Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 36: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Part 4; Public engagement

Posted on August 24, 2019 by bhaggart

Ending our five-run digital-innovation posts, which were written “from the internet up.” Includes some thoughts on “public engagement.”

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Part 4: Launching Core Digital Services That Others Can Build On (pp. 442-453)

This is the platform, Sidewalk Labs as intermediary.

Sidewalk Labs plans to offer this limited set of core digital services in cases where achieving fundamental project goals around transportation, affordability, housing, energy, public space, and other areas would require an innovation the market has not pursued. (p. 443)

other entities would be free to develop competing services. (p. 443)

I’m not sure how much competition Sidewalk Labs would for the provision of core services.

Its proposed services

  • Mobility management system: to “coordinate all travel modes, traffic signals, and street infrastructure, and apply demand- based pricing to curb and parking spaces.” (p. 444)
  • Outdoor comfort system: “A proposed system of outdoor-comfort tools, deployed in real time, … including building “raincoats” to block rain, awnings to provide shade, and fanshells to provide group cover.” (p. 444)
  • Flexible retail platform (Seed Space): “A proposed leasing platform [that] would help small businesses and other retailers book a wide range of ground-floor space sizes … .” (p. 445)
  • Open space usage and management (CommonSpace): “A proposed digital application [that] … would make it substantially easier, faster, and less expensive to collect more reliable data on how people use public spaces… .” (p. 445)
  • Public realm maintenance map: “A proposed real-time map of public realm assets … .” (p. 445)
  • Civic engagement (Collab): “A proposed digital application … would aim to engage community… .” (p. 446)
  • Outcome-based building code: A proposed “real-time building code system could monitor noise, nuisances, and structural integrity” (p. 446)

Of note: Sidewalk Labs argues that it can be deployed “without sacrificing public safety or comfort.” (p. 446) However, safety and comfort are in the eye of the beholder, and no law will ever satisfy everyone. So I’d take the claims for this recommendation with a grain of salt.

  • Active stormwater management: A proposed system that “would rely on green infrastructure and digital sensors to retain stormwater, reuse it for irrigation, and empty storage containers in advance of a storm to avoid combined sewer overflow.” (p. 446)
  • Energy Management System (schedulers): A “proposed system of Home, Office, and Building Operator Schedulers [to] automate energy use to optimize residential, commercial, and building heating, cooling, and electricity systems.” (p. 447)
  • Building Waste Management systems: A proposed system that would “help residents and businesses sort their trash, recyclables, and organics (foods) by illustrating common sorting mistakes.” (p. 447)

We’ve discussed the proposals below elsewhere, so I’m just going to list them here.

Spotlight (not a goal?) 1: An outcome-based building code system to enable a safe, vibrant mix of uses (pp. 448-449)

Spotlight 2: An Office Scheduler to optimize energy use (pp. 450-451)

Spotlight 3: A mobility management system to reduce congestion and improve safety (pp. 452-453)

Public Engagement (pp. 454-462)

I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been so annoyed by the Public Engagement sections in this Volume, and I think I know what the problem is: the stories that they’re telling are too pat. The Public (21,000 people!) talked, Sidewalk Labs listened. Each chapter is illustrated with an example of this type of feedback.

However, there are a few tells that this is more of a feel-good public-relations exercise than an account of consequential public consultations. I’ll illustrate with my own experience, focusing on my time as a researcher for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.

Every year, the Finance Committee, supported by two or three economist staffers, would hold several months of hearings, some lasting all day, and including hearings across the country, on what Canadians wanted to see in the upcoming federal budget. We heard from hundreds of people and organizations about everything you could imagine. If you could attach a dollar sign to it, someone talked about it.

For an economist interested in public policy, it was a dream assignment: Every year I received what seemed like my own detailed update on the state of the entire economy, from coast to coast to coast.

Our job as the economists/analysts attached to the committee, was to prepare background materials and questions for the committee members and then go through all of the written and oral testimony to write up a report detailing what the committee heard, and what it would recommend to the government for the budget. Once the draft was completed it would then be scrutinized, revised and eventually approved by the committee (sometimes with dissents, sometimes not).

In writing the report, we analysts had two main objectives. First, we had to represent all of the voices that submitted to the extent that we were able. This is because it was important that every citizen who took the time to appear before the committee felt like they were being heard, and therefore respected, by their elected representatives.

It was a job we all took seriously, and overall I think we did pretty well.

