OPEN GOVERNMENT 1 Proactive Disclosure in the transparency, Access to Information and Good Governance Act: GOVERN Possibilities and Shortcomings. Manuel Villoria. Obertura i reutilització de dades públiques. 2 Martín Álvarez Espinar. La justícia penal davant la corrupció. OBERT 3 Antonio del Moral García. 4 Contractació oberta. Agustí Carrillo i Martínez. 5 Nine voices reflect on open government. Jordi Rovira (coord.). 6 Good Governance and Public Integrity against Corruption. 7 GOVERN OBERT Open Data and Artificial Intelligence, Tools for Gender Equality Storydata (coord.) Ángeles Álvarez Álvarez Lidia Arroyo Prieto Renata Avila Pinto Estel Crusellas Tura Maria de la Fuente Vázquez Laura Martínez Portell Mireia Mata i Solsona ISBN 978-84-18199-62-2 Thais Ruiz de Alda Marta Ruiz Costa-Jussà 7 Carme Torras Genís 9 7 8 8 4 1 8 1 9 9 6 2 2 GOVERN OBERT 7 Open Data and Artificial Intelligence, Tools for Gender Equality Storydata (coord.) Ángeles Álvarez Álvarez Lidia Arroyo Prieto Renata Avila Pinto Estel Crusellas Tura Maria de la Fuente Vázquez Laura Martínez Portell Mireia Mata i Solsona Thais Ruiz de Alda Marta Ruiz Costa-Jussà Carme Torras Genís [Dades obertes i la intel·ligència artificial, eines per a la igualtat de gènere. Anglès] Open data and artificial intelligence, tools for gender equality. – First edition. – (Govern obert ; 7) Títol original: Les Dades obertes i la intel·ligència artificial, eines per a la igualtat de gènere. – Conté les entrevistes realitzades a: Ángeles Álvarez Álvarez, Lidia Arroyo Prieto, Renata Avila Pinto, Estel Crusellas Tura, Maria de la Fuente Vázquez, Laura Martínez Portell, Mireia Mata i Solsona, Thais Ruiz de Alda, Marta Ruiz Costa-Jussà i Carme Torras Genís ISBN 9788418199-622 I. Storydata (Firma), editor literari II. Catalunya. Generalitat III. Títol IV. Col·lecció: Govern obert. Anglès ; 7 1. Igualtat entre els sexes – Intervius 2. Discriminació sexual envers les dones – Intervius 3. Mineria de dades – Aspectes socials – Intervius 4. Intel·ligència artificial – Aspectes socials – Intervius 342.722/.724-055.1/.3(047.53) 316.647.82:316.346.2(047.53) 004.657:316.4(047.53) 004.8:316.4(047.53) Legal notice This work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Licensees may copy, distribute, broadcast and make derivative works based on it without restrictions, provided they credit the holder of the rights (the Secretariat of Transparency and Open Govern- ment of the Government of Catalonia’s Ministry for Foreign Action, Institutional Relations and Transparency). The full licence is available to consult at http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0/es/legalcode.ca. © Government of Catalonia Ministry for Foreign Action, Institutional Relations and Transparency Secretariat of Transparency and Open Government First edition: september 2020 ISBN: 978-84-18199-62-2 DL: B 18715-2020 Coordinator: Storydata Fotography: Berta Alarcó Ronquillo Pagination and production: Autonomous Body for the Official Gazette and Other Publications Interviews and redaction: Carina Bellver Fernández and Patrícia Ventura Pocino Summary Foreword Using Open Data to Include the Gender Perspective in Public Policy Núria Espuny i Salvadó 8 Open Data and Artificial Intelligence, Tools for Gender Equality Storydata (coord.) Thais Ruiz de Alda 10 Ángeles Álvarez Álvarez 18 Renata Avila Pinto 26 Carme Torras Genís 34 Marta Ruiz Costa-Jussà 42 Lidia Arroyo Prieto 50 Maria de la Fuente Vázquez 58 Mireia Mata i Solsona 66 Laura Martínez Portell 74 Estel Crusellas Tura 82 Open Government ı 8 Foreword Using Open Data to Include the Gender Perspective in Public Policy The traditionally patriarchal view of politics has meant that, in most countries, much of the legislation and public policy still lacks a gender perspective, and risks perpetuating discrimina- tion in society. Today, now just over two decades into the twenty-first century, the importance and potential of data is a well-acknowledged fact. Data, and the information we can extract from it, is an in- credibly valuable resource which can be used to generate social and economic value. Unfortunately, however, both experts and international bodies agree there still needs to be a major structural shift towards publishing data with a gender perspective if we are to harness its value to design and implement more efficient policies and combat inequality between men and women. The General Di- rectorate of Transparency and Open Data is responsible for overseeing the opening of public data from the Generalitat de Catalunya and remains convinced of the necessity and impor- tance of addressing this shortcoming. Furthermore, it is firmly committed to including the gender perspective in data opening as a support tool for eradicating male violence against women, for the necessary visibility of women and, ultimately, to push for the much sought-after goal of gender equality. Thus, as evidenced by our recent report on