From Data Rape to Data Sovereignty

Tim Berners-Lee’s plan to save the internet: give us back control of our data

February 5, 2021 8.12am EST

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Pieter VerdegemSenior Lecturer, School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster

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Pieter Verdegem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Releasing his creation for free 30 years ago, the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, famously declared: “this is for everyone”. Today, his invention is used by billions – but it also hosts the authoritarian crackdowns of antidemocratic governments, and supports the infrastructure of the most wealthy and powerful companies on Earth.

Now, in an effort to return the internet to the golden age that existed before its current incarnation as Web 2.0 – characterised by invasive data harvesting by governments and corporations – Berners-Lee has devised a plan to save his invention.

This involves his brand of “data sovereignty” – which means giving users power over their data – and it means wrestling back control of the personal information we surrendered to big tech many years ago.

Berners-Lee’s latest intervention comes as increasing numbers of people regard the online world as a landscape dominated by a few tech giants, thriving on a system of “surveillance capitalism” – which sees our personal data extracted and harvested by online giants before being used to target advertisements at us as we browse the web.

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Courts in the US and the EU have filed cases against big tech as part of what’s been dubbed the “techlash” against their growing power. But Berners-Lee’s answer to big tech’s overreach is far simpler: to give individuals the power to control their own data.

A screen showing Mark Zuckerberg lies against a desk in the US senate for a hearing — Big tech has been facing increasing scrutiny in Congressional and Senate hearings in the US. Greg Nash/EPA

Net gains

The idea of data sovereignty has its roots in the claims of the world’s indigenous people, who have leveraged the concept to protect the intellectual property of their cultural heritage.

Applied to all web users, data sovereignty means giving individuals complete authority over their personal data. This includes the self-determination of which elements of our personal data we permit to be collected, and how we allow it to be analysed, stored, owned and used.

This would be in stark contrast to the current data practices that underpin big tech’s business models. The practice of “data extraction”, for instance, refers to personal information that is taken from people surfing the web without their meaningful consent or fair compensation. This depends on a model in which your data is not regarded as being your property.

Scholars argue that data extraction, combined with “network effects”, has led to teach monopolies. Network effects are seen when a platform becomes dominant, encouraging even more users join and use it. This allows the dominant platform more possibilities to extract data, which they use to produce better services. In turn, these better services attract even more users. This tends to amplify the power (and database size) of dominant firms at the expense of smaller ones.

This monopolisation tendency explains why the data extraction and ownership landscape is dominated by the so-called GAFAM – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft – in the US and the so-called BAT – Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent – in China. In addition to companies, governments also have monopoly power over their citizens’ data.

A smartphone screen showing the five 'GAFAM' branded apps — The world’s largest tech companies are increasingly regarded as monopolistic. Koshiro K/Shutterstock

“Data sovereignty” has been proposed as a promising means of reversing this monopolising tendency. It’s an idea that’s been kicked about on the fringes of internet debates for some time, but its backing by Tim Berners-Lee will mean it garners much greater attention.

Building data vaults

Berners-Lee isn’t just backing data sovereignty: he’s building the tech to support it. He recently set up Inrupt, a company with the express goal of moving towards the kind of world wide web that its inventor had originally envisioned. Inrupt plans to do that through a new system called “pods” – personal online data stores.

Pods work like personal data safes. By storing their data in a pod, individuals retain ownership and control of their own data, rather than transferring this to digital platforms. Under this system, companies can request access to an individual’s pod, offering certain services in return – but they cannot extract or sell that data onwards.

Inrupt has built these pods as part of its Solid project, which has followed the form of a Silicon Valley startup – though with the express objective of making pods accessible for all. All websites or apps a user with a pod visits will require authentication by Solid before being allowed to request an individual’s personal data. If pods are like safes, Solid acts like the bank in which the safe is stored.

One of the criticisms of the idea of pods is that it approaches data as a commodity. The concept of “data markets” has been mooted, for instance, as a system that enables companies to make micro-payments in exchange for our data. The fundamental flaw of such a system is that data is of little value when it is bought and sold on its own: the value of data only emerges from its aggregation and analysis, accrued via network effects.

Common good

An alternative to the commodification of data could lie in categorising data as “commons”. The idea of the commons was first popularised by the work of Nobel Prize-winning political economist Elinor Ostrom.

