Journal article

The digitally extended self: a lexicological analysis of personal data

Journal of Information Science, 44(4), 552-565

2017

Co-authors: Brian Parkinson, David E. Millard, Richard Giordano

Themes: Privacy

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

Individuals’ privacy, especially with regard to their personal data, is increasingly an area of concern as people interact with a wider and more pervasive set of digital services. Unfortunately, the terminology around personal data is used inconsistently, the concepts are unclear and there is a poor understanding of their relationships. This is a challenge to those who need to discuss personal data in precise terms, for example, legislators, academics and service providers who seek informed consent from their users. In this article, we present a lexicological analysis of the terms used to describe personal data, use this analysis to identify common concepts and propose a model of the digitally extended self that shows how these concepts of personal data fit together. We then validate the model against key publications and show in practice how it can be used to describe personal data in three scenarios. Our work shows that there is no clearly delineated kernel of personal data, but rather that there are layers of personal data, with different qualities, sources and claims of ownership, which extend out from the individual and form the digitally extended self.

Functional anonymisation: personal data and the data environment

Computer Law and Security Review, 34(2), 204-221

2018

Co-authors: Mark Elliot, Charles Raab, Christine M. O'Keefe, Elaine Mackey, Chris Dibben, Heather Gowans, Kingsley Purdam, Karen Mc Cullagh

Themes: Data anonymisation

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

Anonymisation of personal data has a long history stemming from the expansion of the types of data products routinely provided by National Statistical Institutes. Variants on anonymisation have received serious criticism reinforced by much-publicised apparent failures. We argue that both the operators of such schemes and their critics have become confused by being overly focused on the properties of the data itself. We claim that, far from being able to determine whether data is anonymous (and therefore non-personal) by looking at the data alone, any anonymisation technique worthy of the name must take account of not only the data but also its environment.

This paper proposes an alternative formulation called functional anonymisation that focuses on the relationship between the data and the environment within which the data exists (the data environment). We provide a formulation for describing the relationship between the data and its environment that links the legal notion of personal data with the statistical notion of disclosure control. Anonymisation, properly conceived and effectively conducted, can be a critical part of the toolkit of the privacy-respecting data controller and the wider remit of providing accurate and usable data.

Avoiding omnidoxasticity in logics of belief: a reply to MacPherson

Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 36(3), 475-495

1995

Co-authors: Han Reichgelt, Nigel Shadbolt

Themes: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

In recent work MacPherson argues that the standard method of modeling belief logically, as a necessity operator in a modal logic, is doomed to fail. The problem with normal modal logics as logics of belief is that they treat believers as “ideal” in unrealistic ways (i.e., as omnidoxastic); however, similar problems re-emerge for candidate non-normal logics. The authors argue that logics used to model belief in artificial intelligence (AI) are also flawed in this way. But for AI systems, omnidoxasticity is impossible because of their finite nature, and this fact can be exploited to produce operational models of fallible belief. The relevance of this point to various philosophical views about belief is discussed.

Why should I? Cybersecurity, the security of the state and the insecurity of the citizen

Politics and Governance, 6(2), 41-48

2018

Co-authors: Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Debi Ashenden

Themes: Cybersecurity, Society

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

Assumptions are made by government and technology providers about the power relationships that shape the use of technological security controls and the norms under which technology usage occurs. We present a case study carried out in the North East of England that examined how a community might work together using a digital information sharing platform to respond to the pressures of welfare policy change. We describe an inductive consideration of this highly local case study before reviewing it in the light of broader security theory. By taking this approach we problematise the tendency of the state to focus on the security of technology at the expense of the security of the citizen. From insights gained from the case study and the subsequent literature review, we conclude that there are three main absences not addressed by the current designs of cybersecurity architectures. These are absences of: consensus as to whose security is being addressed, evidence of equivalence between the mechanisms that control behaviour, and two-way legibility. We argue that by addressing these absences the foundations of trust and collaboration can be built which are necessary for effective cybersecurity. Our consideration of the case study within the context of sovereignty indicates that the design of the cybersecurity architecture and its concomitant service design has a significant bearing on the social contract between citizen and state. By taking this novel perspective new directions emerge for the understanding of the effectiveness of cybersecurity technologies.