Our second objective was to formulate recommendations – the meat of the report – reflecting the will of the committee. To be clear, these weren’t the researchers’ recommendations; they were what we gathered the committee wanted from talking with the members (the Chair, an MP from the governing party, of course playing a key role) and watching how the hearings were playing out. The recommendations, like the overall report, belonged to the elected MPs; we analysts were merely the ones writing it up.

The recommendations were, of course, political, and they were often arrived at  in discussion with the (partisan) committee chair, who certainly had their own (partisan) views on what the recommendations should be and the votes to push them through if needed. However, during my time, they were also conscious that the more cross-party support you can muster for a report, the better (different governments and chairs may behave differently).

I digress a bit. The important point is this: the recommendations were pretty much always based on the testimony we heard in committee. As corny as it sounds, Canadians really did have a hand in writing these reports.

And here’s the clincher: we didn’t just include testimony that agreed with the final recommendation, because people disagree, in good faith, all the time even about the most seemingly innocuous issues. And it’s only fair to represent these ideas, even if the report ended up recommending something different. We were still drafting a political document that had to justify what the committee was recommending, but we also had to respect Canadians’ dissenting opinions.

Which brings us to one of the problems with the MIDP: It’s all too neat. People talked; Sidewalk Labs listened, and what they heard almost always confirmed almost exactly what they were going to do.

The other thing that makes it hard to take Sidewalk Labs’ public consultations seriously is the lack of detail. Any parliamentary committee report includes with it the names of the people who drafted it, including (from time to time) outside consultants. It also includes the name of every single meeting held, and a list of the witnesses who appeared before or submitted something to the committee. And every time someone was quoted, their name was attached to what they said. There was, in other words, a paper trail of evidence supporting what was in our reports.

Sidewalk Labs’ consultations reports, in contrast, are a wonder of anonymity. The members of their various councils and advisory groups are nowhere named. People who made interventions in public fora also go unnamed. The dates, times and participants in the many, many meetings with various officials that Sidewalk Labs claimed are nowhere here documented. The nature of the participation by the 21,000 people who supposedly participated in this consultation is not described.

The lack of detail regarding their consultations makes it impossible to see Sidewalk Labs’ public consultations as anything other than a public-relations exercise. Returning briefly to the world of politics, what these Public Engagement sections most closely resemble are a politician’s stump speech in which they claim that the everyday folk support their party’s policies. These type of lines, designed to showcase how well the politician listens to the people, are so clichéd they practically write themselves:

I’m proud of the work my government has done for people like my barber, with whom I discussed the unfair tax burden he faced. And the mother of four who told me how much our government’s child care grant helped her family. And the university student who wants to become a land developer, and who is so thankful that my government is slashing the regulatory burden standing in the way of the construction of “liveable” efficiency apartments.

The Public Engagement sections in this report sound exactly like a politician’s bid to seal the deal. They sound nothing like an account of a legitimate, give-and-take public consultation. Like almost all of the Master Innovation and Development Plan, they are a sales pitch, and should be treated as such.

Goodbye, Volume 2, Hello, Volume 3

And with that, we’re done with Volume 2. We’ve covered a lot of ground, but if history, like the MIDP, repeats itself, Sidewalk Labs has saved the meatiest bits for last. Tomorrow, Volume 3: the long-awaited Partnership Overview.

Posted in Quayside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 36: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Part 4; Public engagement

Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 35: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Part 3: Creating a Trusted Process for Responsible Data Use (II)

Posted on August 23, 2019 by bhaggart

In which I get into the Urban Data Trust and make a classic South Park reference.

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Goal 1: Implement the Urban Data Trust (pp. 420-423)

It would be responsible for overseeing “the digital governance of urban data for the IDEA District” (p. 420).

The first phase of its implementation would involve an agreement between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto, neither of which would control it. The initial board would have five members, which “could” (sigh) include: “a data governance, privacy or intellectual property expert” (weird that these are seen as being interchangeable); “a community representative; a public-sector representative; an academic representative; and a Canadian business representative” (p. 420)

The board – likely two lawyers, a businessperson, a government official (which level of government?) and someone from the community – would be independent once established, but how would they be selected? Given the legally close relationship between Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs, there’s no way that they could select a board that had a veneer of impartiality.

You know – and I’m just spitballing here – but we already have an entity whose entire job involves representing diverse community interests. It’s called The Government. Given that this Urban Data Trust would be setting its charter and policies at the very beginning, what justification is there for not making it a public body right off the bat? To do otherwise invites accusations of conflicts of interest.

