Slides from “Policy-Making in the Big Data Era” conference, University of Cambridge, 17th June 2015.

1. Are We Measuring the Right Things?!
From Disclosing Datasets to!
Reshaping Data Infrastructures
17th June, University of Cambridge
Jonathan Gray | jonathangray.org | @jwyg

2. The politics of public information

3. Talk of “release”, “disclosure”, “publication”,
“transparency”, “opening up” of public data

4. From the disclosure of datasets
to shaping data infrastructures?

5. Based on two papers and
research projects in progress.

6. 1. Gray, J. & Venturini, T. (forthcoming) “Rethinking the
Politics of Public Information: From Opening Up
Datasets to Recomposing Data Infrastructures?”.
2. Gray. J. & Davies, T. (2015) “Fighting Phantom
Firms in the UK: From Opening Up Datasets to
Reshaping Data Infrastructures?”. Working paper
available on SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2610937

7. Gray. J. & Davies, T. (2015) “Fighting Phantom Firms in the UK: From Opening Up Datasets to
Reshaping Data Infrastructures?”. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2610937

8. Three parts:
!
1. Reshaping the data infrastructure for
company ownership in the UK;
2. Implications for open data initiatives
and open data advocacy;
3. “Statactivism” and data activism.

9. Three parts:
!
1. Reshaping the data infrastructure for
company ownership in the UK;!
2. Implications for open data initiatives
and open data advocacy;
3. “Statactivism” and data activism.

10. Open Government Partnership Summit,
October 2013

11. Joint Stock Companies Acts
of 1844 and 1856

12. “Nominal ownership”
Who is officially named as the owner?

13. “Beneficial ownership”!
Who benefits from ownership and control?

14. Beneficial ownership:
!
• UK law in 19th century;
• Origins in trust law 11th and 12th century;
• International tax rules (OECD) from 1970s;
• “Financial Action Task Force” (FATF) in relation
to money laundering and illicit financial flows.

15. Civil society campaigning in the UK
commencing around 2012

16. G8 “Lough Erne Declaration” in June 2013

17. “Transparency and Trust”
consultation in July 2013

18. Civil society actors included:
!
• Action Aid
• Avaaz
• CAFOD
• Christian Aid
• European Network on Debt and Development
• Financial Transparency Coalition
• Global Witness
• IF campaign
• Involve
• ONE
• OpenCorporates
• Open Knowledge
• Oxfam
• Publish What You Pay UK
• Save The Children
• Tax Justice Network
• Tax Research UK
• Tearfund
• The Rules
• The Transparency and Accountability Initiative
• Transparency International UK
• War on Want
• World Development Movement

19. Beneficial ownership advocacy:
!
• Consultation responses;
• Joint open letters;
• Petitions;
• Public events;
• Media engagement.

20. Beneficial ownership advocacy:
!
• Meetings as part of OGP National Action Plan;
• Cost-benefit analysis of public register;
• Analysis of not publishing different data fields;
• Opinion polls to gauge support of broader publics;
• Addressing concerns around privacy, data
protection and administrative burden;
• Petition of 22,000 business owners;
• Evidence of data quality improvements and
personal information as part of public record;
• Software development and design to mock up how
a public register might look and function.

28. Three parts:
!
1. Reshaping the data infrastructure for
company ownership in the UK;
2. Implications for open data initiatives and
open data advocacy;
3. “Statactivism” and data activism.

29. Three parts:
!
1. Reshaping the data infrastructure for
company ownership in the UK;
2. Implications for open data initiatives
and open data advocacy;!
3. “Statactivism” and data activism.

30. In case of beneficial ownership advocacy, the
disclosure of existing datasets was not enough.

31. Civil society organisations had to undertake a more
creative, sustained and holistic engagement with
shaping and influencing the development of data
infrastructures as socio-technical systems.

32. This included research and advocacy around:
!
• Costs, functionalities and user interfaces of
software systems that would run the register;
• Changes to primary and secondary legislation;
• Additional administrative requirements and their
impacts on different actors inside and outside the
public sector.

33. Campaigners had to look beyond the question
of what information is released, towards the
question of what information is collected and
generated by the public sector in the first place,
how this is information is generated through
data infrastructures.

34. The campaign for public registries of beneficial
ownership as an example of a deeper
intervention into the composition of public
data systems.

35. Highlights social and political work that goes
into the creation of data infrastructures.

36. Contingent events and alignment of different interests:
!
• UK hosting both the G8 and the OGP;
• Prime Minister’s personal interest in the topic;
• Controversies around tax avoidance by large
multinational companies and illicit capital flight in
the wake of the Arab Spring;
• Anti-corruption advocacy around resource
extraction and international development;
• Increasing public trust and confidence in UK
businesses.

37. Two other considerations:
(i) who uses information,
(ii) how information acts.

38. “Accountability paths”

39. From “information as resource”
to “information as agent”.
!
(Sandra Braman, Change of
State, MIT Press, 2009)

40. “Participatory data infrastructures”

41. To what extent do data infrastructures
address needs and interests of civil
society actors?

42. Role of public information systems in
shaping and organising collective life.

43. How to broaden the publics that shape
data as well as the publics that use it.

44. Bringing data infrastructures into orbits
of democratic political life?

45. Might open data initiatives and
advocates play a role in mediating
interventions into data infrastructures?
If so how?

46. Legal, social and technical measures
for making open data initiatives more
responsive to needs of civil society?

47. ROUTE TO PA:
http://routetopa.eu

48. Forthcoming discussion paper about
data infrastructures for practitioners.

49. Three parts:
!
1. Reshaping the data infrastructure for
company ownership in the UK;
2. Implications for open data initiatives and
open data advocacy;
3. “Statactivism” and data activism.

50. Three parts:
!
1. Reshaping the data infrastructure for
company ownership in the UK;
2. Implications for open data initiatives and
open data advocacy;
3. “Statactivism” and data activism.

51. “Statactivism”

52. Bruno, I. and Didier, E. and Vitale, T. (2014) “Statactivism: Forms of Action between Disclosure
and Affirmation”. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2466882

53. Not just blanket critique or withdrawal of
quantification and “metrification”.

54. Highlighting limitations of existing forms of
measurement and proposing alternatives.

55. For example, gender equality, climate
change, working conditions and health.

56. What should be measured and how?

57. What is not currently being measured?

58. Recent examples from data journalism.

61. New “action repertoires” for civil society actors
to shape data infrastructures.

62. In conclusion…

63. Rethinking the politics of public information.

64. Going beyond a politics of public information
focused on the disclosure of datasets.

65. Role of not just datasets but data infrastructures
in addressing major global challenges -
from climate change to tax base erosion.

66. Towards more holistic and creative interventions
to shape information infrastructures
which organise collective life.

67. Not just dataset literacy,
but data infrastructure literacy?

68. Not just dataset activism,
but data infrastructure activism?

69. Jonathan Gray | jonathangray.org | @jwyg