January 2021 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Call for papers: track e-Democracy & e-Participation a EGOV2021
by Antonio Vetro' Jan. 18, 2021

Jan. 18, 2021

Segnalo, principalmente ma non esclusivamente ai membri accademici di questa lista, la sessione "e-Democracy & e-Participation" alla conferenza EGOV-2021, di cui sono nel program committee. Deadline per l’invio dei contributi: 19/3 Si tratta di una sessione multidisciplinare, molti dei temi sono pertinenti alle discussioni ospitate da questa lista. Maggiori informazioni qui sotto. Un caro saluto, Antonio *** *** e-Democracy & e-Participation @EGOV-CeDEM-ePart 2021 Organized by the IFIP 8.5 WG in ICT & Public administration 7-9 September 2021 University of Granada, Spain https://dgsociety.org/egov-2021/ <https://dgsociety.org/egov-2021/> Deadline for submissions: 19. March 2021 The General e-Democracy & e-Participation track aims to present recent developments in electronic participation and digital engagement covering all relevant technical, political and social aspects. E-democracy and e-participation and are multidisciplinary fields of study. They are particularly timely and relevant in various contexts focusing on issues such as participatory public service design engagement, open government data, social media interactions, engagement in co-design and co-delivery of services and top-down and bottom-up initiatives related to economic, societal, public and welfare issues. This is a multi-disciplinary track that aims to bring together researchers from disciplines in order to present and discuss topics related to e-participation and e-democracy, discuss new ideas, meet other researchers and practitioners, and to facilitate future collaborations. We welcome theoretical papers, qualitative and quantitative papers, case studies, critical analyses, and encourage authors to address challenges that can lead to further developments in this area. Areas of focus and interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics: -Foundations of e-democracy and e-participation research including theories, methods, models and approaches -Enabling electronic decision-making (e-participation, e-voting) in times of a pandemic, such and COVID-19 -Advances in participatory policy making using policy modeling, simulation, impact assessment and visualization methods and tools -New forms of analog and digital participation, participation and communication platforms, mobile media, social media and applications for citizens, Living Labs, innovation labs -Enhancing democracy and public participation using ICT and new technologies, AI, block chains, etc. -Analysis of digital interactions between citizens, businesses, governments, service providers and other stakeholders -Advances in online deliberation and discourse, participatory budgeting, e-consultation, e-polling, and e-legislation, e-electioneering, e-campaigning and e-voting -Impact of big and open data on public engagement, sustainability of e-democracy, e-participation and citizen engagement -Analyses of good practices and key factors for success, motivational factors, and reasons for failures -The impact of transparency, digital literacy, digital competences, and open access on public engagement and democracy -Design and co-creation of participatory public services -Case studies on top-down and bottom-up initiatives in e-participation and e-democracy -The role of e-democracy and e-participation in national and global crisis situations -Citizen inclusion and digital divide: gender, age, education, etc. -New approaches to direct democracy, Inclusive e-Governance in the context of Regional Smart Specialization -E-democracy and e-participation projects: design, implementation, evaluation, quality and impact -Impact assessment and public value considerations in real world decision making -Digital research methods and big data applications for e-participation and e-democracy research -Critical perspectives: failures, bad experiences, co-destruction, digital hype but not reality, fringe groups

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84° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 27 Gennaio 2021 | Modalità Telematica
by Nexa Media Jan. 18, 2021