Anyways. The big hire would be a Chief Data Officer, who “would be:

  • responsible for developing the charter for the Urban Data Trust;
  • promulgating RDU Guidelines that apply to all parties proposing to collect urban data, and that respect existing privacy laws and guidelines but also seek to apply additional guidelines for addressing the unique aspects of urban data (see Page 424) [i.e., figuring out a way to square the weird urban data concept with Canadian personal information privacy law];
  • structuring oversight and review processes (including creating an appropriate privacy impact analysis (p. 429));
  • determining how the entity would be staffed, operated, and funded;
  • developing initial agreements that would govern the use and sharing of urban data; and
  • coordinating with privacy regulators and other key stakeholders, as necessary.” (p. 421)
  • Also, helping “startups, companies, and organizations understand these factors when preparing the RDU Assessment.” (p. 429 – not on main list)

Big job. Lots of responsibility. Wonder how much it would cost to run this office. And I’ll keep wondering, since this plan has no estimates at all. Funding “would need to be worked out in a consultation process” (p. 422). Indeed; why include an actual plan in a planning document, when you can always plan for more consultations? What a great way to exhaust the public and ensure that by the end, the only people paying attention are those with deep pockets and an abiding direct financial interest.

The major, and I think fatal, problem with this proposal is that it’s being undertaken at the wrong level. To use Sidewalk Labs’ language, the scale is too small for this type of organization to function well. The questions the Urban Data Trust would be asked to consider are the proper purview of either the federal or provincial governments, or both, not a tiny waterfront development funded by fees from the few businesses set up in this area. (Also, they want to pay for this with another local tax – sorry, data collection and use administration fee. How many fees does Sidewalk Labs want to charge us?)

Finally, the proposal that the Toronto Public Library be given responsibility for this job is ludicrous. They may have “expertise in managing [some types of] data and … credibility and trustworthiness …” (p. 422), but what guarantee that they can act as a business regulator? What guarantee is there that they will receive sufficient funds and resources to do their job?

This proposal seems like a cynical way to free-ride on the Library’s “trustworthiness” (almost everyone loves libraries!) by an organization that has very little of the same.

Trusting “trusts,” or, Sidewalk Labs breaks my brain

Sidewalk Labs notes that this entity is not intended to be a “trust” in the legal sense — legal trusts are not designed to benefit the general public. … While Sidewalk Labs proposes a non-profit entity, the final legal structure (and name) would be determined based on input from government, the community, researchers, and industry. Sidewalk Labs also now calls this entity the “Urban Data Trust” to clarify the proposed responsibilities [the stewardship of data]. (p. 423)

I honestly don’t know what to make of this statement as anything more than a weird exercise in semantics and public-relations jargon. The stated problem with “Civic Data Trust” was that it seemed to imply that the beneficiary would be the public, when the legal definition of “Trust” under Canadian law holds that it cannot benefit the general public.

So, changing “Civic” to “Urban” does… what? I thought the problem was with the legal definition of “trust.”

With “Urban Data Trust,” you get to keep the warm fuzzies from the word “trust” (as in, confidence in), but did anyone reading this proposal think anything other than this agency was designed to protect the public interest? That’s the whole point of the agency in Sidewalk Labs’ telling, no matter what you call it. Does Sidewalk Labs telling us that it will now be a “legal structure that provides for the independent stewardship of data,” reflecting the Open Data Institute’s concept of a “data trust” mean that it wouldn’t benefit the general public?

That would make no sense.

If there is any problem here (and I don’t think that there is, but I’m not a lawyer), it’s with the word “trust.”

I fear I’m falling victim to the Chewbacca Defence.

It’s all odd and makes no sense, except as a way to give legitimacy to the phrase “urban data.” And at the end of the day, it’s still unclear exactly what an Urban Data Trust would look like, except that there would be one. And it would operate in the public interest. Unless it wouldn’t.

Goal 2: Establish RDU Guidelines (pp. 424-425)

These should follow Privacy by Design.

They should

address key areas of digital governance, ethics, and open access to information, as well as the ways in which aggregate or de-identified data can impact individuals and groups of people through the use of advanced analytics, such as artificial intelligence. (p. 424)

Sidewalk Labs proposes the following principles:

  • Data use should have “a clear purpose”, “a clear, direct connection to the ways in which the project and proposed data collection activity would benefit individuals or the community.” Urban data use “must incorporate Canadian values of diversity, inclusion, and privacy as a fundamental human right.” (p. 424)
  • Transparency and clarity should be guiding data-collection and use principles. (p. 424)
  • Data minimization, security, and de-identification by default. (p. 425)
  • “No selling or advertising” … “without explicit consent.”
  • There would be no “proposed prohibitions placed on data collectors who would like to sell data containing personal information ro to sue such data for advertising.” The most Sidewalk Labs can promise is “a higher level of scrutiny”: these companies would have to “follow all applicable privacy laws” (um, thanks?), “provide clear justifications for this activity and demonstrate (with examples) how they plan to obtain explicit consent from the affected individuals.” (p. 425)

