Open-source data empowerment NO. 171 // THEME 03 // WEEK 46 // NOVEMBER 16, 2018

THEME 03 Open-source data empowerment

SENSOR-BASED OPEN-SOURCE DATA CITIZEN RIGHTS ECONOMY

Despite growing concerns over the ever-expanding surveillance systems of states and companies being used to track and control citizens, they also enable the empowerment of the hitherto powerless. Multiple efforts hint at successful ways of using open- source data in order to protect citizens and uncover malpractices by institutions and other powerful actors. As such, the ubiquity of (open-source) data in a sensor-based economy sheds new light on the idea of granting citizens freedom and empowerment. Our observations

• The role geospatial data play in our modern world is of growing importance. Increasingly, our daily practices, such as our Uber routes and meals to be delivered at our home, require these data. As advanced satellites, digital mapping tools, and open-source geographical software progress, the demand for cartographers is projected to grow nearly 30% by 2024 and the number of master’s degrees in cartography has already grown steeply over the past years. A modern cartographer is no longer merely a map producer, but increasingly a data analyst. Moreover, leading GIS systems, such as that of Esri, are increasingly challenged by open-source alternatives such as Carto and MapBox. • Aside from bestowing power, data are a powerful means for questioning constructed power relations or governing structures. Earlier, we wrote about counter-mapping, referring to the efforts to map “against dominant power structures”. For , publicly available spatial information, such as data from satellite imagery, can be an accurate source in investigating controversial events, like explosions. • Supported by citizen , the investigative website Bellingcat was recently able to use intelligence techniques to unmask the Russian agents responsible for the Salisbury poisonings. Through its “Bellingcat’s Online Investigation Toolkit” and trainings to get a “geolocation vision”, Bellingcat teaches citizens how to use data from surveillance cameras and satellite images publicly provided by Google Maps to understand “hidden” realities. Moreover, with social media data, photos on Instagram, location sharing on Facebook, and linked friends, the public is increasingly capable of mapping networks and interactions. • Another example of investigative journalism is , a collective that investigates state crimes and has often collaborated with Bellingcat. It synchronizes data from multiple sources and remodels a crime scene to understand what happened. Its open-source app for data visualization, PATTRN, uses spatial information to investigate human rights controversies. In order to engage citizens and a broader public, open- source investigation is reaching audiences by visualizing their practices and influence in exhibitions. Currently, Forensic Architecture is showing its work at multiple exhibitions, e.g. in the UK and in the . • The use of open-source data such as social media accounts and websites also creates a possibility to influence international affairs, as the case of has taught us. In the documentary Eurasia, designer collective Metahaven (which designed the website for Wikileaks) explores the fake news industry of Veles. The town became known as the “world capital of fake news” during the 2016 U.S. elections, because a significant number of pro-Trump sites were being run from there. As a result, Hillary Clinton blamed her defeat on such places. According to the Metahaven, propaganda techniques now no longer work from the idea that they are promoting a centralized perspective, but rather that fragmented, subversive forces are creating doubt, intervening in cognitive space. While the town’s mayor is clearly aware that Veles has acquired a bad reputation by the fake news industry, he does not perceive it as dangerous (article in Dutch).

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Connecting the dots

The empowering function of the internet was always and influence social media activities, such as bots, based on the free dissemination of information. have emerged as disruptive elements in foreign Indeed, the internet has led to a more open culture and domestic politics. Fake news created in a small in which information flows freely between citizens and “insignificant” country like Macedonia, was in many ways. At the same time, governments and a able to influence the presidential elections of a few big tech companies are in control of this “free superpower. These sorts of influences might result in space”. Think of China’s surveillance system or big an infocalypse, or the crisis of misinformation. tech parties such as Google, who essentially know Second, the increasing availability and accessibility of every website we have ever visited and, due to data in our world also empowers citizens and citizen geolocation, know where we live, work, where we’ve rights groups by protecting them from power abuses traveled and when. For instance, geolocating via or constructed realities. Open-source data allows smartphones and mapping geotagged photographs non-state actors to discover events, trends and can reveal a person’s daily life patterns. In a sensor- patterns that used to be hidden. It was only a few based economy, people are thus increasingly years ago that the field of open-source investigation vulnerable to being tracked, watched and targeted came into existence, as pioneered by Bellingcat. from above. Some even argue the way we perceive This is the practice of uncovering the truth about airspace has to be redefined in a legal sense and dubious events by accurately examining publicly it has been proposed that we recognize a new available data such as satellite images, social-media human right to protect the freedom to live free posts, YouTube videos, and online databases. Ever from physical or psychological threats from above. since, this has inspired established parties. In 2017, However, while the data are increasingly used to the International Criminal Court warranted its first exert power, the ubiquity of data in a sensor-based arrest based on social media evidence (a video). economy simultaneously empowers the powerless Moreover, the state-sponsored Russian news channel against dominant power structures: it grants citizens RT launched a “digital verification” blog, apparently different paths to freedom and control through modelled on Bellingcat. Earlier this year, ethnic open-source data. cleansing in the forests of the Democratic Republic First, the growing influence of the digital world in of Congo was monitored remotely by a New York our daily lives enables parties far less powerful than Times Visual Investigations Team, which used NASA our national governing bodies and physically located satellites to identify burned villages. More than that, far away from our national borders to influence our this affordance can be brought to the broader public: domestic relations. Misinformation, fake news and Bellingcat actively engages and motivates citizens. cyberattacks show us that governing structures and Their investigations are a clear signal that in times authorities are vulnerable to digitalization. Think of open-data stacking around us from all kinds of democratic states: in ancient Athens, the more of different sources, corrupt practices, modern war people voted, the smaller was the chance that the crimes and power abuse will become less likely to majority of voters had been manipulated and that go undetected. Just as the internet has provided the system was rigged. In the current age of mass unimagined opportunities for established parties (mis)information, however, the opposite is true. On and sinister forces to spy on our affairs, the data the internet, a place portrayed as an open space provided in the sensor-based economy gives citizens of information freely available to all, the power the means to shine a light on the criminal and the of the masses has become a threat to democratic corrupt. states. Bits of computer code designed to augment Implications

• Representing interests and rights of individual citizens or groups is no longer limited to the work of human rights organizations. Following the above-mentioned examples, a new type of technically skilled intermediary or representative, such as data-analysts, will rise in the sensor- based economy. • Investigative journalism, after years of budget cuts, is undergoing a revival because of the possibilities granted by open-source data. Similarly, citizen science has challenged traditional scientific methods by making use of newly available and accurate sources.