Jan. 18, 2021

Gentilissimi, vi segnaliamo che l'84° Nexa Lunch Seminar, *"eXplainable AI for Everyone. Interpretare l'intelligenza artificiale attraverso le tecnologie semantiche"*, con ospite *Giuseppe Futia* (Centro Nexa su Internet & Società), si svolgerà *mercoledì 27 gennaio, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00*, in *modalità telematica*, utilizzando il software open source di conference call *Jitsi Meet*. Per chi vorrà partecipare live al seminario sarà possibile accedere alla conference call attraverso il seguente link: https://meet.nexacenter.org/LunchSeminar <https://meet.nexacenter.org/LunchSeminar> Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-84> NEXA 84° Nexa Lunch Seminar Mercoledì 27 gennaio 2021, ore 13.00 - 14.00 Politecnico di Torino https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-84 <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-84> eXplainable AI for Everyone. Interpretare l'intelligenza artificiale attraverso le tecnologie semantiche Speaker Giuseppe Futia (Centro Nexa su Internet & Società) This event will be webcast live: https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air <https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air> L'INCONTRO SI SVOLGERÀ IN MODALITÀ TELEMATICA UTILIZZANDO IL SOFTWARE DI CONFERENCE CALL *JITSI MEET*. Per partecipare all'incontro: https://meet.nexacenter.org/LunchSeminar <https://meet.nexacenter.org/LunchSeminar> Si raccomanda di accedere al link sopra indicato utilizzando il browser *Google Chrome* per una migliore resa del servizio. I moderni *sistemi di apprendimento automatico* hanno ottenuto risultati senza precedenti in termini di capacità predittive. Tuttavia, per i non addetti ai lavori risulta difficile interpretare nel dettaglio il processo attraverso cui tali risultati sono stati raggiunti. Laddove l'impatto dell'*intelligenza artificiale* (AI) è particolarmente rilevante, dai processi di selezione del personale alle diagnosi mediche, introdurre la capacità di fornire spiegazioni (eXplainable AI - XAI) diviene un requisito cruciale per un'implementazione sicura, affidabile e su larga scala. La maggior parte degli approcci disponibili per *implementare XAI* sono rivolti ad esperti con il background tecnico necessario per manipolare gli *algoritmi alla base dei sistemi di AI*. D'altro canto, questi approcci non soddisfano le necessità di coloro che utilizzano questi sistemi, che spesso non possiedono tale background, ma sono specialisti nel proprio settore, ad esempio in ambito legale o medico. Per questi motivi è necessario incorporare tecniche in grado di adattarsi al linguaggio degli specialisti nel proprio contesto di riferimento. In questo contesto, le *tecnologie semantiche* possono fornire un valido supporto, poiché sono in grado di codificare in maniera esplicita entità, relazioni, e ragionamenti all'interno di uno specifico dominio della conoscenza. In occasione dell'84° Nexa Lunch Seminar, Giuseppe Futia, ricercatore postdoc presso il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società, proporrà alcune riflessioni maturate durante il suo percorso di dottorato per armonizzare le moderne implementazioni delle tecnologie semantiche, tra cui ad esempio i *Knowledge Graphs*, con gli attuali sistemi di apprendimento automatico, implementati utilizzando tecniche di *deep learning*. BIOGRAFIE - e informazioni supplementari [Futia] *Giuseppe FUTIA* è ricercatore postdoc presso il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società del Politecnico di Torino. I suoi interessi di ricerca si focalizzano sull'integrazione semantica di sorgenti di dati eterogenei e su tecniche di deep learning applicate ai knowledge graph. È attualmente nel team di sviluppo, di cui è responsabile tecnico, del progetto Geranium. È inoltre il principale sviluppatore e responsabile del progetto TellMeFirst, tool per la classificazione semantica e l'arricchimento di contenuti testuali basato su Wikipedia. È assistente del Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin all'interno del corso Rivoluzione Digitale del Politecnico di Torino. Durante il suo percorso di ricerca Giuseppe ha contribuito al primo prototipo del motore di ricerca ContrattiPubblici.org, nato in seno al Centro Nexa, e attualmente sviluppato dalla start-up Synapta. Nel suo percorso professionale è stato inoltre responsabile per la comunicazione del Centro Nexa e giornalista freelance per la redazione Web del quotidiano La Stampa. *Letture consigliate e link utili:* * Futia, Giuseppe, and Antonio Vetrò. "On the Integration of Knowledge Graphs into Deep Learning Models for a More Comprehensible AI—Three Challenges for Future Research <https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/2/122>." Information 11.2 (2020): 122. (sintesi disponibile su Medium <https://towardsdatascience.com/knowledge-graphs-for-explainable-ai-dcd73c5c…>) * Doran, Derek, Sarah Schulz, and Tarek R. Besold. "What does explainable AI really mean? A new conceptualization of perspectives <https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.00794>." arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.00794 (2017). * Lipton, Zachary C. "The mythos of model interpretability <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.03490.pdf>." Queue 16.3 (2018): 31-57. Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> #nexalunchseminar <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexalunchseminar&src=typd> #giuseppefutia <https://twitter.com/giuseppe_futia> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) dal 2006 è un centro di ricerca indipendente e interdisciplinare che, in collaborazione con l'Università di Torino, studia Internet (e più in generale le Tecnologie digitali) e i suoi rapporti con la società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about <http://nexa.polito.it/about>. Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma accessibile, i temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto altro. Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi <http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi>. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars <http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars>. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Anita Botta*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, Mob: +39 347 131 3903, anita.botta(a)polito.it <mailto:anita.botta@polito.it>. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events <http://nexa.polito.it/events>. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>. Cordiali saluti,   -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino _web:_ https://nexa.polito.it/ <https://nexa.polito.it/> _mail:_anita.botta@polito.it <mailto:anita.botta@polito.it> tel: 011 090 7219