A commons approach to data would regard it as owned not by individuals or by companies, but as something that’s owned by society. Data as commons is an emerging idea which could unlock the value of data as a public good, keeping ownership in the hands of the community.

Tim Berners-Lee’s intervention in debates about the destiny of the internet is a welcome development. Governments and communities are coming to realise that big tech’s data-driven digital dominance is unhealthy for society. Pods represent one answer among many to the question of how we should respond.

“Mutantism on the March”: Chapter 23 “Squid Meets Santa Claus The Revolutionary”

Squid had spent many years wandering the globe recently encountering the phenomena of foreign economic penetration and domination. Perhaps it was the Frenchman he had first encountered then the slavers but there was an increasing band of greed-stricken characters. If it wasn’t Cartaway then it was Cortez, Columbus, Livingstone, IT&T or Bestinghouse Electric. Unfortunately few lands escaped the ravaging greed of such personalities and corporations. For example Squid had been living with his friends on the banks of the Amazon River until a consortium of Korean industrialists bought the land from the Brazilian government to build a huge hydro-electric plant. Squid had no desire to be “resettled” to some squalid drug and crime infested settlement so he transformed himself into a Squid and swam downstream.

It was if all the frontiers of a once virgin world were broken. The business slickies were unavoidable like a bunch of Willie Loman and Dale Carnegie piranhas. He tried to talk with these fast talkers but whenever he disagreed with them he was labelled as an eccentric or a communist subverter of healthy free enterprise. They admitted they witnessed poverty but the answer was free enterprise. Sure it had made a few very wealthy but in time that would change and in time all people would benefit from the system. These modern investors were similar to the early explorers; profits were more important than Christianity but often the two worked symbiotically. The evangelists saved the souls the free enterprise investors had destroyed.

Squid decided to settle down in Columbia but once again the locals in the area were in trouble! They were subject to the usual brutality sanctioned and performed by the ruling military who spent more time saluting the GNP and that which went into their pockets than saluting each other. If the local populace resisted troops were sent in to quell the revolutionaries. Their envoys also discussed foreign investment with local village councils the progressive nature of foreign investment. Most of the high-ranking junta members had received their education in the industrialized world so shared their moral, philosophical and economic ways. It was so tempting for Squid to jump ship but perhaps this is where he should take a stand. How could he leave these locals to be so maltreated if not murdered? Squid was aware of a rather fat and jolly mutant named Santa Claus. I mean he was well known in Montreal for leading the Santa Claus gang into a slew of spectacular bank robberies raising money for anti-colonial fighters. Santa Claus was receptive to the idea of meeting Squid but for the time being his elves were finishing off a large shipment of automatic weapons for the Shining Path guerrilla fighters in Peru. Squid had hoped to recruit Machine Gun Molly from Montreal who was the brazen leader of a gang of bank robbers but word has trickled out she had been shot down by the police.

COVID-19 Rules for Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada

Backgrounder: New measures to protect foreign workers and prevent the spread of COVID-19 for the 2021 season

From: Employment and Social Development Canada

Backgrounder

The Government of Canada recognizes the vital role temporary foreign workers (TFWs) play in key sectors such as agriculture, agri-food, and fish and seafood processing that are critical to Canada’s food supply, food security and the Canadian economy. Allowing foreign workers entry into Canada is the first of many steps the government has taken to facilitate employer access to this important labour supply, while also protecting the health and safety of foreign workers and Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to enter Canada by air, all travellers five years of age or older, regardless of citizenship, must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 72 hours of the scheduled departure time of their flight to Canada. As of February 22, 2021, all air travelers, including TFWs, are also required to take a COVID-19 molecular test upon arrival in Canada while at the airport, and later in their 14- day quarantine period.

