an immigration exemption</a>: if the Border Force are granted access to the super-database, they can lawfully break the law and access and use data with disregard to many data protection principles.</p>
<p>This super-database would be the modern dream of totalitarian police forces, allowing them <a href="https://edpl.lexxion.eu/article/EDPL/2015/1/14">to establish at any moment</a> who is related to whom and to what degree of intimacy. Liberty <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56330ad3e4b0733dcc0c8495/t/56b923771bbee0772f2dc750/1454973816503/GLJ_Vol_05_No_05_Zoeller.pdf">dies by inches</a> and with each and every manoeuvre the UK is building and strengthening its surveillance apparatus. The European Court of Human Rights has said previously that states aren’t entitled to act as they please when it comes surveillance measures due to its corrosive powers to <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/13/human_rights_court_slams_ukgovs_snooping_regime/">undermine democracy on the pretext of defending it</a>. But clearly the Home Office does not care much for what the European Court thinks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Allowing the police unfettered use of vast databases of information will begin to tilt the balance of power towards totalitarianism.
Matthew White, PhD Candidate, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85466
2017-10-16T06:04:24Z
2017-10-16T06:04:24Z
Good data/bad data: ethically designed databases can help police without reducing privacy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190100/original/file-20171013-31418-x5khd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The government doesn't need a giant biometric database.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-engeneer-business-man-thin-modern-574000213?src=mNzlr4Uu5mDMRbUixyV1PQ-1-9">Alexandru Chiriac/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Governments seem to think that the only way to protect national security is to own as much data about the public as possible, but this is not the case.</p>
<p>The push in Australia to create a national registry of driving licence photographs <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-face-it-well-be-no-safer-with-a-national-facial-recognition-database-85179">has been criticised</a> for breaching privacy principles and creating data security risks. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-questions-you-should-ask-before-sharing-data-about-your-customers-84845">Ten questions you should ask before sharing data about your customers</a>
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<p>By truly adopting “privacy by design” principles, it could still achieve its aims while addressing some of these concerns. Instead of creating a new mega-database, matching algorithms in each of the federal, state and territory’s existing databases could be used to provide a similar function.</p>
<p>Computer design principles exist to protect individual privacy and enhance data protection. This can be designed into the system itself, rather than being treated as an afterthought. </p>
<h2>The “Capability”</h2>
<p>In early October, the Council of Australian Governments <a href="https://www.coag.gov.au/node/339">agreed to</a> establish a National Facial Biometric Matching Capability, claiming:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This will help to protect Australians by making it easier for security and law enforcement agencies to identify people who are suspects or victims of terrorist or other criminal activity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/IdentitySecurity/Pages/Face-verification-service.aspx">The aim</a> is to create a new national driving licence registry that sits alongside similar sources for passport and immigration photos and documents.</p>
<p>Its Face Verification Service (FVS) allows law enforcement or other agencies to supply the image and name of a person and check if they match data held in the federal government’s databases. It already operates with passport, visa and citizenship images, but driving licence images <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/IdentitySecurity/Pages/Face-verification-service.aspx">would now be included</a>.</p>
<p>The government will also create a new Facial Identification Service (<a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/IdentitySecurity/Pages/Face-verification-service.aspx">FIS</a>): a user submits an image of an unknown person (say, a terrorism suspect), and if there’s a match, the system will return their name and identifying information.</p>
<p>FIS will become operational with passport, immigration and citizenship images in early 2018, and driver’s licenses afterwards.</p>
<h2>Concerns about the system</h2>
<p>The proposed extension of Facial Matching Services to driver’s licenses has been met with wide political support, but also concerns about the erosion of privacy, increased risks of data hacking and mission creep. </p>
<p>The creation of a large database of personal biometric information has Orwellian connotations, and the wide-scale sharing of driving licence data would breach a key privacy principle: not using data that was collected for one particular use for another without consent. </p>
<p>However, according to a spokesperson from the Attorney-General’s Department, the government has addressed concerns by creating a segmented database “hosted by the Commonwealth” and “replicated” from state and territory road agencies.</p>
<p>Driver’s license images <a href="https://www.coag.gov.au/sites/default/files/agreements/iga-identity-matching-services.pdf">will be</a> stored in:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A federated database providing each state and territory Road Agency with its own partitioned data store, with individual Agency-based access controls…and common facial biometric matching software, managed centrally by the Commonwealth Data Hosting Agency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, each collection of images will be controlled by the relevant state or territory, and provided to the federal government under data sharing agreements. </p>
<p>But while the Commonwealth can’t automatically see the data, it’s still creating a new copy and larger database that could be hacked. That’s a key risk: as the database grows with more “valuable” personal information, it becomes a more attractive “honey pot” for hackers to target.</p>
<h2>Privacy by design using distributed databases</h2>
<p>There are design alternatives to creating a large central database that reduce the scope of data-sharing, infringements on privacy, and attractiveness to hackers.</p>
<p>By installing matching algorithms in each of the eight state and territory’s existing driver’s license databases, the government could achieve the functionality it requires. </p>
<p>In other words, instead of searching one large database, it would search multiple databases at once: the driver’s license databases of each state and territory, the passport database and the immigration database. </p>
<h2>A safer design?</h2>
<p>A truly distributed would mean that if a state or territory’s database was hacked, the scope of the data leak would be smaller.</p>
<p>While the federal government might argue that its centralised approach is faster and more efficient, this is unlikely to be true. Searching smaller databases simultaneously can be faster than one larger database.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nobody-reads-privacy-policies-heres-how-to-fix-that-81932">Nobody reads privacy policies – here's how to fix that</a>
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<p>Not to mention, under the federal government’s approach, keeping the centralised database up to date would require regular transfers of new images, changes of address and so on.</p>
<p>A distributed database design would be more accurate and timely. When someone gets a driver’s license for the first time, or updates their image, this is immediately installed onto the state or territory’s existing system.</p>
<p>Building better computer systems is a necessary part of 21st century policing and national security, but it does not need to come at the expense of privacy and data protection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Henman receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery program to investigate the design and effectiveness of government web portals.</span></em></p>
Governments must stop thinking that owning as much data as possible is the only way to protect national security and prevent crime.
