British Red Cross: Vulnerability Map
The British Red Cross have produced a COVID-19 vulnerability map of England combining clinical and social factors by wards.
View here: https://britishredcrosssociety.github.io/covid-19-vulnerability/lad.html
and here: https://britishredcrosssociety.github.io/covid-19-vulnerability/index.html
Making Informal Settlements ‘Visible’ Through Datafication: A Case Study of Quarry Road West Informal Settlement, Durban, South Africa
Authors: Catherine Sutherland, Bahle Mazeka, Sibongile Buthelezi, Duduzile Khumalo and Patrick Martel
Can datafication increase the ‘visibility’ of informal settlements in South Africa, in the context of a national and local state that holds both progressive and repressive approaches towards informal settlements?
This case study explores a datafication process that has been in place for five years in an informal settlement in Durban, which has been established through an inclusionary, participatory data collection and production process. It examines how and when the data moves in the information value chain, and the implications this movement has for achieving rights-based, instrumental, structural and distributive justice. It argues that procedural and rights-based justice can be achieved to a certain extent through the construction of an inclusionary datafication process. However, instrumental, structural and distributive justice is dependent on how the interventionist and developmental state of South Africa engages with the data, and whether it takes it up in a meaningful way, thus enabling it to lead to fundamental shifts in discourses, approaches and practices towards informality.
The results reveal that the ‘governance and knowledge platforms’ that are built through the datafication process are more important and powerful at first, than the actual data itself. However, informal settlers and other data intermediaries, who have learnt how to engage data to secure the ‘right of informal settlers to the city’, have begun to use the data in interesting ways, acting as champions, and re-shaping citizens’ relations with the state. While this does not secure tangible changes in informal settlements, it begins to shift discourses and power relations, which is critical to informal settlement upgrading.
Click here to read more.
AI Global Surveillance Technology
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly proliferating around the world. A growing number of states are deploying advanced AI surveillance tools to monitor, track, and surveil citizens to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground.
To provide greater clarity, Carnegie presents an AI Global Surveillance (AIGS) Index—representing one of the first research efforts of its kind. The index compiles empirical data on AI surveillance use for 176 countries around the world. It does not distinguish between legitimate and unlawful uses of AI surveillance. Rather, the purpose of the research is to show how new surveillance capabilities are transforming the ability of governments to monitor and track individuals or systems. It specifically asks:
- Which countries are adopting AI surveillance technology?
- What specific types of AI surveillance are governments deploying?
- Which countries and companies are supplying this technology?
Learn more about our findings and how AI surveillance technology is spreading rapidly around the globe.
Data Playbook Toolkit
For the past 2 years, IFRC has been on an internal journey to improve data literacy across teams, sectors, the IFRC Secretariat, and within National Societies. Data skills and data readiness improve our ability to use and obtain information to support and improve our decision-making. We are leaving people behind by not being equitable in the application of data skills, technology and the potential opportunities this brings. The Data Playbook Beta project is a prototype of social learning designed on modularized pick-and-choose model for 30 minute to 1 hour conversations or lunch and learns. Playbooks are designed to be guided by the users and leaders to decide what ‘activity’ or ‘action’ best suits the given need. This is very much in line with IFRC’s goal to localize humanitarian response while supporting data literacy. The aim is to be ‘introduction’ to data and complementary tool to existing content. It will not rewrite data science or data protection manuals. The Data Playbook beta is less of an instruction manual or guide and more of a collection of short, interactive and social content. Click here to learn more.