Smart contracts – dumb idea

IEEE Internet Computing, 21(2), 97-101

2017

Themes: Blockchain/cryptocurrency

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

Increasingly in e-commerce, smart contracts have relied on the code as the contract. But code can be hacked and fail, leaving multiple parties potentially exposed to legal gray areas, great financial loss, and little recourse. Here, Kieron O’Hara considers the ramifications of such contracts by exploring what happened when the Ethereum platform was hacked in the summer of 2016.

The seven veils of privacy

IEEE Internet Computing, 20(2), 86-91

2016

Themes: Privacy

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

Here, Kieron O’Hara details a framework of seven levels to help separate the effects and affects of privacy from the facts. In looking at when a privacy boundary is crossed or not, this framework helps citizens think about when that’s problematic, and why this differs not only across cultures, but also across generations and even for the same individuals.

Authority printed upon emptiness

IEEE Internet Computing, 19(6), 72-76

2015

Themes: Blockchain/cryptocurrency

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

In a time of economic volatility, what can cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin bring to the table? What new vulnerabilities would they introduce? And could they be minimized through consumer protection mechanisms?

The read-write Linked Data Web

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 371(1987), 20120513

2013

Co-authors: Tim Berners-Lee

Themes: Semantic Web/linked data

Category: Journal article, Open access

This paper discusses issues that will affect the future development of the Web, either increasing its power and utility, or alternatively suppressing its development. It argues for the importance of the continued development of the Linked Data Web, and describes the use of linked open data as an important component of that. Second, the paper defends the Web as a read–write medium, and goes on to consider how the read–write Linked Data Web could be achieved.

The right to be forgotten: the good, the bad and the ugly

IEEE Internet Computing, 19(4), 73-79

2015

Themes: Data protection

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

Viviane Reding’s (three-time European Commissioner) muscular speeches advocating a right to be forgotten for Europeans kick-started a ruckus that has pitched the European Union (EU) against the US and privacy activists against Big Data advocates. This issue gained momentum in May 2014, when an appeal by Google Spain against a decision of the Spanish Data Protection Authority (DPA), la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), was rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), thereby enshrining the right to be forgotten in law. This paper discusses in depth considers the right to be forgotten, including its potential ramifications and successes.

Data trusts

European Data Protection Law Review, 6(4), 484-491

2020

Themes: Data trusts, Privacy

Category: Journal article, Open access

Recent years have seen the burgeoning of a literature on data trusts, and the unwary might therefore be led to believe that it is an idea whose time has come. Unfortunately, the ideas of the various authors who have contributed to this literature, who include the present author, haven’t always coincided, and have been aimed at different problems at different levels of detail and hand-waving. We might therefore say more accurately that ‘data trust’ is a brand whose time has come, which in itself is a not uninteresting phenomenon, worthy of consideration.

Data, legibility, creativity … and power

IEEE Internet Computing, 19(2), 88-91

2015

Themes: Digital modernity

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

In a world where data crunching has the potential to crunch out the individual, how can people respond? Kieron O’Hara discusses the dangers and downfalls of conflating people with data, without a balance in feedback between algorithms and individuals.

The fridge’s brain sure ain’t the icebox

IEEE Internet Computing, 18(6), 81-84

2014

Themes: Computing/The Internet, Privacy

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) promises new and exciting possibilities for our personal health, transport, the environment, and many other areas. However, it does of course pose privacy and security problems. This article argues that there are six complex and difficult privacy concerns that are specific to the IoT. The situation is made even more complex because it isn’t clear who should regulate the IoT, and how best to do it.

Memories for life: a review of the science and technology

Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 3(8), 351-365

2006

Co-authors: Richard Morris, Nigel Shadbolt, Graham J. Hitch, Wendy Hall, Neil Beagrie

Themes: Memory

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

This paper discusses scientific, social and technological aspects of memory. Recent developments in our understanding of memory processes and mechanisms, and their digital implementation, have placed the encoding, storage, management and retrieval of information at the forefront of several fields of research. At the same time, the divisions between the biological, physical and the digital worlds seem to be dissolving. Hence, opportunities for interdisciplinary research into memory are being created, between the life sciences, social sciences and physical sciences. Such research may benefit from immediate application into information management technology as a testbed. The paper describes one initiative, memories for life, as a potential common problem space for the various interested disciplines.