The requirement for travelers to quarantine in a Government-Authorized Accommodation (GAA) while they wait for the results of their arrival COVID-19 test was deferred for certain TFWs, including those with work visas in the agriculture, agri-food, and fish and seafood sectors, until March 14, 2021. This deferral has been extended to March 21, 2021. This applies to workers in the following occupations:

Primary agriculture:

NOC 0821: Managers in agriculture
NOC 0822: Managers in horticulture
NOC 8252: Agricultural and related service agricultural service contractors, farm supervisors and specialized livestock workers
NOC 8255: Landscaping and ground maintenance: contractors and supervisors, landscaping, grounds maintenance and horticulture services
NOC 8431: General farm workers
NOC 8432: Nursery and greenhouse workers
NOC 8611: Harvesting labourers

Other agri-food, fish and seafood occupations:

NOC 6331: Butchers, meat cutters and fishmongers (retail and wholesale)
NOC 9461: Process control and machine operators, food, beverage and associated products processing
NOC 9462: Industrial butchers and meat cutters, poultry preparers and related workers
NOC 9463: Fish and seafood plant workers
NOC 9617: Labourers in food, beverage and associated products processing
NOC 9618: Labourers in fish and seafood processing

Today’s announcement outlines a strengthened approach that builds on existing public health measures and will further protect workers and Canadians from the spread of COVID-19 for the quarantine period upon arrival and through the entire agricultural season.

Two-pronged approach as of March 21, 2021

The Government of Canada will be moving forward with a two-pronged approach to quarantine requirements for TFWs after March 21, 2021. This will apply to TFWs with work visas in agriculture, agri-food, fish and seafood sectors based on their final destination:

Asymptomatic TFWs will be able to travel directly to their place of quarantine after getting a COVID-19 test at the airport provided they travel by private transportation and are accompanied only by others who travelled with them to Canada.
TFWs who will need to travel by public means of transportation to a secondary location upon arrival in Canada will be required to stay in a GAA and await the results of their COVID-19 test.

The approach is built on:

Ensuring that workers provide evidence of a suitable quarantine plan as per current travel requirements and verified on arrival.
- Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) will work with federal partners and stakeholders to ensure workers have the necessary information so they can fully comply with requirements on arrival, and be better educated on their obligations under the Quarantine Act.
- This includes exploring the use of alternative formats for reporting the required pre-arrival and post-arrival information that takes into account some of the barriers workers face including language and access to technology.
- Employers whose workers who will be required to stay at a GAA will need to make reservations in advance of the worker’s arrival in Canada using the current booking system available to all travellers.
- Provided TFWs have a suitable quarantine plan and safe transportation arranged to their place of quarantine, the government intends to ensure employers and TFWs will not assume incremental costs associated with the three-day quarantine requirement at the point of entry.
Ensuring workers are safely transported directly from the airport to their place of quarantine according to public health guidelines.
- A TFW’s place of quarantine may be either an employer or government facility, depending on the jurisdiction.
- The government will work with provinces and other program partners to communicate guidelines and promote the adoption of best practices.

Workers who need to travel onward to a secondary location

As of March 21, 2021, TFWs who will need to travel to a secondary location by public transportation upon arrival in Canada will be required to stay in a GAA and await the results of their COVID-19 test. This does not apply for workers continuing to their secondary location by private air or land travel. Employers of workers who will be required to stay at a GAA will need to make reservations in advance of the worker’s arrival in Canada using the current booking system available to all travellers.

Provided TFWs have a suitable quarantine plan and safe transportation arranged to their place of quarantine, the government intends to ensure employers and TFWs will not assume incremental costs associated with the three-day quarantine requirement at the point of entry. Workers will also be provided with supports on arrival and during their hotel stay. The Government of Canada is continuing to explore how best to support TFWs and employers to ensure that TFWs can arrive and remain in Canada safely for the duration of their work.

Upon receipt of a negative test result, TFWs could continue to the employer’s location to serve the balance of the 14-day quarantine period or up to another full 14-day quarantine upon entry into the provincial jurisdiction, depending on provincial post-travel requirements. As per changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations in April 2020, employers are required to pay TFWs throughout their quarantine period, including additional days of quarantine due to provincial requirements.