Paul Henman, Associate Professor, Digital Sociology and Social Policy, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78015
2017-05-23T03:48:38Z
2017-05-23T03:48:38Z
New public database reveals striking differences in how guns are regulated from state to state
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170432/original/file-20170522-7379-1pyzuac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-gun protestors rally in Washington, D.C. in July 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/PGroup-Patsy-Lynch-MediaPunch-IPx-A-ENT-IPX-Ant-/4ec5624207314e2bb468f271942765c1/7/0">Patsy Lynch/MediaPunch/IPX</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From 2014 to 2015, the United States experienced its largest annual increase in <a href="https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html">firearm deaths</a> over the past 35 years, a 7.8 percent upturn in a single year. In 45 of the 50 states the rate of overall deaths from firearms increased and the firearm homicide rate rose in every state except West Virginia. </p>
<p>What did Congress do to confront this problem? Only four bills addressing firearm violence made it out of committee during the 2015-2016 congressional session. <a href="https://www.congress.gov/">Not one was enacted</a>. </p>
<p>Because of inaction on the part of the federal government, it is up to each individual state to develop its own policies to reduce gun violence. To evaluate the effectiveness of these laws, researchers and policymakers need a way to track differences in state firearm legislation over an extended time period. Previously, there was no such resource.</p>
<p>We have just released a new public <a href="http://www.statefirearmlaws.org">database</a> that tracks a wide range of firearm laws across all 50 states for the past 27 years. </p>
<p>For the first time, long-term trends in the enactment of gun safety laws can be compared between states. We found <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/#8cdc447d-522c-45de-b41e-bd66ef3ee2a9-58132d06-cf2f-4e31-a696-f4f2aa0cdd9a">striking disparities</a> between states in both the <a href="https://www.statefirearmlaws.org/report/SFL-Report-2016.pdf">number of firearm laws and the rate of adoption of these laws over time</a>. </p>
<h1>Fewer limits for gun owners</h1>
<p>Our database includes <a href="https://www.statefirearmlaws.org/categories.html">133 different measures</a> intended to reduce gun violence, noting the presence or absence of each in all 50 states from 1991 to the present. </p>
<p>Five states currently have fewer than five of these 133 possible firearm law provisions in place, while two states have 100 or more. Between 1991 and 2016, one state enacted 62 of the firearm law provisions, while 16 states actually repealed more provisions than they enacted.</p>
<p>States are increasingly enacting laws that allow people to shoot other people as a first resort in public, instead of retreating when threatened. If a person perceives a threat of serious bodily harm, so-called “<a href="http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2841&context=facpubs">stand your ground</a>” laws allow them to fire their gun with immunity from prosecution, as long as they are in a place they have a legal right to be. Between 2004 and 2017, 24 states enacted a “stand your ground” law. </p>
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<p>States are also increasingly loosening the requirements for carrying concealed weapons. Today, there are 12 states that allow people to carry a concealed weapon without any permit or license. This year alone, three states have already enacted laws that eliminate required permits for carrying concealed weapons.</p>
<h1>More laws are being enacted to protect the gun industry</h1>
<p>States are also increasingly enacting laws that <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1281&context=jhclp">protect the gun industry</a> from potential liability. These laws prevent citizens who are injured by firearms from suing gun manufacturers for damages resulting from the misuse of their products. They also stop local governments from filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers. </p>
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<p>No other consumer product manufacturer enjoys such <a href="http://repository.jmls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1366&context=lawreview">broad immunity</a>. A similar law at the federal level resulted in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/nyregion/judge-dismisses-suit-against-gun-maker-by-newtown-victims-families.html?_r=0">dismissal</a> of a lawsuit against gun manufacturers brought by the families of children killed in the Newtown tragedy in Connecticut.</p>
<p>While only seven states had such a law in 1991, 33 states now have a gun industry immunity law. </p>
<p>In 1998, the Federal Bureau of Investigation implemented a <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/nics">federal background check system</a> for gun purchases from licensed dealers. Since then, only eight states have closed a loophole in this law by requiring universal background checks for all firearm purchases in their state, even those from unlicensed sellers. This “gun show loophole” allows any adult to purchase a gun without being subject to a background check merely by purchasing from a private seller, rather than a licensed dealer. </p>
<p>Today, adults in 37 states can legally purchase a firearm from a private seller without being required to undergo a background check.</p>
<p>There is, however, one area of gun regulation that most of the states, even those with very few other gun safety laws, are progressively pursuing: laws that prohibit domestic violence offenders from possessing firearms. In 1991, only three states had enacted laws that prohibit gun possession by people convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence. Today, 28 states have such laws in place. </p>
<p>In a similar shift, in 1991, not a single state prohibited firearm possession by people subject to permanent domestic violence-related restraining orders. Today, 27 states have this provision.</p>
<p><iframe id="CklkE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CklkE/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h1>Why our database matters</h1>
<p>By examining trends in firearm legislation, rather than just looking at a single snapshot in time, we can discover patterns in firearm law adoption.