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Whole Foods moves beyond stores for online fulfillment
by Luigi Scorca Jan. 17, 2021

Jan. 17, 2021

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/whole-foods-moves-beyond-stores-for-online… Luigi

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L'HuffPost: Luciano Violante: "Twitter e Facebook Vs Trump. Scriviamo le regole del gioco con le 'compagnie del digitale'"
by don Luca Peyron Jan. 17, 2021

Jan. 17, 2021

Buona lettura Dl https://www.huffingtonpost.it/entry/intervista-luciano-violante-digitale_it…

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Batini et al, "La Scienza dei Dati" (libro)
by J.C. DE MARTIN Jan. 17, 2021

Jan. 17, 2021

Carissimi, sono lieto di segnalarvi che il libro del prof. Carlo Batini et al., "La Scienza dei Dati", è ora liberamente disponibile online: https://boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/295980 con licenza CC BY-NC-ND. Allo stesso tempo è con grande piacere che dò il benvenuto in lista proprio al Prof. Carlo Batini, sperando che le nostre segnalazioni e discussioni possa essere di suo interesse - benvenuto! juan carlos

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E-waste
by don Luca Peyron Jan. 16, 2021

Jan. 16, 2021

La trasformazione digitale è anche questo: gli scarti agli scartati. Un gradiente di ingiustizia verso le persone ed il pianeta non tollerabile. Economia circolare e giustizia sociale già li abbiamo inventati, vanno solo applicati. Buona lettura dl https://theconversation.com/toxic-waste-dumping-in-the-gulf-of-guinea-amoun… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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i dati
by Angelo Raffaele Meo Jan. 15, 2021

Jan. 15, 2021

scusatemi. I dati non erano partiti. Sono in allegato a questa mail. Raf

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Every Deleted Parler Post, Many With Users' Location Data, Has Been Archived
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 15, 2021

Jan. 15, 2021

<https://gizmodo.com/every-deleted-parler-post-many-with-users-location-dat-…> [...] The researcher, who asked to be referred to by her Twitter handle, @donk_enby <https://twitter.com/donk_enby>, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab <https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/fastthinking/fast-thinking-h…>, among other sources, Parler is one of a several apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power. [...] Hoping to create a lasting public record for future researchers to sift through, @donk_enby began by archiving the posts from that day. The scope of the project quickly broadened, however, as it became increasingly clear that Parler was on borrowed time. Apple and Google announced that Parler would be removed from their app stores because it had failed to properly moderate posts that encouraged violence and crime. The final nail in the coffin came Saturday when Amazon announced it was pulling Parler’s plug. In an email first obtained by BuzzFeed News <https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-parler-aws>, Amazon officials told the company they planned to boot it from its clouding hosting service, Amazon Web Services, saying it had witnessed a “steady increase” in violent content across the platform. “It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” the email read. Operating on little sleep, @donk_enby began the work of archiving all of Parler’s posts <https://tracker.archiveteam.org/parler/>, ultimately capturing around 99.9 percent of its content. In a tweet <https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1348281459031814146> early Sunday, @donk_enby said she was crawling some 1.1 million Parler video URLs. “These are the original, unprocessed, raw files as uploaded to Parler with all associated metadata,” she said. Included in this data tranche, now more than 56 terabytes in size, @donk_enby confirmed that the raw video files include GPS metadata pointing to exact locations of where the videos were taken. @donk_enby later shared a screenshot showing the GPS position of a particular video, with coordinates in latitude and longitude. The privacy implications are obvious, but the copious data may also serve as a fertile hunting ground for law enforcement. Federal and local authorities have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days accused of taking part in the Capitol riot, where a Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, was fatally wounded <https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-death-brian-sicknick-46933a828d7b…> after being struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. [...]

