At the heart of ThoughtWorks is an ambitious mission: to be a proactive agent of progressive change in the world. Aware of our own privilege, we strive to see the world from the perspective of the oppressed, the powerless and the invisible. With QUT, here in Brisbane, we’re kicking off a series of research, projects, and conversations about the social impact of tech trends, with a view to building a more equitable tech future. Some of these topics include: - Algorithmic accountability, transparency, bias & inclusion - Responsible data practices (privacy and ownership of data) - Automation and the future of work - Data use in social media and elections - Fake news and echo chambers - Regulating decentralised technologies - Blockchain for good - End-user autonomy and privacy Slides from: Felicity Ruby, Eru Penkman, Clayton Nyakana, Assoc. Prof. Nic Suzor (QUT) & Dr. Monique Mann (QUT)

1. BUILDING AN EQUITABLE TECH FUTURE
Felicity Ruby, Eru Penkman, Clayton Nyakana,
Assoc. Prof. Nic Suzor (QUT) & Dr. Monique Mann (QUT)

4. It is our responsibility as technologists to
understand the societal implications of emerging
technology.
What do we mean by an
equitable tech future?
TECH
UTOPIA
TECH
DYSTOPIA

5. RESPECTFUL - Tech designed and developed equitably, respects the privacy of citizens and espouses the values of
collaboration and consent.
EMPATHETIC- Listening openly and deeply to people with very different perspectives, accepting the truth of those
perspectives, questioning and changing your deepest assumptions about the world, and changing your behavior.
INCLUSIVE - Technologists and the systems they create represent, consider and account for the diverse needs of all
of society. Technologists understand and actively address inequalities, and strive to make the technology they create
more compassionate and inclusive.
AWARE - Technologists recognise the risks that technological advances creates, and act to reduce harm.

6. The Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.

7. Take a long term view
Value over Revenue
Global over Local
Innovation over Disruption
Redecentralize
Modular over Comprehensive
Inclusion over Efficiency
Ecosystem over Ecosystem
Participants
Embrace the emergent
Emergence over Predictability
Generalists over Specialists
Complexity of Truth
Evidence over Opinion
Discussion over Agreement
Diversity over Legal Equality
Perspectives over Doctrine
Strive for dynamic equilibrium
Trust over Enforcement
Transparency over Caution
Building an Equitable Tech Future

8. IT’S NOT JUST WARM FUZZIES
Employees
Investors
Customers
55% of consumers said they will pay
more for brands with a positive social
impact.
- Nielsen 2014
68% of global consumers would
remain loyal to a brand if the
organization practiced social
responsibility
-Martin Zwilling, Forbes.
Over three years, the typical ethical
fund is up by around 32%-35%
compared with 28% for the FTSE All-
Share index and 24% for the AFI
Balanced index
56% of millennials have ruled out
working for an organisation that doesn't
align with their values. Deloitte
Millennial Review 2016
Deloitte predict Millennials will make up
75% of the global workforce by 2025.
Brands focussing on individual, industry, and collective benefits have outperformed the stock
market by 206% over the last 10 years
- Havas Group study

9. “A time of radical technologies
demands a generation of radical
technologists.”
Adam Greenfield, Radical Technologies

10. Putting End-Users in Charge of Algorithms:
Privacy and Autonomy ‘By Design’
Dr Monique Mann m6.mann@qut.edu.au @DrMoniqueMann
Dr Kylie Pappalardo k.pappalardo@qut.edu.au @kyles_p
A/Prof Nicolas Suzor n.suzor@qut.edu.au @nicsuzor
@JustAlgorithms
@Good__Data

11. THE PROBLEM
• Algorithms are ubiquitous but we do not understand or control them.
• We live in a mediated world that governed, judged, and served back to us by
computer code, algorithms, and data.
• Although consumers contribute much of the data that algorithmic systems
operate upon, they remain opaque black boxes closed off to public
understanding, scrutiny and control.
• The opaque use of algorithms raises human right concerns, specifically
relating to individual rights to privacy and loss of autonomy.
• Law is not only solution:
• We need to think more about ‘Good Data’ designs
• e.g. Art. 25 of GDPR data protection by design and by default
• But how do we operationalise these principles and build them in
practice?