Data would be publicly accessible by default, and organizations

should be required to detail if they are going to be developing AI systems. If so, they should be required to show how they have incorporated Responsible AI principles into their development and decision-making to reduce the likelihood of biased and unethical outcomes. (p. 425)

As noted elsewhere:

Sidewalk Labs has already committed publicly that it would not sell personal information to third parties or use it for advertising purposes. It also commits to not share personal information with third parties, including other Alphabet companies, without explicit consent. (p. 425, emphasis added)

Goal 3: Set a clear process for urban data use or collection (pp. 426-441)

The steps:

Step 1: Classify the data. Urban data gets assessed, transaction data doesn’t. (p. 426)

Step 2: Submit an RDU Assessment (p. 428)

(We also learn that “Sidewalk Labs has been developing an RDU Assessment template since the summer of 2018,” and has been using it internally. (p. 428))

The Urban Data Trust would use the RDU Assessment to assess how the proposal con- forms to the RDU Guidelines, privacy laws, Privacy by Design principles, and any other relevant factors or applicable laws.

Sidewalk Labs proposes that the RDU Assessment consider the project purpose, data sources, legal compliance, and a risk-benefit analysis. (p. 431)

Step 3: Receive a decision by the Chief Data Officer. (p. 432)

Step 4: Meet post-approval conditions. (p. 433)

The underdeveloped part of the Data-Authority proposal

Given all the different jobs the Urban Data Authority would be asked to perform, a rough estimate of the number of people required, and the necessary training, would have been a helpful addition to this plan.

Proprietary data wouldn’t be open data

Sidewalk Labs gives some examples:

These cases could involve data that contains personal information — for example, a government organization that collects transponder data or images of licence plate numbers for enforcement.

And here’s an important exception: proprietary data, “collected at great cost to a company” might allow you to control that data and not have to share it, because that would “undermine investment and competitive advantage, discouraging businesses from locating within the IDEA District.” (p. 434)

This would almost certainly represent a monster-sized loophole in the commitment toward providing open data. This exemption would make the Eastern Waterfront very open to certain types of companies, those intent on not sharing their data.

It also prioritizes specific commercial interests over other commercial and social interests.

Urban Data Trust as negotiator

Another job for the Urban Data Trust people:

Sidewalk Labs proposes that the Urban Data Trust facilitate access to urban data via data sharing agreements, including the terms of any potential restrictions or licencing fees. (p. 435)

Urban Data Trust as auditor and enforcer

The Urban Data Trust should retain the authority to audit all collections and uses as needed and order the removal of digital devices in the event it discovers a violation. (p. 435)

The Urban Data Trust would be able to seek legal remedies for violation of agreed-to conditions of data collection and data use. (p. 435)

And all I can see is the paperwork (paper or virtual) and levels of bureaucracy that would be needed to make this thing run well.

Have you had your fill of data trusts and urban data? One more post will bring this section to a close. See you tomorrow.

Posted in Quayside, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 35: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Part 3: Creating a Trusted Process for Responsible Data Use (II)

Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 34: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Part 3: Creating a Trusted Process for Responsible Data Use (I)

Posted on August 22, 2019 by bhaggart

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

This post, on Part 3 of the Digital Innovation chapter ran long, so I’m cutting it into two posts.

Part 3: Creating a Trusted Process for Responsible Data Use (pp. 414-441)

a third core condition of digital innovation is instilling community trust that information collected in cities will preserve the privacy of individuals and be used for the greater good — while promoting the growth of new businesses and the rise of new tools to improve urban life. (p. 414)

In which Sidewalk Labs makes the case for a category called “urban data”

I tried going through these sections in chronological order, but they’re such a mess that I’m just going to summarize their points. See Dr. Natasha Tusikov’s comprehensive discussion of urban data and the Urban Data Trust for the final word on both.

This part of the report has two objectives: To describe and legitimate Sidewalk Labs’, um, novel data classifications.

“Some private spaces”

Sidewalk Labs sets the table with a couple of odd turns of phrase, such as:

Torontonians are also concerned about the collection and use of data gathered in the city’s public realm, publicly accessible spaces, and even some private spaces — whether or not that data identifies specific individuals. (p. 416)

What odd phrasing: “even some private spaces.” Are there other private spaces where people weren’t concerned about data collection? I would imagine that by definition people would be most concerned about data collection from private spaces, full stop. But, as we’ll see in a moment, this phrasing is key to setting the groundwork for the overall data-collection plan.