These patterns may reflect changes in social norms or specific lobbying campaigns by special interest groups.</p>
<p>For example, the surge in “stand your ground” laws was not a coincidence, but the result of a concerted National Rifle Association lobbying campaign. Florida’s 2005 law – the second to be adopted, after Utah’s in 1994 – was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/15/us/marion-hammer-profile/">crafted</a> by former NRA president Marion Hammer. These laws were <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2012/03/21/alec-has-pushed-the-nras-stand-your-ground-law/186459">pushed</a> by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), of which the NRA was a member. An NRA official co-chaired an ALEC committee that <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/reports/shoot-first/">drafted a model law</a>, which was then introduced in states throughout the country.</p>
<p>More than anything else, this database is intended to help researchers evaluate the effectiveness of different state-level approaches to reducing gun violence. By examining the relationship between changes in these laws over time and changes in firearm mortality, researchers may be able to identify which policies are effective and which are not.</p>
<p>In our view, legislators must balance the protection of the constitutional right to possess a firearm for self-defense with the responsibility to reduce firearm-related injury and death. To do this, they need to distinguish policies that effectively reduce firearm violence from those that are ineffective and therefore superfluous. Reliable longitudinal data can help them find ways to mitigate the impact that gun violence has on the lives of thousands of Americans each year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Siegel is the Principal Investigator of a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Evidence for Action Program, which supported the development of the state firearm law database described in this article. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Molly Pahn has interned with Everytown for Gun Safety. </span></em></p>
How have state firearm laws changed over time? Over the past 27 years, some states have loosened the rules for gun owners and the gun industry, while others are getting stricter.
Michael Siegel, Professor of Community Health Sciences, Boston University
Molly Pahn, Research Manager, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74902
2017-05-01T01:58:13Z
2017-05-01T01:58:13Z
A digital archive of slave voyages details the largest forced migration in history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167028/original/file-20170427-15097-19mqhh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A slave fortress in Cape Coast, Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-I-GHA-NY451-GHANA-SLAVE-CASTLES/c5471cafcde0da11af9f0014c2589dfb/26/0">AP Photo/Clement N'Taye</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Between 1500 and 1866, slave traders forced <a href="http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates">12.5 million</a> Africans aboard transatlantic slave vessels. Before 1820, four enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic for every European, making Africa the demographic wellspring for the repopulation of the Americas after Columbus’ voyages. The slave trade pulled <a href="http://slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps">virtually every port</a> that faced the Atlantic Ocean – from Copenhagen to Cape Town and Boston to Buenos Aires – into its orbit.</p>
<p>To document this enormous trade – the largest forced oceanic migration in human history – our team launched <a href="http://www.slavevoyages.org">Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database</a>, a freely available online resource that lets visitors search through and analyze information on nearly 36,000 slave voyages that occurred between 1514 and 1866. </p>
<p>Inspired by the remarkable public response, we developed an animation feature that helps bring into clearer focus the horrifying scale and duration of the trade. The site also implemented a system for visitors to contribute new data. In the last year alone we have added more than a thousand new voyages and revised details on many others. </p>
<p>The data have revolutionized scholarship on the slave trade and provided the foundation for new insights into how enslaved people experienced and resisted their captivity. They have also further underscored the distinctive transatlantic connections that the trade fostered.</p>
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/3o7bubi6p8AiWkeK52" width="100%" height="350" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>Records of unique slave voyages lie at the heart of the project. Clicking on individual voyages listed in the site opens their profiles, which comprise more than 70 distinct fields that collectively help tell that voyage’s story. </p>
<p>From which port did the voyage begin? To which places in Africa did it go? How many enslaved people perished during the Middle Passage? And where did those enslaved Africans end the oceanic portion of their enslavement and begin their lives as slaves in the Americas?</p>
<h2>Working with complex data</h2>
<p>Given the size and complexity of the slave trade, combining the sources that document slave ships’ activities into a single database has presented numerous challenges. Records are written in numerous languages and maintained in archives, libraries and private collections located in dozens of countries. Many of these are developing nations that lack the financial resources to invest in sustained systems of document preservation.</p>
<p>Even when they are relatively easy to access, documents on slave voyages provide uneven information. <a href="https://mchsct.org/exhibits-displays/a-vanished-port-middletown-the-caribbean-1750-1824/a-vanished-port-slave-ship-logbooks/">Ship logs</a> comprehensively describe places of travel and list the numbers of enslaved people purchased and the captain and crew. By contrast, port-entry records in newspapers might merely produce the name of the vessel and the number of captives who survived the Middle Passage. </p>
<p>These varied sources can be hard to reconcile. The numbers of slaves loaded or removed from a particular vessel might vary widely. Or perhaps a vessel carried registration papers that aimed to mask its actual origins, especially after the legal abolition of the trade in 1808.</p>
<p>Compiling these data in a way that does justice to their complexity, while still keeping the site user-friendly, has remained <a href="http://slavevoyages.org/voyage/understanding-db">an ongoing concern</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166122/original/file-20170420-21495-62z61a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volume and direction of the transatlantic slave trade from all African to all American regions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps">David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven, 2010)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, not all slave voyages left surviving records. Gaps will consequently remain in coverage, even if they continue to narrow. Perhaps three out of every four slaving voyages are now documented in the database. Aiming to account for missing data, a separate <a href="http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates">assessment tool</a> enables users to gain a clear understanding of the volume and structure of the slave trade and consider how it changed over time and across space.</p>
<h2>Engagement with Voyages site</h2>