12. USING DIGITAL TOOLS TO MAKE
ALGORITHMIC SYSTEMS ACCOUNTABLE
Automated systems
shape our
environment and
lives
And are influenced
by many different
actors

13. NEW TOOLS TO STUDY ALGORITHMIC SYSTEMS

14. NEW TOOLS TO STUDY ALGORITHMIC SYSTEMS

15. BUILDING BETTER SYSTEMS
• We will conduct a series of workshops using ‘Hackathon’ formats to bring
together relevant communities:
• Software engineers, interactive designers, policy makers and
government representatives, end-users.
• We will embed a co-design approach to imagine and create new ways of:
• Identifying hidden algorithmic constraints;
• Participate in designing alternatives, and;
• Propose technical solutions.
• Our interdisciplinary approach draws on interaction design principles to
create open source prototypes that:
• Increase transparency and accountability;
• Raise end-user awareness and understanding, and;
• Reveal the inner workings of data collection and profiling applications
and algorithms.

16. THE TEAM
• Professor Marcus Foth (QUT Design Lab)
• Dr Monique Mann (Justice)
• Associate Professor Nic Suzor (Law)
• Associate Professor Peta Mitchell (Digital Media Research Centre)
• Dr Kylie Pappalardo (Law)
We have been awarded QUT grants:
1. QUT Engagement Innovation Grant
(outreach and engagement)
2. QUT Strategic Links Pilot
(research and to develop ARC Linkage)

17. THE PARTNERS

18. THE PROTOTYPES
• We have proposed 3 prototypes that we
hope to begin co-design and co-
development as ‘problem owners’ at the
upcoming Aaron Swartz Day Internet
Freedom Hack (9-11/11)
https://internetfreedomhack.org/:
1. Data Cooperatives and Distributed Data
Justice;
2. Re-Decentralise the Commercial Web: A
Zero-Knowledge Recommendation System,
and;
3. Verbose Mode for Algorithmic
Transparency: Opening the Bonnet of
Explainable AI.

19. THE PROTOTYPES: DATA COOPERATIVES
• Re-balance the asymmetric and extractive relationship between data
subjects and large corporations to achieve distributive data justice with new
business models underpinned by ethical commitments.
• Imagine and create a system for individual and collective data stores for
collective benefit that empowers individuals to have greater control and
autonomy. Individuals and communities should be able to:
• Meaningfully benefit from sharing information about themselves in ways
that they can understand and control;
• Understand what they decide to give away, what is done with it,
associated benefits (monetary or otherwise), and;
• Share the value of data and the governance of the system.

20. THE PROTOTYPES: ZERO-KNOWLEDGE
RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM
• Personalised, de-centralised computing provides an opportunity to build a
more open, diverse web that works in the interests of users where they
can keep data within a personal data store and use private computing
containers to run AI systems that process their data.
• Develop a system that ingests a user's loyalty-card or banking data to feed
a recommender system that interfaces with a comparison shopping API to
present the user with personalised offers. The ideal system would enable
users to:
• Receive the benefits of personalisation that works in their interests;
• Be sensitive to a user's revealed preferences (their history) as well as
to their express intent and,
• Not provide any personal data to any third party.

21. THE PROTOTYPES: OPENING THE AI BONNET
• Verbose mode is a feature available in many programming and integrated
development environments that allows code to be executed with human-
readable explanations.
• Create a new or experimental replica of existing big data and AI applications
(such as urban data applications like journey planners, location-based
recommender systems, or map-based / spatial data applications) with an
open bonnet that:
• Explicitly displays and explains to users how algorithms arrive at certain
decisions or search results;
• Provides additional details as to what the computer is doing, and;
• Increase algorithmic transparency and reveals the inner workings of AI
to users.

22. THE (EQUITABLE TECH) FUTURE
• Co-host a further 2 design workshops / hackathons in 2019;
• Work with ThoughtWorks to develop a social media data visualisation tool;
• Make all prototypes available open source online;
• Develop and publish reports, toolkits and academic articles outlining our
approach and findings, and;
• Submit ARC linkage to continue working towards ‘an equitable tech future’.

24. #DefendingEncryptionHack

25. #DefendingEncryptionHack
AARON SWARTZ

26. #DefendingEncryptionHack
AARON SWARTZ DAY
Aaron Swartz Day was founded, in 2013, after the death of Aaron
Swartz, with these combined goals:
● To draw attention to what happened to Aaron, in the hopes of
stopping it from happening to anyone else.
● To provide a yearly showcase of many of the projects that were
started by Aaron before his death.
● To provide a yearly showcase of new projects that were directly
inspired by Aaron and his work.