Turns out there are a couple of private spaces at play, such as “Private spaces accessible to the public, such as building lobbies, courtyards, ground-floor markets, and retail stores” (Digital Governance Proposals for DSAP Consultation, p. 13). So don’t set up in Quayside if you don’t want your customers and yourself being monitored.

Oh, and private spaces can also refer to “Private spaces not controlled by those who occupy them (e.g. apartment tenants)” (Digital Governance Proposals for DSAP Consultation, p. 13), which has a real creepy ring to it, especially when it comes to surveillance. Just imagine your access to affordable housing being contingent on agreeing to have Sidewalk Labs and who knows what other companies watching your every move. That type of deal would come uncomfortably close to coercion.

“Urban data”

Which brings us to the second odd phrase in this section:

A second big theme heard during public consultation was that, in addition to personal and collective privacy, Torontonians are concerned with the ownership and stewardship of urban data. (p. 418)

Here, the odd phrase is “urban data,” a term that Sidewalk Labs invented and that only really hit anybody’s consciousness in October 2018 when Sidewalk Labs released its “Digital Governance Proposals for DSAP Consultation” document. Who was calling for this protection of “urban data,” and when? I don’t know.

What I do know is that from the very beginning Torontonians have expressed very strong concerns about the protection of personal data. That’s always what this has been about. Insisting that Torontonians were “concerned with the ownership and stewardship of urban data” smacks of Sidewalk Labs trying to fix the narrative to fit its interests.

Because here’s the thing: The protections Sidewalk Labs proposes for “urban data” only muddy the waters around this issue, and would effectively reduce the degree of individual consent sought.

What is urban data?

(For more on this, you should read Dr. Natasha Tusikov comprehensive overview of the Urban Data Trust and urban data.)

Sidewalk Labs does not make it easy for people to figure out how any of these terms work, because they present everything in tidbits and out of order. So, let’s try to make some sense of it, based only on this document.

Sidewalk Labs does not distinguish between public and private data, or personal and non-personal data. Rather, they distinguish between “transaction data” and “urban data.”

Urban data includes personal and non-personal data, aggregated data and de-identified data (although research increasingly demonstrates that no data can be permanently de-identified) (p. 417). It is data that is collected from the following spaces:

  • Public spaces, such as streets, squares, plazas, parks, and open spaces
  • Private spaces accessible to the public, such as building lobbies, courtyards, ground-floor markets, and retail stores
  • Private spaces not controlled by those who occupy them (e.g. apartment tenants) (Digital Governance Proposals for DSAP Consultation, p. 13; creepiness quotient for the third category having been duly noted).

Note that the only spaces not covered by urban data are privately owned spaces.

Transaction data, meanwhile, covers “in which individuals affirmatively — albeit with varying levels of understanding — provide information about themselves through websites, mobile phones, or paper documents” (p. 415). Such data could be generated in public or private spaces.

Sidewalk Labs argues against the Urban Data Trust regulating “transaction data” because “the data collector is already accountable under applicable privacy laws …”

Then again, so is some personal “urban data,” to use Sidewalk Labs’ terminology.

Also, such data “arguably is not uniquely connected to public spaces, nor is it generally considered a public asset requiring additional protections within the public interest.” (p. 426)

The question here is, is the location of data collection the most relevant characteristic of data? Also, urban data, using Sidewalk Labs’ own definitions, covers data in both semi-private and private spaces. Sidewalk Labs’ argument makes little sense to me.

Maximum surveillance

This redefinition of personal and non-personal data, or public and private data, into urban and transaction data, accomplishes two important objectives.

First (assuming it’s legal under Canadian privacy law), it gets around the problem of needing explicit individual consent from people moving through the smart city (in public, semi-private, and some private places) for the collection of personal data (as opposed to, say, a counter measuring the number of people passing over a bridge). I’m not a lawyer, and this document is anything but clear, so I would welcome any clarifications.

This move seems to be essential to the functioning of this type of Smart City, which depends on ubiquitous surveillance and data collection.

This mass consent would instead be provided by a central agency, in this case an Urban Data Trust. It would also probably depend on claims that this data can be de-identified, although as I’ve previously noted, it’s increasingly clear that de-identification is not a one-way street.

