This week we begin with an article on AI Incident Database (AIID), a comprehensive repository of documented failures of AI systems, and how this will allow people to see past AI failures and avoid repeating them. Next, we have a report on climate data in Africa and the opportunities it presents in terms of the prevention of unregulated gold mining, acceleration of environmental protection, and the boost to agricultural productivity. With companies working from home, and the ongoing ransomware incidents across both government and the private sectors, the following article predicts the data breach trends of 2021. Following this is a piece on the need for encryption of government departments that hold vast troves of citizens’ data. Next is a report on the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and how it buys location data from data brokers without a warrant, bypassing the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. To end, we have an article on Alternative Credit Scoring (ACS), an approach to credit scoring based on consumer consumption data, and how it will accelerate financial inclusion in emerging economies.
A Closer Look at the AI Incident Database of Machine Learning Failures
THE FAILURES OF Artificial Intelligent systems have become a recurring theme in technology news. Credit scoring algorithms that discriminate against women. Computer vision systems that misclassify dark-skinned people. Recommendation systems that promote violent content. Trending algorithms that amplify fake news.
Climate Data Presents a $2 billion Opportunity in Africa Alone. Here’s Why
Data is a currency of its own in the modern world, so if only a few people can extract, refine and store it, then it will end up widening existing inequality gaps. This is why “data democratisation” has become essential, especially in emerging economies. While the space sector has always leveraged open data, its value has not been tapped by most economies or societies.
2020 Data Breaches Point to Cybersecurity Trends for 2021
Risk-Based Security released their 2020 year-end data breach report this past week, and despite an overall decline in breach events (security incidents), the number of breached records grew dramatically. Other trends included a doubling of ransomware attacks from 2019 to 2020, and data breach severity rising. Here are some of the highlights from the report:
Why Lack of Encryption is Putting Public Data at Risk
Governments are shrouded in privacy, but keeping private information private, is a growing challenge for the public sector. State secrets aside, government departments hold vast troves of data on its citizens, all of which are highly valuable, both to the owner, but also to any threat actor looking to benefit from getting their hands onto it.
US Defense Intelligence Agency Admits to Buying Citizens’ Location Data
An intelligence agency has just confirmed that the US government does indeed buy location data collected by its citizens’ smartphones. In a memo sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and obtained by The New York Times, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) admitted that it buys location data from brokers — and that the data isn’t separated by whether a person lives in the US or outside of it.
This New Approach to Credit Scoring is Accelerating Financial Inclusion in Emerging Economies
The concept of credit scoring first arose in the US and was initially deemed to be successful to the degree it was used as a primary, or even sole, the mechanism for identifying one’s financial fitness. However, there are differences between the US and maturing markets like Indonesia. US credit scoring focuses primarily on banking and financial data, and mainly consists of credit cards, loans and banking usage data and alarms. To date, there are not many non-banking entities participating in this problem space in a unified way.
Source: https://mailchi.mp/zigram/data-asset-weekly-dispatch_25_january_3