<p>While gathering data on the slave trade is not new, using these data to compile comprehensive databases for the public has become feasible only in the internet age. Digital projects make it possible to reach a much larger audience with more diverse interests. We often hear from teachers and students who use the site in the classroom, from scholars whose research draws on material in the database and from individuals who consult the project to better understand their heritage. </p>
<p>Through a <a href="http://slavevoyages.org/accounts/login/">contribute function</a>, site visitors can also submit new material on transatlantic slave voyages and help us identify errors in the data.</p>
<p>The real strength of the project – and of digital history more generally – is that it encourages visitors to interact with sources and materials that they might not otherwise be able to access. That turns users into historians, allowing them to contextualize a single slave voyage or analyze local, national and Atlantic-wide patterns. How did the survival rate among captives during the Middle Passage change over time? What was the typical ratio of male to female captives? How often did insurrections occur aboard slave ships? From which African port did most enslaved people sent to, say, Virginia originate?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166124/original/file-20170420-21495-1f9zhhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">H.M.S. ‘Rattler’ captures the slaver ‘Andorinha’ in August 1849.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://slavevoyages.org/resources/images/category/Vessels/3">The Illustrated London News (Dec. 29, 1849), vol. 15, p. 440</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars have used Voyages to address these and many other questions and have in the process transformed our understanding of just about every aspect of the slave trade. We learned that shipboard revolts occurred most often among slaves who came from regions in Africa that supplied comparatively few slaves. Ports tended to send slave vessels to the same African regions in search of enslaved people and dispatch them to familiar places for sale in the Americas. Indeed, slave voyages followed a seasonal pattern that was conditioned at least in part by agricultural cycles on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The slave trade was both highly structured and carefully organized. </p>
<p>The website also continues to collect <a href="http://slavevoyages.org/education/lesson-plans">lesson plans</a> that teachers have created for middle school, high school and college students. In one exercise, students must create a memorial to the captives who experienced the Middle Passage, using the site to inform their thinking. <a href="https://www.crl.edu/focus/article/12176">One college course</a> situates students in late 18th-century Britain, turning them into collaborators in the abolition campaign who use Voyages to gather critical information on the slave trade’s operations.</p>
<p>Voyages has also provided a model for other projects, including a <a href="http://news.ucsc.edu/2016/05/greg-omalley-slavetrade.html">forthcoming database</a> that documents slave ships that operated strictly within the Americas. </p>
<p>We also continue to work in parallel with the <a href="http://african-origins.org/">African Origins</a> database. The project invites users to identify the likely backgrounds of nearly 100,000 Africans liberated from slave vessels based on their indigenous names. By combining those names with information from Voyages on liberated Africans’ ports of origin, the Origins website aims to better understand the homelands from which enslaved people came. </p>
<p>Through these endeavors, Voyages has become a digital memorial to the millions of enslaved Africans forcibly pulled into the slave trade and, until recently, nearly erased from the history of not only the trade itself, but also the history of the Atlantic world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Misevich has previously received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Domingues has previously received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Luso-American Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Eltis receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Radburn has previously received funding from the Doris G. Quinn Foundation and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nafees M. Khan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An online database explores the nearly 36,000 slave voyages that occurred between 1514 and 1866.
Philip Misevich, Assistant Professor of History, St. John's University
Daniel Domingues, Assistant Professor of History, University of Missouri-Columbia
David Eltis, Professor Emeritus of History, Emory University
Nafees M. Khan, Lecturer in Social Studies Education, Clemson University
Nicholas Radburn, Postdoctoral Fellow, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74490
2017-04-17T22:56:16Z
2017-04-17T22:56:16Z
Medieval medical books could hold the recipe for new antibiotics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165279/original/image-20170413-11758-10u9ffg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recipe for an eyesalve from 'Bald's Leechbook.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The British Library Board (Royal MS 12 D xvii)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For a long time, medieval medicine has been dismissed as irrelevant. This time period is popularly referred to as the “Dark Ages,” which erroneously suggests that it was unenlightened by science or reason. However, some medievalists and scientists are now looking back to history for clues to inform the search for new antibiotics.</p>
<p>The evolution of <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/">antibiotic-resistant microbes</a> means that it is always necessary to find new drugs to battle microbes that are no longer treatable with current antibiotics. But progress in finding new antibiotics is slow. The drug discovery pipeline is currently stalled. <a href="https://amr-review.org/sites/default/files/AMR%20Review%20Paper%20-%20Tackling%20a%20crisis%20for%20the%20health%20and%20wealth%20of%20nations_1.pdf">An estimated 700,000 people</a> around the world die annually from drug-resistant infections. If the situation does not change, it is estimated that such infections will kill 10 million people per year by 2050.</p>
<p>I am part of the <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2015/march/ancientbiotics---a-medieval-remedy-for-modern-day-superbugs.aspx">Ancientbiotics team</a>, a group of medievalists, microbiologists, medicinal chemists, parasitologists, pharmacists and data scientists from multiple universities and countries. We believe that answers to the antibiotic crisis could be found in medical history. With the aid of modern technologies, we hope to unravel how premodern physicians treated infection and whether their cures really worked. </p>
<p>To that end, we are compiling a database of medieval medical recipes. By revealing patterns in medieval medical practice, our database could inform future laboratory research into the materials used to treat infection in the past. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to create a medieval medicines database in this manner and for this purpose. </p>
<h2>Bald’s eyesalve</h2>
