Proposition 2 — People are empowered when they have access to information

Information, or knowledge, has a value and thus control of information or knowledge is a way of exerting power or influence. When access to information is limited a form of power is being exerted and when people have access to information they are able to challenge that power and hold it to account.

Information can come in many different forms from data that is collected or produced by a service to more instrumental institutional knowledge about how an organisation works or makes decisions. In both cases, power can be exhibited over people by controlling access to this information or knowledge. If we are therefore looking to negotiate a more equitable form of power; our institutions, workplaces and the state in all its forms all need to be more transparent about how they operate and make the information they hold more accessible.

In a workplace this may mean being more transparent about pay scales or a recruitment processes. In a company like Uber it might be mean Unions pushing for more access and transparency in terms of how their algorithm for allocating drivers and determining price operates? In government this may mean making the data they hold at a collective level about schools, hospitals etc more accessible to campaign groups or users of the service. In politics this means making it easier for people to make decisions about how they vote by being more transparent about an MPs office’s work or how they spend their time.

Navigating our systems

Obscurification is a very old way of retaining power. You control information about how something operates to ensure people are subject to a form of power or control which they do not understand. Without knowledge, they cannot challenge the structures they are subjected to. This is why a key practice in community organising is constructing a power map of the institution or structure you are seeking to change. You map the relationships and work out the weak points or ways you can try and change it. Here mapping a system and having knowledge and information about how it works is key to challenging it. A lot of softer powers or systems in our society are unmapped like the unrecorded influence of elite relationships or patronage within politics, subtly evading accountability.

Sometimes this obscurification can work by making things unnecessarily complex or difficult to understand. So many people who are subject to so much of the state’s controls and systems have very little information about how it operates. The forms and processes you have to engage with to make an immigration appeal case, apply for benefits, get on the waiting list for a council house are all very difficult to navigate. Families with the most complex problems are subjected to a range of interventions with little or no feeling of control or knowledge about how these services operate or interact. There is often no attempt to empower but only efforts to obscure to ensure compliance.

Interestingly, technology has also created new opportunities for people to be able to come together to share information on how to navigate the state’s systems. For example, the Universal credit survivors’ group is a Facebook group which attempts to share some knowledge from the grass roots on how to navigate the system with advice on the rules, how to apply and quick shortcuts to using the system. It has over 67,000 members, growing by 2000 per month with 4 admins and 2 moderators and an average of 143 posts per day. On this forum people are organising themselves to help each other by sharing information and advice. This is a form of generating power by sharing knowledge which is overcoming the old power tactic of obscurification.

Open Data

Technology has also enabled information or data to be collected more systemically and shared which can help us better hold power to account. For example, My Society have created a variety of tools based on collective data gathering including FixMyStreet, an app created by mySociety that helps people in the United Kingdom inform their local authority of problems needing their attention, such as potholes, broken streetlamps, etc. A tool that works on a similar principle is TheyWorkforYou a tool to explore your MP’s voting record.

In both cases these collective data sets allow for the easy flow and comparison of information so a citizen is able to see how a council is doing on repairing potholes or how an MP is voting. The distilling of this data into an easy to use form helps people be able to compare their situations and hence gives them some power and agency to hold services to account. A similar mechanism is used by the website Glassdoor which allows you to upload your own salary details anonymously to crowdsource information on pay levels and working conditions within a sector or even within a workplace so as an employee you are empowered with some collective knowledge to be able to negotiate. By collectively sharing information and data through new tools and platforms we can even up power relations.

Yet decisions about what data is currently collected are political in themselves. It is significant that currently records on flytipping incidents have been collected extensively since 2007, yet national statistics recording the deaths of homeless people on the streets have not until very recently been collected. This only changed when a community of local journalists and activists came together working collaboratively online through a slack channel and Bureau Local to collate the first ever stats on homelessness deaths, forcing the National Statistics Authority to begin collecting them. Similarly data around number of referrals to foodbanks from job centres are also a statistic this current government conveniently chooses not to collect. Should we creating processes where people and groups can submit proposals for certain collective datasets to start to be collected? Should the data metrics on which a government’s progress on fulfilling manifesto commitments be more transparently available?