In worship of an echo

IEEE Internet Computing, 18(4), 79-83

2014

Themes: Extremism

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

This column critically examines the hypothesis that the Internet is responsible for creating echo chambers, in which groups can seal themselves off from heterodox opinion, via filtering and recommendation technology. Echo chambers are held responsible by many for political polarization, and the growth of extremism, yet the evidence doesn’t seem to support this view. Echo chambers certainly exist, and can be detrimental to deliberation and discussion, but equally have a role to play in group formation, solidarity, and identity. The case for intervening in Internet governance to suppress echo chambers is not proven.

The information spring

IEEE Internet Computing, 18(2), 79-83

2014

Themes: Transparency/open data

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

The great sociologist Max Weber conceived government as a sort of giant information processor. Yet despite great strides and many successes in e-government and the application of IT to government, semantically enabled public administration has still not established itself. This column argues that there is still room for optimism, because open data and semantic technologies could revolutionize not just governments’ information processing practices, but the purpose and scope of government itself. We have to come to terms with not only the machinery of administration, but also the wider question of the relationship between citizens and Leviathan. This is obviously not merely a technical question. Liberation is a theme in modern politics, from the Prague Spring to the Arab Spring. We are seeing the emergence of an Information Spring, which could set data and information free to serve the people — if we understand its implications in the right way.

The many-headed e-monster

IEEE Internet Computing, 17(6), 88-92

2013

Themes: Politics

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

Across the world, politics has been transformed by e-populism, where parties support freedom of the Internet, direct democracy, transparency and free speech. E-populists have proved powerful opponents, upsetting governments in Italy, Egypt and elsewhere. But can e-populism succeed in creating inclusive, constructive government? Does the power of the Internet need to be mitigated by alternative institutions?

Conservatism, epistemology, and value

The Monist, 99(4), 423-440

2017

Themes: Conservatism

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

A series of recent papers has discussed whether conservatism has a distinct set of values (substantive), or whether it consists in an attitude to shared values (adjectival). This paper argues that adjectival conservatism is a genuine type of conservatism, consistent with the Burkean tradition, in accordance with the idea that conservatism is concerned with change, and arguable using public reason. A version of adjectival conservatism derived from epistemological scepticism, consisting of a knowledge principle and a change principle, is presented. It is shown to (a) be resistant to arguments that adjectival conservatism is not a genuine type of conservatism, and (b) contain a distinct ideological programme, and not be restricted to a mere commentary on the activities of other ideologues.

Linked data in government

IEEE Internet Computing, 17(4), 72-77

2013

Co-authors: Nigel Shadbolt

Themes: Semantic Web/linked data, Transparency/open data

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

Government data is powerful, plentiful, and relevant to citizens’ concerns. Making it open supports transparency, crowdsourcing data enhancement, and innovative service development. The authors review the state of linked open government data, in the context of the potential for the publishing organizations and the Linked Data Web itself, as well as the administrative and political issues raised.

Are we getting privacy the wrong way round?

IEEE Internet Computing, 17(4), 89-92

2013

Themes: Privacy

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

Individualists, communitarians, and technological determinists agree that privacy’s benefits accrue to individuals, and that its costs (in terms of less security or efficiency) fall on society. As such, it is the individual’s choice to give privacy away. However, privacy does benefit wider society in important respects, and so this consensus is flawed.