<p>In 2015, our team published a <a href="http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01129-15.full">pilot study</a> on a 1,000-year old recipe called Bald’s eyesalve from <a href="http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/01/balds-leechbook-now-online.html">“Bald’s Leechbook,”</a> an Old English medical text. The eyesalve was to be used against a “wen,” which may be translated as a sty, or an infection of the eyelash follicle. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164606/original/image-20170410-29390-1gtp4f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human white blood cells (in blue) take on <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> bacteria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://phil.cdc.gov/phil/details.asp?pid=18140">Frank DeLeo, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A common cause of modern styes is the bacterium <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/staph.html"><em>Staphylococcus aureus</em></a>. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mrsa/">Methicillin-resistant <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> (or MRSA)</a> is resistant to many current antibiotics. Staph and MRSA infections are responsible for a variety of severe and chronic infections, including wound infections, sepsis and pneumonia. </p>
<p>Bald’s eyesalve contains wine, garlic, an <em>Allium</em> species (such as leek or onion) and oxgall. The recipe states that, after the ingredients have been mixed together, they must stand in a brass vessel for nine nights before use. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01129-15.full">our study</a>, this recipe turned out to be a potent antistaphylococcal agent, which repeatedly killed established <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/"><em>S. aureus</em></a> <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/02-0063_article">biofilms</a> – a sticky matrix of bacteria adhered to a surface – in an in vitro infection model. It also killed MRSA in mouse chronic wound models.</p>
<h2>Medieval methods</h2>
<p>Premodern European medicine has been poorly studied for its clinical potential, compared with traditional pharmacopeias of other parts of the world. Our research also raises questions about medieval medical practitioners. Today, the word “medieval” is used as a derogatory term, indicating cruel behavior, ignorance or backwards thinking. This perpetuates the myth that the period is unworthy of study. </p>
<p>During our eyesalve study, chemist Tu Youyou was awarded the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/press.html">Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine</a> for her discovery of a new therapy for malaria after searching over 2,000 recipes from ancient Chinese literature on herbal medicine. Is another “silver bullet” for microbial infection hidden within medieval European medical literature?</p>
<p>Certainly, there are medieval superstitions and treatments that we would not replicate today, such as purging a patient’s body of pathogenic humors. However, <a href="http://www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/tops/connelly/index.html">our work</a> suggests that there could be a methodology behind the medicines of medieval practitioners, informed by a long tradition of observation and experimentation. </p>
<p>One key finding was that following the steps exactly as specified by the Bald’s eyesalve recipe – including waiting nine days before use – was crucial for its efficacy. Are the results of this medieval recipe representative of others that treat infection? Were practitioners selecting and combining materials following some “scientific” methodology for producing biologically active cocktails? </p>
<p>Further research may show that some medieval medicines were more than placebos or palliative aids, but actual “ancientbiotics” used long before the modern science of infection control. This idea underlies our current study on the medieval medical text, “Lylye of Medicynes.” </p>
<h2>A medieval medicines database</h2>
<p>The “Lylye of Medicynes” is a 15th-century Middle English translation of the Latin “Lilium medicinae,” first completed in 1305. It is a translation of the major work of a significant medieval physician, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Bernard-Gordon-Studies-Texts/dp/0888440510">Bernard of Gordon</a>. His “Lilium medicinae” was translated and printed continuously over many centuries, until at least the late 17th century.</p>
<p>The text contains a wealth of medical recipes. In the Middle English translation, there are 360 recipes – clearly indicated with Rx in the text – and many thousands more ingredient names. </p>
<p>As a doctoral student, I prepared the first-ever edition of the “Lylye of Medicynes” and compared the recipes against four extant Latin copies of the “Lilium medicinae.” This involved faithfully copying the Middle English text from the medieval manuscript, then editing that text for a modern reader, such as adding modern punctuation and correcting scribal errors. The “Lylye of Medicynes” is 245 folios, which equates to 600 pages of word-processed text. </p>
<p>I loaded the Middle English names of ingredients into a database, along with translations into modern equivalents, juxtaposed with relationships to recipe and disease. It is very time-consuming to format medieval data for processing with modern technologies. It also takes time to translate medieval medical ingredients into modern equivalents, due in part to multiple synonyms as well as variations in modern scientific nomenclature for plants. This information has to be verified across many sources. </p>
<p>With our database, we aim to find combinations of ingredients that occur repeatedly and are specifically used to treat infectious diseases. To achieve this, we are employing some common tools of data science, such as <a href="http://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/S003614450342480">network analysis</a>, a mathematical method to examine the relationships between entries. Our team will then examine how these patterns may help us to use medieval texts as inspiration for lab tests of candidate “ancientbiotic” recipes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164608/original/image-20170410-7394-1xdr57r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Word cloud from the Lylye of Medicynes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erin Connelly</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In March, we tested a small portion of the database to ensure that the method we developed was appropriate for this data set. At present, the database contains only the 360 recipes indicated with Rx. Now that the proof-of-concept stage is complete, I will expand the database to contain other ingredients which are clearly in recipe format, but may not be marked with Rx. </p>
<p>We are specifically interested in recipes associated with recognizable signs of infection. With Bald’s eyesalve, the combination of ingredients proved to be crucial. By examining the strength of ingredient relationships, we hope to find out whether medieval medical recipes are driven by certain combinations of antimicrobial ingredients. </p>
<p>The database could direct us to new recipes to test in the lab in our search for novel antibiotics, as well as inform new research into the antimicrobial agents contained in these ingredients on the molecular level. It could also deepen our understanding of how medieval practitioners “designed” recipes. Our research is in the beginning stages, but it holds exciting potential for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Connelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A team of medievalists and scientists look back to history – including a 1,000-year-old eyesalve recipe – for clues to new antibiotics.