Although it only hints at it in this document (a single reference to “signage” on page 456, as far as I can tell) in an April 19 Medium post, Sidewalk Labs suggests that this “community consent” (Digital Governance Proposals for DSAP Consultation, p. 38) could be obtained by placing a variety of signs in the area to let people know how they were being monitored and for what purpose. But otherwise, this 1,500-page “plan” makes no mention even of how such consent could be obtained, sticking instead to musings about “being transparent” and “providing clarity” (p. 457). None of these goals necessarily have anything to do with consent.

Second, this urban-transaction distinction would leave “transaction data” wholly unregulated by the proposed data authority. Whereas, if Sidewalk Labs had concentrated on protecting personal data, they could have proposed a truly gold-standard policy that did just that. Instead, they’ve left the door open for mass individual surveillance while ensuring that Google’s personal-data pipeline stays wide open.

To be continued….

Posted in Quayside | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 34: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Part 3: Creating a Trusted Process for Responsible Data Use (I)

Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Bonus Entry 7: The Toronto Star, Sidewalk Labs, and the tediousness of Us v Them journalism

Posted on August 21, 2019 by bhaggart

Over and over again

Monday’s Toronto Star editorial praising Sidewalk Labs’ waterfront proposal as preferable to the local-developer-beholden status quo is the type of article that drives policy experts up the wall. Political journalists’ tendency to reduce any policy issue to a tribal battle royale is a sadly accurate truism, as we relearn every election season. And it comes at a real cost to substantive political debate.

(Bianca Wylie also has a very good response to said editorial. Check it out.)

This tendency is on full display in this empty-calorie editorial. It simultaneously turns a complex policy issue – the suitability of Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan – into a left-right political horse race (“Suddenly the critics of Sidewalk Labs, especially those on the left, seem happy to embrace the premier’s judgment about what’s best for the waterfront”) while invoking a false dichotomy (“Because Sidewalk Labs is a terrible deal for traditional developers … that’s one reason it has real potential to be good for the rest of us”).

This us-versus-them argument is the type you make if you are either unwilling or unable to discuss issues of actual substance.

Rather than injecting some desperately needed fact-based analysis into the local Sidewalk Labs debate, the august minds at the Star go straight to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s possible motivations for saying that it’s a “terrible deal for the taxpayers” while also insinuating that Sidewalk Labs critics (of which I am definitely one) are agreeing with Ford purely for political reasons. Oh, and asserting that the project’s opponents are “shortsighted” complainers standing in the way of what will be a glorious urban development.

It’s a neat trick: accusing the project’s opponents of lacking substance while failing to actually make a single substantive argument in favour of the actual, as opposed to imagined, project.

For the record, I’ve little doubt that Doug Ford has the best interests of Ontario condo developers at heart, or that the status quo is ugly condo buildings all the way down.

But that doesn’t mean that Sidewalk Labs’ plan is a positive alternative for Torontonians as this editorial assumes, and that just by its mere existence “it has real potential to be good for the rest of us” (i.e., non-developers). That’s the kind of conclusion you can only come to if you haven’t dug into the substance of the MIDP.

Ford is correct. Deal with it

Here’s the thing: The Star editorial never takes seriously Ford’s claim. Instead, it seems to assume that because Ford said it, it must be wrong, and even if he’s correct his motives are corrupt so there’s no need to think about the substance of his claim.

This is a problem for two reasons. First, it moves us further away from a fact-based world in which assertions can be confirmed or rejected based on the truth of the assertion, and toward a world in which something is considered true if someone on “our team” says it.

Second, as it happens, in this case Ford is correct: this is a bad deal for taxpayers.

In saying this I’m not embracing “the premier’s judgment.” I didn’t come to this conclusion because I’m a lefty, Sidewalk Labs-hatin’, Ford-worshipin’, tech-despisin’ luddite. I came to it because I actually read the entire report. Very, very closely. And in reading it I emerged with an (informed) opinion about it, one that drew on what I’ve learned over 20 years as (at varying times) a professional economist, a professor of political science, and an analyst for various federal parliamentary committees. This last role, which involved drafting many committee reports, proved very useful in helping me realize that the MIDP is a sales document, not a substantive plan.

Team substance

Like many others who are experts in data governance, intellectual property, innovation, urban governance and so forth and who are not very fond of this whole exercise, I’m drawing my conclusions from professional expertise, not from any tribal allegiance. When you come at an issue from a perspective of personal expertise or experience and if someone says something that you think is correct, you’ll agree with them, no matter their political affiliation.

In short, I’m not on Team Ford or Team Progressive. I’m interested in the substantive issue.