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Boeing's 737 MAX: A Failure of Management, Not Just Technology | January 2021 | Communications of the ACM
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 15, 2021

Jan. 15, 2021

"Boeing decided pilots were the "backup" for MCAS, but the company did not explain in the 737 MAX operations manual how MCAS worked and how little time pilots had to respond. Why? Boeing had another objective: It wanted to treat MCAS and the MAX overall as an incremental upgrade in the 737 series. Why was that? The incremental designation allowed airlines to avoid spending millions of dollars on pilot training in new simulators. Meanwhile, Boeing was able to sidestep detailed scrutiny of MCAS and the 737 MAX by the FAA. The FAA also could depend on Boeing engineers to test and certify minor changes to the plane." <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249448-boeings-737-max/fulltext> On November 18, 2020, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration cleared the Boeing 737 MAX for flight, but the history of how Boeing got to this point remains disturbing.1 Back in September 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives released a 238-page report on the 737 MAX debacle, concluding an 18-month investigation.5 The report blamed the two crashes in October 2018 (Lion Air, in Indonesia) and January 2019 (Ethiopian Airlines, in Ethiopia) on the computerized flight-control system called Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). The 737 MAX had been Boeing's fastest-selling plane in history before government authorities worldwide grounded the fleet of nearly 400 aircraft—but only after the second crash. A technical system failure was the proximate cause of the disasters, which cost billions of dollars in losses to Boeing and the airlines, and, much more tragically, the lives of 346 passengers and crew. Founded in 1916, Boeing remains one of the world's most renowned engineering companies. Were the 737 MAX crashes truly a failure of technology, an advanced aircraft-control system? Or was it a failure of management? Of course, at many levels, technology and management are inseparable. Nonetheless, executives, managers, and engineers at Boeing were not stumped by the complexity or unpredictability of a new technology. In a series of decisions, they put profits before safety, did not think through the consequences of their actions, or did not speak out loudly enough when they knew something was wrong. Let's look at the evidence. We can start with Boeing's decision to deploy MCAS. The company wanted to put bigger, more fuel-efficient engines on an older aircraft, the 737NG (Next Generation). Boeing was responding to intense competition from Airbus and demand from airline customers for more fuel-efficient, single-aisle planes. But the new engines significantly changed the pitch angle and stability of the older 737. Rather than redesign the plane, Boeing chose to install MCAS, which it adapted from another aircraft. The idea was that MCAS software would enable the 737 MAX to emulate the handling characteristics of the 737NG model by pushing down the front of the plane when sensor readings indicated the nose was too high. Sounds good. The original MCAS design had two external "angle of attack" (AOA) air sensors, one on each of the outer sides of the aircraft. However, one sensor was cheaper and simpler, and that became the final design. Boeing engineers also continually increased the power of MCAS to push down the nose of the aircraft, without changing assumptions about data and safety. In particular, the final design—with one sensor—assumed pilots could intervene if data was faulty or if anything else went wrong with MCAS. Yet, in 2015, Boeing documented MCAS was vulnerable to sensor failure.14 The external sensor was prone to damage from birds as well as errors in maintenance and calibration.9 A 2018 Boeing memo also revealed pilots had only four seconds to recognize an MCAS misfire and 10 seconds to correct it.13 Indeed, the day before the Lion Air crash, a maintenance worker had replaced a malfunctioning sensor. Lion Air did not relay to the pilots that crashed the next day the seriousness of the repair or details of a near-disaster on the prior flight, narrowly avoided with help from a third pilot who knew about MCAS and happened to be in the cockpit.5 Boeing decided pilots were the "backup" for MCAS, but the company did not explain in the 737 MAX operations manual how MCAS worked and how little time pilots had to respond. Why? Boeing had another objective: It wanted to treat MCAS and the MAX overall as an incremental upgrade in the 737 series. Why was that? The incremental designation allowed airlines to avoid spending millions of dollars on pilot training in new simulators. Meanwhile, Boeing was able to sidestep detailed scrutiny of MCAS and the 737 MAX by the FAA. The FAA also could depend on Boeing engineers to test and