Erin Connelly, CLIR-Mellon Fellow for Data Curation in Medieval Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/34558
2014-11-25T12:04:22Z
2014-11-25T12:04:22Z
YouGov app: enjoy consumer profiling while you can
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65457/original/image-20141125-2357-1kd0ege.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can you relate?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/Newspapers_and_Magazines/demographics">YouGov</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the UK’s largest market research firms has caused a stir with an online tool that gives a peek into its treasure trove of consumer profiles. YouGov describes its <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/find-solutions/profiles/">Profiler app</a> as “a showcase for some of the more fun, consumer-friendly data on the full version of YouGov profiles”. The full product is a new service aimed at helping businesses understand who their customers are and what they like – a practice known as “segmentation” in the business of marketing.</p>
<p>The app shows you the “quintessential profile” of people associated with any “brand, person or thing”. For example, according to the app, people who donate to the RSPCA are more likely to be right wing, female and working in healthcare. People who like Spam (the tinned meat product, not the electronic kind) are epitomised by men from Yorkshire who describe their personality as “occasionally grumpy”.</p>
<h2>No juicy details</h2>
<p>Media coverage of the app has been predictably self-referential, with many newspapers running stories on what it <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/yougov-profiler-what-are-the-vital-statistics-of-an-average-reader-of-the-independent-9868964.html">revealed about their readership</a>. Some have mistakenly reported the profiles as representing the “average” or “typical” consumer of a brand. Actually, instead of showing a demographic breakdown, the Profiler app picks out what is “<a href="https://yougov.co.uk/find-solutions/profiles/about-yougov-profiles-and-the-profiler-app/">proportionally unique</a>” about each group.</p>
<p>If consumers who like a certain brand are more likely than the general population to exhibit a certain trait, the app will create a profile with that trait. So, for a football team with a larger-than-average female fanbase compared to other teams, the tool might show a female character, even if the majority of the team’s fans are in fact male.</p>
<p>In other words, the tool doesn’t reveal the juicy details that professional marketers most want to know, but it does give a hint of what lies behind the full product. Perhaps the app is so appealing because, in claiming to show a product’s quintessential consumers, it confirms our commonly held stereotypes and exaggerates our perceived differences.</p>
<h2>Cause for concern</h2>
<p>While the use of consumer profiles has so far been relatively benign, it is easy to imagine the role they might play in a dystopian near future. Indeed, some market researchers are beginning to worry that consumers may find new forms of personalisation creepy, positing a hypothesis known as the <a href="http://m.cmo.com/articles/2013/11/18/is_targeted_advertis.html">“uncanny valley”</a>. This says that consumers become disturbed if the personalised, targeted advertising gets too accurate.</p>
<p>Even if consumers were to overcome the uncanny valley of personalisation, and embrace its convenience, there may still be reasons for concern. One is the threat to individual autonomy from having decisions about you made automatically on the basis of a profile. Another is the possibility of discrimination. </p>
<p>Being a member of a disadvantaged group is likely to come with a variety of associations that could potentially be used in targeting. For instance, a well-tuned personalisation algorithm might not advertise books to a consumer group with statistically lower literacy rates. What might seem like helpful personalisation on the face of it, could turn out to undermine autonomy or pose a threat of discrimination.</p>
<p>For these reasons, the use of profiles is likely to come under increased scrutiny in years to come. To this end, the European Union’s <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52012PC0011">proposed data protection reforms</a> include a right to be informed about the existence and consequences of profiling. Another possible counter-measure is to give individuals control over their own profiles, and the ability to dictate who has access to what information in what context. Services offering users these kinds of technical controls have emerged in recent years. </p>
<p>Finally, as well as developing legal and technical instruments for individuals to control how they are profiled, there is also a wider debate to be had about the role of profiling in the digital age. In the mean time, we can continue to entertain ourselves (and stereotype each other) with the YouGov Profiler’s quintessential consumers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reuben Binns works as a consultant advising organisations on the use of personal data. He receives funding from the RCUK Digital Economy Programme.</span></em></p>
One of the UK’s largest market research firms has caused a stir with an online tool that gives a peek into its treasure trove of consumer profiles. YouGov describes its Profiler app as “a showcase for…
Reuben Binns, PhD student, University of Southampton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/25684
2014-04-24T12:01:10Z
2014-04-24T12:01:10Z
Data mashups can help answer the world’s biggest questions
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46480/original/z8s9wh4v-1397577998.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We collect climate data. We collect health data. What if we combined the two?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/9555899543/">Kevin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the world wakes up to the power of data, we need to start working out how to join up all this information. We need to turn it into meaningful findings that will help us to make changes to the way we live. A new technique is emerging as part of this quest – the data mashup. This approach to linking data could help us shed light on phenomena such as the health impacts of climate change.</p>
<p>Data comes in all shapes and sizes. It can record boundless sets of characteristics over different time scales and geographic areas. But this diversity means that individual databases are often created for specific areas, such as health research, and are rarely shared or combined with others.</p>
<p>Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that by joining these disparate sources of data, academia, governments and businesses may be able to access information that is currently hidden within closed systems. So researchers are now turning to techniques developed by computer scientists in order to access this Aladdin’s cave of information.</p>
<p>The Medical and Environmental Data Mashup Infrastructure (<a href="http://www.ecehh.org/research-projects/medmi/">MEDMI</a>) project is one of the initiatives doing this. We’re hoping to enable research into the links between climate, weather, environment and health. By bringing <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/1725">databases</a> from each of these areas together and allowing access through one web-based portal, we’re aiming to create a shared resource for medical, environmental, and public health researchers.</p>