27. #DefendingEncryptionHack
INTERNET FREEDOM HACK
● Internet Freedom Hack is a
series of community events that
bring technologists with a
passion for digital rights
together to build things that
advance the cause of internet
freedom.
● Currently runs in Brisbane and
Melbourne twice a year hosted
by ThoughtWorks

28. #DefendingEncryptionHack
IFH V.1
● 17th - 19th November 2017
● Location: Brisbane
● 5 Projects:
○ Internet Freedom Launchpad by Kai: A cloud based dynamic and disposable VPN
solution that gives you a new instance everytime you use it and stores no logs.
○ DecentralisedU by Privacy Enablers: A decentralized system through which users can
own and control their data!
○ L33t Sp3ak 2.0 by #!: Cryptography that's readable by humans but not by machines!
○ WhatchaNo?: A platform that will show you the posts with the worst sentiment from
your social media accounts.
○ Free Elbownia! by Crypto Anarchists: A Privacy game where Agent Frankie F from
Freedonia infiltrates Elbownia to extract information that will be used to destroy the
"Great Elbownian Firewall".

29. #DefendingEncryptionHack
IFH V.2
● 20th - 22nd April 2018
● Location: Brisbane, Melbourne
● 10 Projects:
○ Infinite Monkeys: Combating fake news
○ Charlie: Flight price analysis
○ Phone Case: Prevents your microphone from hearing what you say.
○ Decentralised Private Instant Messaging (DPIM)
○ Limited Information Tetration Encryption (Lite).
○ AuData: Protocol to help track the origin of a piece of information
○ eHealth record opt-out campaign.
○ FaceWhatever: An offline quiz where you can test what Facebook knows about you
○ Incognito on Steroids: Obfuscating your digital fingerprint.
○ Anti-IRA: Analyse connections between social media accounts

30. #DefendingEncryptionHack
IFH V.3
● 9th - 11th November 2018
● Location: Brisbane, Melbourne
● Theme: Defending Encryption
● Talks: Barrett Brown, Claire Peters, Tim Wilson-Brown, Angus Murray, Monique Mann

31. #DefendingEncryptionHack
How to get involved
●Visit: www.internetfreedomhack.org
●Register
●Show up

32. Limited or no software development / tech skill required
● Highlight instances of privacy zuckering and shame the perpetrators of this and/or other types of dark pattern. Follow the lead of the hall of shame
page that already exists, but amplify the message!
● A camera or microphone patch for phones (something easy to use).
● Technology is political, as the Cambridge Analytica scandal has amply demonstrated. What can we do to bring more technologists or tech companies
into the privacy movement or to encourage more consideration of ethics in their decision making?
● Many problems that privacy advocates rile against cannot be solved simply with technology. In a lot of cases a political or legislative push is required.
How can we, using technology or otherwise, help with that push?
● Can we help to support a campaign against the government’s proposed mandatory decryption “war on maths” laws?
Tech skills optional
● IsCentrelinkDown is a tool that checks the availability of Centrelink phone lines. It was created to debunk the claims of availability that are frequently
made by the Department of Human Services. The source code has been opened up just in time for the Hack!
● GDPR requires corporations to publish a list of who they share data with. We could harvest and visualise this data, to try to uncover some of the data
dealing that’s going on.
Tech and non-tech skills required
● Collate instructions or links describing how you can delete or limit your data on datenkraken
● Visualise where the noise in Twitter for a specific topic is coming from
● Something like securemessagingapps.com but for VPNs, or for other privacy tools. Or improve existing projects like privacytools.io or
cybersecureyourself.net.
● A video-, text-, board-, or card game to teach basic cyber security to victimised demographics
Mostly tech skills required
● Harvest social media posts containing the word “fact” (or otherwise determine that posts contain a claim of fact) and put them on a stackexchange-
style website where people can research and confirm or reject them (citing sources). (Talk to Robin)
● Determine your advertising profile based on a limited set of data like your Facebook likes, or Google Maps locations visited, to demonstrate the power
of aggregation.
● Find and highlight “interesting” data in a download of your Facebook data or Google Takeout data. (Talk to Pam)
● Create a virtual or physical space where activists can work from a secure server with the software required to do their work. It could include access to
nextcloud with collabora or cryptpad.
#DefendingEncryptionHack