It should also go without saying that just because somebody agrees with someone on one issue doesn’t mean they’ll agree with them on everything. Most grown-ups are capable of making such distinctions.

(And even if we’re just talking politics, the Star should try asking ultra-right-wing developer-friendly leftist NDP Sidewalk Labs critic Charlie Angus if he thinks that the MIDP is a “terrible deal for the taxpayers.”)

For my part, just because I have some expertise in this area doesn’t mean that my analysis is infallible, but I’m not wrong in the opinions-of-the-earth’s-shape-differ manner that the Star editorial staff is deploying here. This is not a political opinion I’m expressing.

I’d be happy for someone to point out where I’ve gotten something wrong. One of the reasons I’ve undertaken this blogging project is precisely because I want to hear from others who have read the report to let me know where I’ve misunderstood something. That’s how academics roll.

Of course, to do that, you’d have to actually have read the report and counter my analysis with actual evidence.

Sadly, the Star editorial board shows no signs in helping us reach any kind of deeper understanding of the Sidewalk Labs project. Almost two months after Sidewalk Labs unleashed its behemoth on Toronto, the Star here is treating the MIDP as a serious policy document merely because it exists, rather than dissecting it to see if its claims actually adds up.

Because, yeah, it would be great “if Sidewalk Labs actually managed to pull off its grand vision of environmentally sustainable buildings with a welcome share of rental housing, family-sized units and greater affordability.”

Unfortunately, based on my reading of the MIDP, this vision is little more than a pipe dream that follows the Silicon Valley playbook of “Overpromise and underdeliver” à la Elon Musk.  But again, that’s just what I concluded based on two decades of relevant experience and having actually read the report.

A desperate plea for substance

Here’s my challenge to the Toronto Star: Rather than treating this issue like a hockey game or a morality play (Progressives v Evil Ford; the Star versus Evil Developers), tell us why you think the MIDP is a good deal for taxpayers, and in what specific ways it is preferable to the status quo.

Tell us why and how you think that Sidewalk Labs, a company with no track record, is capable of realizing its “grand vision.”

Tell us why you think that Toronto’s only choice is between Sidewalk Labs’ plan and the status quo.

Run a series covering each of Sidewalk Labs’ promised innovations. Interview actual experts to see which ones are actually viable.

And while you’re at it, tell us why you think that its “innovative” governance proposals, which would create five new agencies and give Sidewalk Labs control over foundational standards, is preferable to the status quo.

Actually look into how situating Google in the heart of the Toronto tech scene would affect Canadian technological development.

Oh, and you can also tell us why you think it’s “shortsighted” to be concerned about Sidewalk Labs’ “urban data” (a term they coined that obscures much more than it illuminates) approach to data governance.

Or why it’s not a concern that so much of their innovative affordable housing plans seems to hinge on changing Toronto’s rules on how small a legal apartment is allowed to be.

Of course, to do all this you would have to actually engage in substantive analysis, instead of playing yet another tedious game of Us v Them.

Do better, Toronto Star.

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Posted in Quayside | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Bonus Entry 7: The Toronto Star, Sidewalk Labs, and the tediousness of Us v Them journalism

Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 33: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Parts 1 and 2

Posted on August 21, 2019 by bhaggart

Our journey of self-discovery and digital innovation continues…

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries and relevant documents available here

Part 1: Providing More Affordable and Flexible Digital Infrastructure (pp. 384-399)

I’ll leave it to others to discuss the technical merits of Sidewalk Labs’ plan in Part 1. #notmyfield

Goal 1: Expand opportunity with ubiquitous connectivity (pp. 386-393)

I will note, however, that it’s always good to be the company that comes up with dominant standard, which is what its Super-PON (Passive Optical Network) seems to be an attempt at.

And would you look at that: it’s a Google Fiber technology.

This would seem to be an enormous conflict of interest, and one that is not disclosed in the report.

  • Why did Sidewalk Labs choose this technology over other technologies?
  • How does it compare to other potential competitors?
  • What happens if Google’s preferred standard doesn’t become the norm?
  • Can we stop referring to Sidewalk Labs as an independent company now?

Goal 2:  Reduce installation and maintenance costs with an “urban USB port” (pp. 394-397)

Another standard; another technology that Sidewalk Labs wants to deliver. They call it “Koala.”

  • What would be the effect on these neighbourhoods if Koala doesn’t become the industry standard?
  • Would it be a proprietary standard?
  • At what stage is this technology? Sidewalk Labs says it “has designed” it. Is it ready to go? The answer is not clear from this document, and it really should be.