<p>The collection of health and environment data over the past 20 years has provided a growing resource of information. It includes detailed monitoring of weather and climate variables like temperature and rainfall and digital health records, among other useful additions.</p>
<p>With this information, you could combine temperature and air pollution data to predict when people with chronic lung disease might have respiratory problems if they go outside. The UK Met Office did this and now provides an <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/health/public/copd">early warning service</a> for patients, their families and healthcare providers. </p>
<p>But joining such varied forms of data presents some significant hurdles. For a start, in many cases we are at the mercy of the way data has been collected historically. Pollen data, for example, traditionally suffers from a lack of resolution. Only a few measurement locations cover the whole of the UK but pollen moves rapidly in the air all over the place. These differences in resolution over time and space make it difficult to identify links with other more finely recorded factors, such as individuals with certain types of skin cancer and radon levels in a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22081061">particular area</a>.</p>
<p>The huge disparities in data collection are even more apparent when considering other environment and health variables. Take rainfall or cloud cover data for example, which are measured on an hourly basis, at very high resolution, over the whole of the UK.</p>
<p>It might be interesting to combine large scale environmental data with the <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/">Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children</a>, which followed the pregnancies of 14,000 mothers in the Avon Valley, to see if solar irradiance (a measure of vitamin D levels) exposure is related to the <a href="http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jeph/2012/619381/">development of allergic diseases</a>. But this is difficult to do because the Avon study only collects data every couple of years and the participants predominantly live in a small geographic area.</p>
<h2>Bridging the gaps</h2>
<p>Merging data types ranging from a description of a person’s mental health to measurements of ocean currents, requires some serious head scratching. Fortunately, statistical techniques and methods such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide us with a really good start, and the standardisation of spatial data services by the <a href="http://www.opengeospatial.org">Open Geospatial Consortium</a> has begun to create a common international language between databases. There is also a growing interest from the private sector, with companies like Google dedicating resources to connecting data and enabling access over the web.</p>
<p>Perversely (to health researchers at least), the link between the changing climate and human health has received little scientific attention, particularly when compared to investigating how climate affects the weather and environment. We’re hoping that MEDMI will begin to redress this trend by allowing us to investigate where climate and health data overlap.</p>
<p>For example, we want to identify risk hot spots – places where climate and other environmental factors converge to affect vulnerable populations – early enough to both mitigate the consequences and study these interventions.</p>
<p>The sheer number of partners working on the project highlights the dizzying complexity of any mashup endeavour. And of course there is the veritable minefield of protecting confidential and sensitive health data. The importance of that cannot be overstated.</p>
<p>But scientists like me, already committed to the data mashup cause, aren’t fazed by these challenges. We’re already looking towards a future where these linked databases can be queried in real time.</p>
<p>We’re imagining a world where a regional cold snap can be associated with flu cases and hospital admissions as it happens. That would mean local resources could be quickly and efficiently deployed. We’re hoping that long-term predictions about climate and human health hot spots can help us to plan our cities so that they are more resilient. </p>
<p>Living in a world undergoing rapid environmental change will increasingly require this kind of vision. We’re not there yet, not even close, but just like television on your mobile phone, we may get there sooner than you think.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lora Fleming receives funding from UK Medical Research Council (MRC), UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013, and the European Social Fund Convergence Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.</span></em></p>
As the world wakes up to the power of data, we need to start working out how to join up all this information. We need to turn it into meaningful findings that will help us to make changes to the way we…
Lora Fleming, Director, European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/23730
2014-02-26T14:51:45Z
2014-02-26T14:51:45Z
Health database could help avoid another pharma scandal
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42576/original/ws3b7pb3-1393424235.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making connections. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/31065898@N08/8220970905/sizes/l/">Jairoagua</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Electronic medical records are essential for treating rare conditions. I have a two-year-old daughter with a rare medical condition. She is seen by three doctors and is on a number of different medicines although, because the condition is so rare, very little is known about how to treat it most effectively. There are a few thousand other children in the country with this condition. And having access to their combined records would mean that researchers and clinicians could better find the combinations of medicines and treatments that are most effective for the benefit of all of these patients.</p>
<p>The benefits of having a national medical record database <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/power-to-the-people-1.14505?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20140116">shouldn’t be underestimated</a>, not just for academic research but for the health of all patients. <a href="http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/ehi/9142/care.data:-charities-back-info-sharing">A huge number</a> of medical charities, funding bodies and journals, including the British Health foundation, Alzheimer’s Society and Cancer Research UK all attest to this.</p>
<p>A huge sample size from a national database would mean a higher power to detect side effects and interactions that are currently effectively outside of evidence-based medicine. This extends to drug companies, who surely have a duty of care to monitor the population exposed to their products for side effects and adverse reactions with other drugs. In 2004 a popular anti-inflamatory medicine called Vioxx was withdrawn from the market after it was <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6192603/ns/health-arthritis/t/report-vioxx-linked-thousands-deaths/#.Uwyon_RSaUI">found to have resulted</a> in tens of thousands of serious heart attacks. </p>
<p>If at the time we had access to the medical records of all patients on Vioxx, the pattern of association between taking the medicine and serious harm would have been detected and the drug would have been withdrawn much earlier. Many thousands of lives would have been saved.</p>