Strengthening measures to protect workers

In addition to the measures outlined above, the Government of Canada is also:

Working with provinces to help ensure employers have robust plans to safely quarantine and isolate workers.
- The government is working with provinces to strengthen existing approaches to help ensure employers are well prepared to safely quarantine workers. This includes suitable isolation options for positive/symptomatic workers throughout the season.
- To complement this approach, ESDC is increasing its outreach and education efforts to employers on quarantine requirements and employer obligations.
Strengthening quarantine and post-quarantine measures once workers are on site. This includes:
- Increasing the number of employer compliance inspections in agriculture.
- Advancing partnerships with provinces to better target and coordinate inspection efforts during a worker’s quarantine and/or post-quarantine per existing practices since last year:
  - During an inspection, if informed of a potential outbreak or a TFW has COVID-19 symptoms, Service Canada investigators will immediately report this information to local public health officials who will take action as necessary.
  - Failure to comply with the quarantine conditions/regulations can result in significant penalties of up to $1 million, and a permanent ban from the TFW Program.
Funding migrant worker organizations to provide direct assistance to workers affected by COVID-19 for the 2021 season.
- Leveraging new funding agreements with migrant worker support organizations to support workers through the arrival process and throughout their stay. This will include:
  - providing logistical support to TFWs through the COVID-19 testing and post-flight requirements on arrival;
  - directing them to their transportation organized by the employer,
  - supporting those who need to stay at a GAA for 3 days on arrival; and
  - providing TFWs information on the quarantine process and their obligations;
Improving the TFW tip line
- This includes the addition of live agents able to offer services in multiple languages, who can help workers better communicate situations of mistreatment or abuse.
- The government will also be providing additional education for workers on their rights;
Improving coordination with provinces to support timely response to emerging issues, including outbreaks.
- ESDC is working with provinces to establish joint coordination teams that would include representatives from relevant federal, provincial and local authorities to coordinate timely responses to emerging issues by the responsible authorities on a case-by-case basis.
- This builds on existing collaborative forums with PTs as well as other stakeholders including the Canada-Mexico Working Group established in April 2020.
- This is in addition to ongoing work on a proposal for mandatory requirements to improve employer-provided accommodations.

William Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair”; Inheritance

“My dear sir, you ought to know that every elder brother looks upon the cadets of the house as his natural enemies, who deprive him of so much ready money which ought to be his by his right. I have heard George Mac Turk, Lord Bajazet’s eldest son say that if he had his will when he came to his title, he would do what the sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping of all his younger brothers’ heads at once : and so the case is more or less, with them all. I will tell you that they are all Turks in their hearts.”

John Kabat-Zinn’s “Full Catastrophe Living”: Acceptance

“In the meditation practice we cultivate acceptance by taking each moment as it comes and being fully, as it is. We try not to impose our ideas about what we “should be feeling of thinking or seeing in our experience. Instead we remind ourselves to be receptive and open to whatever we are feeling, thinking, or seeing, and to accept it because it is here right now. If we keep our attention focused on the present, we can be sure of one thing, namely, that whatever we are attending to in this moment will change, giving us the opportunity to practice accepting whatever it is that will emerge in the next moment. Clearly there is wisdom in cultivating acceptance.

Mutantism on the March: Chapter 22 “And Now for something completely different”

The Greek Gods in their dimension of Zlano were in a tizzy. Aphrodite bore Zeus a son. Plans for the celebration of this great birth were planned months before the blessed event. Invitations had been sent to prominent guests including Willie Montenez. But after the birth of Bert Foonbean the new God of those with a “Starbucks Coffee in their Snout and a Love of Patios and Tossing Chairs off Condo Balconies” there were regrets about this celebration. This was an attempt for the Gods to reconnect with Starbuck obsessed and patio fixated Millennials. Bertie was not a run of the mill God but was a classic mutant Spartans would not have hesitated hurling off a cliff. The lad had the face of a 50-year-old mortal and spoke like an ancient philosopher and monk. Well that wasn’t too bad but he had a shrivelled arm and was missing a leg.

The birth ceremony was cancelled under the pretense the Gods wanted a private ceremony. They hummed and stammered their way out of a jam. For the Gods it was a period of mourning and not celebration, the narrow-minded bastards they were immune to the concept of diversity and global inclusion!

The Gods had always perceived themselves as perfection. Or at least that is what they always bragged about. If a mutant was discovered amongst their midst their reputation would be ruined so they thought. Bertie was immortal so he couldn’t be tossed off a cliff and murdered but how could they deal with their “issue”. Certainly, there must be someone who could be consulted about their quandary. Bertie realized he was an embarrassment to the Gods and it was best to leave. Why embarrass and disgrace the Gods and their quest for perfection and idolatry?