where the Adminis- tration should prioritise data opening with a gender perspective, there are many areas in which having data disaggregated by sex is vital: from the work sphere to energy poverty, medical treat- ments and healthcare, among others. The Covid-19 pandemic and its resulting crisis have made this need more evident than ever before and highlighted the importance of strengthening the mechanisms for designing and collecting data through a feminist lens, because the scarcer and more biased the data, the worse 9 ı Foreword the policies, the provision of public services and, ultimately, the response from the Administration. And only when we have data that represents the whole of society, and not just 50%, can po- litical decisions be made on a scientific basis. But this bias is not only found in data. Predicting criminal reci- divism and allocating social benefits are just two examples of the algorithm-based automated decisions taken every day in Catalonia. Yet, these decision-making mechanisms are far from perfect, and can also perpetuate biases and reproduce gender inequalities. In this reality, there’s an ongoing debate about the need to legislate algorithms to ensure the artificial intelligence we rely on is safe, reliable, free of gender bias, and based on the principles of transparency, security and accountability. To provide insight into the need to apply a gender perspective to data opening and the use of artificial intelligence, the book you hold in your hands, the seventh volume in the “Open Go- vernment” collection, contains a series of interviews with ten of the leading women in this field, all of whom work in different spheres: politics, public management, equality observatories, feminist movements and artificial intelligence. Ten different voices from ten different women who draw on their professional and personal experiences to invite us to debate and reflect on how open data has a crucial role to play in the fight against gender discrimination. Núria Espuny i Salvadó Director-General of Transparency and Open Data Open Government ı 10 Interview with Thais Ruiz de Alda, founder and president of Digital Fems. “We collect data to fight the ideologies that reject the existence of male violence against women” Based on her experience of collecting data to make the va- rious types of violence against women visible, Thais Ruiz de Alda argues that misinformation can only be fought with sta- tistics, and calls on administrations to change their models of data collection for increased precision and to overcome their androcentric vision. What was the inspiration be- to put an end to gender stere- hind Digital Fems? otypes. Digital Fems was born in March 2019 for personal but also One of the first projects you professional reasons, such as launched was “Data Against strengthening the presence of the Noise” which is intended women in digital and technologi- to help reduce male violen- cal environments. As a program- ce against women at a time ming consultant for an American when the far right is questio- company, I realised there was a ning the very existence of the need to create platforms with problem. Do we need data to feminine vision and take actions combat misinformation? with a gender perspective. So, Absolutely. We decided to take we support projects that aim a look at the data on gender- Open Government ı 12 based violence and soon reali- we decided to create a platform sed that it’s extremely difficult to to remove all the background find sources of information. In noise associated with male vi- the meantime, there are still po- olence, and we did it because litical parties and ideologies that we couldn’t find any data that continue to refute the reality of answered our questions. violence against women. So, we began to compile data to fight Com creieu que se solucio- back against those opinions, naria aquesta mancança? which are contrary to reality. The How do you think this failing fact is, they can only be nega- can be addressed? ted by data that reveals the truth In our case, they’re not collec- about male violence against wo- ting data on all the cases that men in Spain. go to court, so we don’t know how they all end. If the person So, “Data Against the Noi- collecting data from the Depart- se” was born out of a desi- ment of Justice doesn’t have re to address a failure in the appropriate categorisations, we system... end up with a lot of data, but it’s Yes, it was born because there meaningless. For example, we is no intelligible source of infor- wanted to know what happens mation on the subject. Any data tends to limit incidences of male “Our goal is to make violence to the deaths of women killed by their partners, but that’s hidden information just the tip of the iceberg. What visible and ensure about the rest of the cases? We it gets correctly discovered 100,000 reports of serious injuries inflicted behind categorised through closed doors, inside homes.