<h2>Flagship comes to a halt</h2>
<p>Despite all of this and the huge public health benefits, plans to have a national medical record database – NHS England’s flagship <a href="http://www.patient.co.uk/health/caredata-sharing-your-information">care.data programme</a> – have come to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26239532">a temporary halt</a>. There was also the revelation that the hospital records of every NHS patient in the country <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10656893/Hospital-records-of-all-NHS-patients-sold-to-insurers.html">had been sold</a> to actuaries.</p>
<p>Without a doubt, NHS England (which is managing the project) and the government have made a hash of the public relations campaign building up to the roll out of care.data. They omitted references to opting out in promotional literature and failed to properly discuss risks, however remote, to do with personal data sharing and security. They also made a distinctly underwhelming case for the advantages of a national primary care database. Most of these faults probably stem from a fundamental lack of understanding of the science and technology involved in such a project.</p>
<h2>Already happening</h2>
<p>For a sizeable proportion of the UK population, the sharing of their electronic medical records with academia and pharma is already a reality and has been for decades. About a third of UK patients already have their electronic medical records held on the main current UK primary care databases (ones called <a href="http://intl.bjgp.org/content/63/611/284.short">CPRD</a>, THIN and QResearch for example), and many have their pseudoanonymised data accessible (for a fee) to both medical researchers like me and to private companies, including drug companies. </p>
<p>Such data is currently stored and accessed in almost exactly the same way that care.data will be. In fact, apart from the scale of the project, the only real differences with the new system are that the data <a href="http://www.hscic.gov.uk">will be kept on government-owned servers</a> at the Health and Social Care Information centre rather than in the data centres of private or semi-private companies and that now patients <a href="http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/optout/optout.pdf">can opt out</a> whereas in other current systems, it is GPs who decide whether or not their practices as a whole will contribute data. In the majority of cases now, patients will not even be aware that their data are being collected, let alone be offered the opportunity to consent.</p>
<p>There are many understandable concerns around privacy. Many MPs, GPs and patient groups have argued that care.data should be an opt-in system where a patient’s medical records are only recorded if they give their express permission. Brian Jarman, an emeritus professor specialising in health data at Imperial College London, even thinks that <a href="http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/EHI/9249/care.data-should-be-opt-in---jarman">half of people</a> in the UK would sign up to such a scheme. Given the low rates of uptake for schemes such as donor cards this seems fancifully optimistic. As with <a href="http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/statistics/transplant_activity_report/current_activity_reports/ukt/nhs_organ_donor_register.pdf">donor cards</a>, there is also likely to be a lower rate of uptake among patients in more deprived communities. This will lead to both bias in the data itself and systematic inequalities in the NHS, as the very people that are most in need of services will effectively fall off the radar when it comes to collecting evidence.</p>
<p>Hunt gave his strongest statement yet that sale of data to actuaries “cannot happen” under care.data. But it came only a day after this exact thing did happen with the sale of hospital data to a major insurance company – an act that seems almost designed to destroy public trust in electronic medical records once and for all. That the data shared was anonymised and that it would be used to give more accurate estimates of risk will make little difference to an already angry and disillusioned public.</p>
<p>Fears include big pharma companies illegally de-anonymising our medical records and use them to target their products better but the complexity of doing this makes it unlikely that it would be possible to identify more than a very small proportion of patients with an ultimately unknown error rate.</p>
<h2>Lots of effort, little reward</h2>
<p>The database would tell someone (willing to put a lot of work in) that, for example, there is a 90-year-old female with diabetes, dementia and on certain medication registered with and attending a certain practice. To identify this patient, external information would be needed and it is unclear where it would be obtained from. Would the company survey the area at random asking about patients who fit the profile?</p>
<p>This would only be feasible for uncommon combinations of characteristics (so very old patients, people with multiple health problems, rare conditions and so on). It seems highly unlikely that a company would break the law and grandiosely jeopardise its standing by embarking on such a complicated enterprise with practically zero returns.</p>
<p>Alternatively, the ludicrousness of the idea of “hackers” doing this for themselves to sell the data on to whoever will pay, is obvious: why would someone pay for the name of that 90-year-old female mentioned above (which cannot be identified solely through the database and considerable external effort is required) while your social media data, credit card information and iTunes, Paypal and Amazon passwords are all much easier to harvest, and doing so doesn’t necessarily require PhD-level knowledge of large medical databases and weeks or months to properly extract the information? </p>
<p>Would it make any difference to identity thieves what medication you are on? No. They would be after your name, age, sex, occupation – information that is either unavailable in the database (name, occupation) or is an absolute requisite for identifying your medical record in the database in the first place (age, sex).</p>
<p>It isn’t that a national database would come with zero risk of information leaks (as the initial PR campaign would have you believe), but the chances are very small; patient data has been shared in exactly this way for over 20 years now and there have been no significant losses of information. </p>
<p>Systems need to be put in place to effectively monitor users of this data and tougher penalties need to be introduced if the rules are breached. But patients are being harmed every day because of a lack of information sharing that could detect harmful side effects and drug reactions that would never be picked up by clinical trials. It is really this that we should all be working towards. </p>
<p><em>Evan Kontopantelis, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, also contributed to this article.</em> </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Springate receives funding from the NIHR School for Primary Care Research to conduct research using electronic medical records.</span></em></p>
Electronic medical records are essential for treating rare conditions. I have a two-year-old daughter with a rare medical condition. She is seen by three doctors and is on a number of different medicines…
David Springate, Biostatistician, University of Manchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.