Lifelogging: privacy and empowerment with memories for life

Identity in the Information Society, 1(2), 155-172

2009

Co-authors: Mischa M. Tuffield, Nigel Shadbolt

Themes: Memory

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

The growth of information acquisition, storage and retrieval capacity has led to the development of the practice of lifelogging, the undiscriminating collection of information concerning one’s life and behaviour. There are potential problems in this practice, but equally it could be empowering for the individual, and provide a new locus for the construction of an online identity. In this paper we look at the technological possibilities and constraints for lifelogging tools, and set out some of the most important privacy, identity and empowerment-related issues. We argue that some of the privacy concerns are overblown, and that much research and commentary on lifelogging has made the unrealistic assumption that the information gathered is for private use, whereas, in a more socially-networked online world, much of it will have public functions and will be voluntarily released into the public domain.

Social machine politics are here to stay

IEEE Internet Computing, 17(2), 87-90

2013

Themes: Politics, Social machines

Category: Journal article, The Digital Citizen

The US has always been ahead of the curve in digital politics. Its mega-campaigns collect and spend absurd quantities of cash, they last forever, and they’re run by the candidates, not the parties. Obama’s campaign was Obama’s, not the Democratic Party’s. The US provides space for entrepreneurialism and experimentation, not least in the use of technology. Other nations will follow its lead. And the stories were microblogging, social networks, and big data.

Explainable AI and the philosophy and practice of explanation

Computer Law and Security Review, 39, 105474

2020

Themes: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

Considerations of the nature of explanation and the law are brought together to argue that computed accounts of AI systems’ outputs cannot function on their own as explanations of decisions informed by AI. The important context for this inquiry is set by Article 22(3) of GDPR. The paper looks at the question of what an explanation is from the point of view of the philosophy of science – i.e. it asks not what counts as explanatory in legal terms, or what an AI system might compute using provenance metadata, but rather what explanation as a social practice consists in, arguing that explanation is an illocutionary act, and that it should be considered as a process, not a text. It cannot therefore be computed, although computed accounts of AI systems are likely to be important inputs to the explanatory process.

Linked open government data: lessons from data.gov.uk

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 27(3), 16-24

2012

Co-authors: Nigel Shadbolt, Tim Berners-Lee, Nicholas Gibbins, Hugh Glaser, Wendy Hall, mc schraefel

Themes: Semantic Web/linked data, Society, Transparency/open data

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

A project to extract value from open government data contributes to the population of the linked data Web with high-value data of good provenance.

The contradictions of digital modernity

AI & Society, 35(1), 197-208

2018

Themes: Computing/The Internet, Digital modernity

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

This paper explores the concept of digital modernity, the extension of narratives of modernity with the special affordances of digital networked technology. Digital modernity produces a new narrative which can be taken in many ways: to be descriptive of reality; a teleological account of an inexorable process; or a normative account of an ideal sociotechnical state. However, it is understood that narratives of digital modernity help shape reality via commercial and political decision-makers, and examples are given from the politics and society of the United Kingdom. The paper argues that digital modernity has two dimensions, of progression through time and progression through space, and these two dimensions can be in contradiction. Contradictions can also be found between ideas of digital modernity and modernity itself, and also between digital modernity and some of the basic pre-modern concepts that underlie the whole technology industry. Therefore, digital modernity may not be a sustainable goal for technology development.

Welcome to (and from) the Digital Citizen

IEEE Internet Computing, 17(1), 92-95

2013

Themes: Computing/The Internet, Politics

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

In this introductory Digital Citizen column, Kieron O’Hara explores some issues regarding the definition of “digital citizenship,” focusing on the associated rights and responsibilities, the value to be gained from citizenship, and the problems caused by conflict.

Burkean conservatism, legibility and populism

Journal of Political Ideologies, 26(1), 81-100

2020

Themes: Conservatism, Politics

Category: Journal article, Open access, Peer reviewed

Links have sometimes been drawn between conservatism and populism, but the radical nature of the latter, focused on change as a direct end, means that they cannot be connected so easily. This article argues that nevertheless, conservative thinking of the Burkean tradition can be used to understand, and possibly address, populist concerns. This is not because conservatism is biased towards the status quo – the conservative argues, on the contrary, that innovators, whether rationalist or populist, undervalue the status quo, and are therefore biased against it. Rather, the conservative values the legibility of a person’s society or culture to that person, and diagnoses many populist grievances as resulting from innovation making society less legible to the individuals within it.