certify minor changes to the plane. The congressional report had extensive access to company email and documents as well as detailed media coverage. These sources all describe the same decisions along with gradual but fundamental changes in Boeing's strategy and culture. First, was Boeing's 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, a smaller aircraft maker with perilous finances. Usually, when a bigger company buys a smaller company, the culture of the bigger company dominates. Boeing was known for engineering excellence and safety, but McDonnell Douglas executives persuaded their Boeing owners to focus much more on costs, competition, and shareholder value (stock price). In essence, McDonnell Douglas took over Boeing, prompting one media comment that, "McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money."4 For example, McDonnell Douglas generally tried to upgrade older aircraft incrementally rather than build more costly new models from scratch. Boeing clearly followed this incremental strategy to create the 737 MAX.14 Second, was Boeing's decision in 2001 to move its headquarters to Chicago from Seattle, where the company originated and had its primary engineering, manufacturing, and testing facilities for commercial aircraft. This move created physical distance between the leadership of the company and the technical teams focused on the 737 series. According to Boeing executives, the move was a strategic decision to separate management from the commercial aircraft division and to signal investors that Boeing was diversifying. In addition to commercial aircraft, headquartered in Seattle, Boeing now had McDonnell jet fighters, Douglas commercial aircraft, Hughes helicopters, and an aerospace division, all in different locations and easy to reach from Chicago.10 Third, was intensifying competition from Airbus, the European consortium founded in 1970 with backing from France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. Today, Airbus is the world's largest aircraft manufacturer, ahead of Boeing because of a halt in 737 MAX production. But Airbus had briefly topped Boeing as number one in 2011, and it had a more competitive product in the same segment as the 737 MAX—the A320neo.6 Several European governments backing its main competitor probably put Boeing at a constant financial disadvantage. In addition, Airbus had a technical edge: It built the A320 series from scratch, first delivering planes in 1988. By comparison, Boeing retrofitted a much older 737 series, which first went to market in 1968.3 Fourth, was a change in priorities at the CEO and board of director levels. In 2005, James McNerney became the first Boeing chief executive not to be an engineer and he held this position until 2015. McNerney was a Harvard MBA who had worked at McKinsey and Proctor & Gamble before becoming president of GE Aircraft (which made jet engines) and then CEO of 3M. His expertise was in strategy and marketing, and he came in to improve financial performance. The 737 MAX development began in 2011, under McNerney's direction. The plane went into service in 2017 under another CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, who held this job from 2015 to 2019. Muilenburg was an engineer who had spent his entire career at Boeing. However, according to the current Boeing CEO, David Calhoun, Muilenberg carried on with McNerny's strategy and aggressively pushed sales and production of the 737 MAX.7 Boeing shareholders would later file lawsuits in June and September 2020 claiming that Muilenburg misled the board of directors about the seriousness of the 737 MAX problems while the board was lax in monitoring the design, development, and safety reports.12 In this highly competitive setting, and in a market completely dominated by two firms (their combined share is approximately 99%), Boeing executives, managers, and engineers made several critical decisions. In addition to the MCAS single-sensor design, in July 2014, Boeing decided that pilots experienced on earlier 737 models could fly the 737 MAX without new training on a simulator. Boeing made the same pledge to airline customers.11 Boeing even offered to refund $1 million per plane if more training proved necessary. Yet it was clear even before the first crash that the plane could be dangerous. Surely, some explanation of potential problems with MCAS called for a clearer warning to pilots about MCAS and the chaos that bad sensor data could create in the cockpit, or even grounding the aircraft after the first crash. Boeing and the FAA did send out notices after the first crash but they did not cite MCAS specifically or provide enough guidance to help the Egyptian crew avoid the second crash.8 Nor did Boeing or the FAA ground the aircraft after the second crash, or try to upgrade existing 737 simulators to replicate the MCAS behavior. To the contrary, after the two crashes, Boeing still tried to blame the accidents on "pilot error."14