In an empowered society our institutions must be made more open and accountable. A state that is truly open about its process, impacts, and the data it collects and generates; will enable new forms of power and civic accountability to be created leading to a much more balanced relationship between the state and citizen. The sharing of knowledge, data and information has an amplifying effect through civil society. For example, Democracy Club are a group of volunteers who collate the information about candidates, polling stations and local election results into one database. This information is not held in a central source and is all collected at a local level often in PDF form. By taking time to crowdsource this information Democracy club has built a database of results and candidates which is now used by journalists, campaign groups and people making Voter advice applications which help people work out how to vote. This backend database powers so many new campaigning tools, giving people more information about their candidates and encouraging higher participation in elections. Technology enables us to share more information with each other than ever before, this is a form of emerging power that needs to be considered.

Accountability must also be applied to commercial technology platforms which currently completely lack any forms of accountability. Their governance and how they operate is obscured hidden from any form of accountability. How does facebook determine what posts are shown on your timeline? Why do arbitrary websites get banned? How can you appeal a governance decision on Facebook or amazon? What’s the map of their power structures. Yet it runs deeper than that and this conversation becomes more vital as our social and economic activities begin to depend on these platforms. From apple to microsoft, updates to software happen with little user input or accountability, often with huge consequences for many small businesses who might rely on a platform.

Transparency give users far more control over the technology platforms they use. Indeed in New Power the authors call for the need to create Public Interest Algorithms that work for participants and society at large rather than the platform’s advertisers, owners or investors? These algorithms would also have a degree of transparency about how they work.They could give users the opportunity to use a range of dials to control their experience (they could decide if they want more or less content they disagree with) — to enable them to filter in different perspectives. A commitment to make these platforms open source would allow us to better understand how these platforms work and operate and thus how we can hold them to account.

Questions of power and accountability also emerge when we consider our own data. The collection of this data and the potential insights it yields have become commercially valuable. Fuelled by the attention economy and advertising, companies like Facebook collect ever more sophisticated data about us which can be sold to companies seeking to influence our behaviours and choices. If lots of what we do online creates data, how might we collectively harness this data for the public good? How do we set up structures that allow us to balance individual privacy and collective good? As Anouk Ruhaak a specialist who works on data governance and exploring new models of data stewardship explains:

“Data is nothing more than our recorded actions and words: it is not good or bad in its own right. Data can give us the information we need to cure cancer, or it can be weaponised and used to steer our behaviours…Rather than place the burden of consent solely on the shoulders of the individual, we should collectively decide what data we want to collect and give access to, and under what conditions. Such an exercise should weigh the interests of different groups, while protecting the most vulnerable. Left-wing movements have a history of navigating the tensions between collective harm and individual freedom. It’s time for their voice to be heard in this debate as well.”

While new forms of data collection like data trusts are emerging, the political frameworks, choices and governance of these new models must be worked out. Technology is outpacing the law so we need to find new legal frameworks that allow us to share our data for the collective good while maintaining an individual’s need for privacy.

What could this look like?

• Government, local government and public services will complete a data audit; open up collective data that makes sense and make sure it is shared in a standard format which is easy to share.
• A special democracy data audit to open up data surrounding elections, candidates and processes. Political Parties will also be told to open up their data and information around selections and candidates.
• All institutions and government services to provide open maps of their organisational structures, complaints systems, hierarchies and how they work. This is to be published online and made searchable.
• MPs to open up their diaries and show how they spend their time.
• All forms for government systems need to pass a usability test, if they are deemed unsuitable they are to be changed.
• A law to ensure companies using algorithms to control labour open them up to unions or workers representation so they can be scrutinised and understood.
• Freedom of data requests — people should be able to request forms of data if it is held and submit proposals for new forms of data to be collected.
• Government to look into establishing data trusts for more sensitive information which balances privacy and shared insights. Run a pilot (?)
• Government to look into enforcing a public interest algorithm for Facebook and other platforms operating in the UK.
• A proposal to ensure public institutions contribute to Wikipedia and other shared assets through the wikimedian programme and include wikipedia article writing in academic REF funding i.e. make sure academics write up their findings on wikipedia when they publish research.

Proposition 3 — People are empowered when they can create things together