Perhaps there was some place where Bertie could live with dignity. Why sit in the closet all your life being glum?

Well the perfection obsessed Gods thought exile was the answer. A team of subadvisors was dispatched to find the creature on Earth called Squid who himself had once been a mutant toe but had since become an expert, through his own experience, on mutantism. As far as the Gods could see from their recent experiences on Samos in Greece the Earth was full of mutants. What difference would one more make?

Hellenic Film Society USA Celebrates 200 Years of Greek Independence through 8 films March 19-28

10 Steps We Can Take to Never Have a Year Like 2020: # 2 Better Protect health workers on the front line

Again the Quebec magazine L’actualitê has an interesting feature article in its April edition dealing with COVID-19 and translated it means what are the steps we can take to ensure we don’t have a year like 2020?

The second step is to better protect health care workers on the front line.

In Quebec in the first wave of COVID-19 36% of the infected in the health care sector were personal health care workers, 22% nurses, 12% nursing assistants and 3% physicians.

There is a need to ensure these workers have appropriate PPE. Quebec had no reserves of PPE which permitted a less aggressive attack on the first wave.

44% of the health care workers infected in the springtime of 2020 received no training on the prevention and control of infections or only received written information and when instructions were given they were often incoherent and confusing due to a constant changing of directives.

The shortage of health care workers forced personal care workers and nurses to work in different institutions which only increased the transmission of the virus. Each institution functioned differently and there often was no general manager in charge of long-term care so employees did the best they could do to survive. In the spring of 2020 30-40% of infected health care workers worked in more than one institution. Dr. Geoffroy Denis speaks of the mental suffering of front-line workers, many underpaid and sent to different institutions making coherent team development difficult.

Personal health care workers in the public sector are earning $22.35 per hour while a chambermaid in a prominent Montreal hotel would make $22.67. This hardly makes sense for the personal health care workers taking care of the elderly. The Quebec government is willing to offer $26 in upcoming union negotiations for the personal health care workers

John Kabat-Zinn’s “Full Catastrophe Living”: The beginner’s mind

“To see the richness of the present moment, we need to cultivate what has been called “beginner’s mind”. Whatever particular practices we might be using, whether it is the body scan, the sitting meditation, or the yoga, we can resolve to bring our beginner’s mind with us each time we practice, so that we can be free of our expectations based on past experiences. An open “beginner’s mind” allows us to be receptive to new possibilities and prevents us from getting stuck in the rut of our own expertise, which often thinks it knows more than it does. No moment is the same as any other. Each is unique and contains unique possibilities. Beginner’s mind reminds us of this simple truth.”

“Amber’s Descent”: Psychological Thriller from Canada’s Okanagan

I am more familiar with reviewing wines from British Columbia’s Okanagan than reviewing a film shot there.

As a viewer you are comfortably contemplating this is a horror movie. A classical pianist and composer Amber (Kayla Stanton) decides to buy a house in a quiet location in the Okanagan. Here she hopes to find the peace and quiet to finish her latest composition. The real estate agent refers her to handyman Jim (Michael Mitton) to help with some minor repairs to the beautiful home.

Then the typical horror moments build such as radios laughing, doors opening and shutting, strange sounds and bad dreams.

It seems poor Amber was slashed by her lover Mark and is under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Pearl. She has a troubled past and her present is looking bleaker and spookier. The compassionate and caring Jim becomes a nasty stalker. A 911 call by Amber has the responder laughing at her. Matters are worsening until it would appear a breakdown is in the offing. Even her psychiatrist Dr. Pearl says she has always been “fucking crazy” in a call she makes to him. This may be a conversation you’ll remember as pivotal.

Then in the last few minutes of the film you, poor viewer, will be called on to make a decision that turns this horror movie into something you most likely had not thought of and that might be that mental illness can be a horror movie. Be patient dear viewer and enjoy the standard horror genre but be ready to think this is a descent into madness.

Stanton does a good job and Mitton is a chameleon.

Directed by Micheal Bafaro the film is 93 minutes in length.

You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ1GT9Wldf4&t=8s

The film will be released on VOD and DVD on March 23^rd and you can access here https://www.bgpics.com/movies/ambers-descent-2/