Goal 3: Use distributed credential infrastructure to protect privacy (pp. 397-399)

Again, #notmyfield; would be interested in an independent evaluation. I’m just happy they don’t mention “the blockchain.”

Part 2: Setting Data Standards That Are Open and Secure (pp. 400-413)

I’ll defer to others who know more about the technical aspects of these issues. I’ll only note that this section discusses open data issues only in the context of security concerns (p. 402). Which is fine as far as it goes, but, again, should public surveillance data be open to everyone who wants to see it (assuming it should be collected in the first place)?

Also, as I’ve noted previously, this emphasis on open data standards reflects a philosophy of government that assumes that competition for the provision of public services is always and everywhere a good thing. This is a perspective that, while not indefensible, requires a wider public debate over the role of private service providers and competition in municipal services.

As with every policy issue, there are costs and benefits to such an approach (e.g., the bureaucracy needed to assure a fundamental level of quality control over competing private service providers), but the main point here is that this type of policy setting should not be treated as a technical exercise.

On bureaucracy

That last point, on the need to ensure quality of service providers using this system, highlights an important flaw in Sidewalk Labs’ overall plan. Namely, the hugely underestimate both the cost and size of bureaucracies that would be needed to oversee, regulate and maintain these very complex systems. As we saw with the WTMA proposal, none of them are seriously costed out and no employment figures are presented. With the data standards case, we see yet another example of this tendency.

On Sidewalk Labs’ role in data standards

The paragraph on page 402, which commits Sidewalk Labs to work with others to implement tools “to achieve its goals for standards and security…” doesn’t answer the question. It focuses on the tools, not the standards. How will the standards be set? Hopefully this question will be answered below.

Goal 1: Enable third- party innovation with published standards (pp. 403-407)

  • Data “must be publicly accessible to improve upon, build on top of, or even replace.” (p. 403)
  • New governance/standards alert: Proposal: Sidewalk will choose the standards, either adopting existing ones or working to create them (p. 403)
  • Proposal: publicly accessible data by default.
  • Proposal: software to integrate with these systems would be open source. (p. 403)

Its likely standards (p. 304) #notmyfield:

  • GTFS Realtime, a standard for reporting the location of public transit vehicles within the neighbourhood in real time (see sidebar)
  • General Bikeshare Feed Specification
  • (GBFS), for reporting the availability of bike-share bikes and docks
  • Brick, a standard for describing building infrastructure, including HVAC systems
  • IFC, a standard for building information modelling, along with the Linked Data extensions
  • OpenStreetMap, a representation of roads and other public realm infra- structure
  • CityGML and CityJSON, standards for describing building shapes and sizes
  • OpenTraffic and OpenLR, emerging standards for describing traffic and street segments
  • Public Life Data Protocol, a standard from Gehl Institute on the use of public space

APIs would be public/open.  #notmyfield

Goal 2: Use best-in-class resiliency and security (pp. 408-413)

#notmyfield. Would love to hear independent technical analyses.

I will note that this is going to be a major pain in the neck since ubiquitous surveillance and networking means a target-rich environment for problems. The district’s maintenance department will have to include both people to fix cracks in the pavement and bad code. This is why it was essential to see a plan for a staffing breakdown by proposed agency.

Sidewalk Labs commits to “Responsible AI” (p. 411). Again, #notmyfield, but here are the principles they’re promoting:

Fairness and equity; Accountability; Transparency and explainability; Relevance; Value alignment; Respect for human dignity.

Data localization

… or “data residency,” as it says here (the report contains two mentions of “data localization”, and five of “data residency”)

Sidewalk Labs commits to using its best efforts at data localization – for storage, process, and communication – as long as there are Canadian-based providers who offer appropriate levels of security, redundancy, and reliability. To the extent that it is deemed infeasible to store data solely in Canada, Sidewalk Labs would be transparent about such a decision. (p. 412)

Three caveats here: “best efforts”, and “appropriate levels of …” are the most obvious. However, this statement only binds Sidewalk Labs, and not the “countless” other companies that would be using this data.

This omission is in keeping with its October 2018 draft data governance proposal, in which it said “Sidewalk Labs does not believe that it is sensible to impose a data localization requirement for innovators in Quayside.” (Digital Governance Proposals for DSAP Consultation, p. 35)

It helps to read the supporting documents, doesn’t it?

Sidewalk Labs also commits to following the law of the land in this area, so, thanks?

Part 3 tomorrow…

Posted in Quayside | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 33: The MIDP Volume 2, The Innovations, Chapter 5: Digital Innovation, Parts 1 and 2