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Does Facebook Use Sensitive Data for Advertising Purposes? | January 2021 | Communications of the ACM
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 15, 2021

Jan. 15, 2021

"As an illustrative example, we quantify the portion of FB users labeled with the ad preference Homosexuality in countries where homosexuality is punished even with the death penalty." <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> Citizens worldwide have demonstrated serious concerns regarding the management of personal information by online services. For instance, the 2015 Eurobarometer about data protection^13 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> reveals that: 63% of citizens within the Eurpean Union (EU) do not trust online businesses, more than half do not like providing personal information in return for free services, and 53% do not like that Internet companies use their personal information in tailored advertising. Similarly, a recent survey carried out among U.S. users^9 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> reveals that 53% of respondents were against receiving tailored ads from the information websites and apps learn about them, 42% do not think websites care about using users data securely and responsibly at all, and 73% considers websites know too much about users. A survey conducted by Internet Society (ISOC) in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016^8 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> disclosed that 59% of the respondent did not feel their privacy is sufficiently protected when using the Internet, and 45% considered getting the attention of policymakers in their country on data protection a matter or urgency. Policymakers have reacted to this situation by passing or proposing new regulations in the area of privacy and/or data protection. For instance, in May 2018, the EU enforced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)^6 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> across all 28 member states. Similarly, in June 2018, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act,^3 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> which is claimed to be the nation's toughest data privacy law. In countries like Argentina or Chile, the governments proposed new bills in 2017 updating their existing data protection regulation.^11 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> For this article, we will take as reference the GDPR since it is the one affecting more countries, citizens, and companies. The GDPR (but also most data protection regulations) define some categories of personal data as sensitive and prohibits processing them with limited exceptions (for example, the user provides explicit consent to process that sensitive data for a specific purpose). In particular, the GDPR defines as sensitive personal data as: "data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation." In a recent work,^2 <https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249457-does-facebook-use-sensitive-da…> we demonstrated that Facebook (FB) labels 73% of users within the EU with potentially sensitive interests (referred to as ad preferences as well), which may contravene the GDPR. FB assigns user's different ad preferences based on their online activity within this social network. Advertisers running ad campaigns can target groups of users that have been assigned a particular ad preference (for example, target FB users interested in Starbucks). Some of these ad preferences may suggest political opinions (for example, Socialist party), sexual orientation (for example, homosexuality), personal health issues (for example, breast cancer awareness), and other potentially sensitive attributes. In the vast majority of the cases, the referred sensitive ad preferences are inferred from the user behavior in FB without obtaining explicit consent from the user. Then advertisers may reach FB users based on ad preferences tightly linked to sensitive information. For instance, one of the authors of this article received the ad shown in Figure 1 <https://dl.acm.org/cms/attachment/0b939a23-27ba-4a78-9acf-ce60ab6190dc/f1.j…> (left side). The text in the ad clearly reflects the ad was targeting homosexual people. The author had not explicitly defined his sexual orientation, but he discovered that FB had assigned him the /"Homosexuality"/ ad preference (see Figure 1 <https://dl.acm.org/cms/attachment/0b939a23-27ba-4a78-9acf-ce60ab6190dc/f1.j…> right side). First, this article extends the scope of our analysis from the EU to 197 countries worldwide in February 2019. We quantify the portion of FB users that have been assigned ad preferences linked to potentially sensitive personal data across the referred 197 countries. Second, we analyze whether the enactment of the GDPR on May 28, 2018 had some impact on the FB practices regarding the use of sensitive ad preferences. To this end, we compare the number of EU users labeled with potentially sensitive ad preferences in January 2018, October 2018 and February 2019 (five months before, five months after and nine months after the GDPR was enacted, respectively). Third, we discuss privacy and ethics risks that may be derived from the exploitation of sensitive FB ad preferences. As an illustrative example, we quantify the portion of FB users labeled with the ad preference Homosexuality in countries where homosexuality is punished even with the death penalty. Finally, we present a technical solution that allows users to remove in a simple way the sensitive interests FB has assigned them. [...] Facebook offers advertisers the option to commercially exploit potentially sensitive information to perform tailored ad campaigns. This practice lays, in the best case, within a gray legal area according to the recently enforced GDPR. Our results reveal that 67% of FB users (22% of citizens) worldwide are labeled with some potentially sensitive ad preference. Interestingly, users in rich developed countries present a significantly higher exposure to be assigned sensitive ad preferences. Our work also reveals that the enforcement of the GDPR had a negligible impact on FB regarding the use of sensitive ad preferences within the EU. We believe it is urgent that stakeholders within the online advertising ecosystem (that is, advertisers, ad networks, publishers, policymakers, and so on) define an unambiguous list of personal data items that should not be used anymore to protect users from potential privacy risks as those described in this article.

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