F1. ETHICAL FRAMEWORK and ethics policies - colouring-cities/manual GitHub Wiki

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Introduction

The Colouring Cities Research Programme's ethical framework provides information on the programme's purpose, values and principles, and operates as a roadmap for good decision making, a tool for reasoning whether decisions made provide outcomes in line with CCRP values & principles. All protocols, codes of conduct and data sharing agreements forming part of the CCRP ethical framework can be accessed here. More information in data standards frameworks can also be found here.

Relevant ethical frameworks consulted in the preparation of this document include: The UK General Protection Data Regulation, UK Government Data Ethics Framework for public bodies, The Open Data Institute's (ODI's) Data Principles, The ODI's Infrastructure Principles, The Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Definition 2.1 and The Open Data Charter, The Gemini principles, The Locus Charter, Fair Guiding Principles, The United Nations New Urban Agenda, and The Declaration of Human Rights, and The Turing Way. Further information on each framework is available here.

Values

The following values underpin all actions and aspects of the CCRP. These are:

  • Trust
  • Respect
  • Transparency
  • Inclusivity
  • Integrity

CCRP Overall Purpose and principles of data collection

The purpose of the Colouring Cities Research Programme is to benefit society by providing open data necessary to improve the quality, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of building stocks, in line with The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. The CCRP promotes responsible and ethical collection, visualisation and release of relevant building attribute data at national level, and works to addresses issues of data fragmentation, cost and restriction, omissions and coverage, and inaccuracy and bias. It does this by providing free resources that support the set-up and management of networked, open databases/open code platforms run by international academic institutions, and collaboratively built with citizens and stakeholders from academia, government, industry and the third sector.

The CCRP is designed:

  • to collate, verify, visualise and release building attribute data to support the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals;
  • to test a reproducible, sustainable, ethical low cost model for research-led platforms that support open building attribute sharing within and across countries and combine academic governance with a collaborative maintenance model;
  • to maximise transparency and openness of building attribute data platforms by releasing all data, code and methods under open licences ;
  • to develop and test features that enable collection of highest quality and most accurate data possible- through the engagement of diverse stakeholders and use of diverse data capture methods- to in doing so address issues of data fragmentation, omissions, errors and restrictions;
  • to advance discussion on data ethics, and develop and demonstrate methods of maximising the safety and privacy of users, and building occupiers, when dealing with open building attribute release and visualisation;
  • to highlight user responsibility for assessment of building attribute data reliability, accuracy and fitness for purposes, and application of data, and to develop and test as many platform features to aid assessment as possible;
  • to identify and mitigate risks to CCRP collaborators and contributors;
  • to maintain fairness of access to data and code;
  • to engage diverse stakeholders and to facilitate knowledge exchange;
  • to be fair in attribution;
  • to operate within the law;
  • to be adaptable and sustainable;
  • to be apolitical and to address bias in building attribute data;
  • to promote multidisciplinary design and cross-sector collaboration;
  • to advance excellence in research and research integrity, and demonstrate the value of academic checks and balances;
  • to advance excellence in sustainable and resilient building practice;
  • to minimise greenhouse gas emission through efficiency of design.

CCRP Data Ethics Policies

Below are specific actionable CCRP policies emerging from the CCRP's values and principles and informed by referenced ethical frameworks below . The policies also set down parameters to help academic hosts in specific areas of ethical decision-making and in creating sustainable, trusted, well-governed, ethical, inclusive open building attribute data platforms.

  • POLICY 1: Leadership/trusted governance. The CCRP develops and tests an academic governance model for open building attribute data platforms. Platforms are designed to improve the quality, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of national building stocks in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals, whilst prioritising the privacy and security of platforms users and building occupiers. CCRP academic partners are registered academic research institutions with existing ethical frameworks. All CCRP academic partners sign up to the framework and partner Protocols.See also Governance.

  • POLICY 2: Accountability. The CCRP is a research initiative managed by The Alan Turing Institute, the UK's National Institute for Data Science and AI. The Turing oversees core open code development and provides free resources for an informal international network of academic institutions co-developing and testing the code. Each CCRP academic partner takes full legal and management responsibility for their individual CCRP platform. All users of individual platforms must agree to the Contributor Code of Conduct and User Agreement and to using CCRP open code and data for constructive, legal purposes, and working within CCRP open licence terms.

  • POLICY 3: Research integrity and excellence. CCRP academic partners work to advance the highest standards of research integrity and research excellence, to produce the highest quality datasets possible, and to include multiple features that aid assessment by users of data reliability, accuracy and fitness for purpose.

  • POLICY 4: Lawfulness. All CCRP contributors, and CCRP academic platform hosts, must work within the legal frameworks of participating countries and within international law. Data may not be accepted from restricted sources as stated in the Contributor Data Agreement. Where inclusion of restricted sources is identified, data must be removed by CCRP platform hosts as quickly as possible. (To identify sources contributors are encouraged to provide source links and source types wherever possible).

  • POLICY 5: Data collection limitation. CCRP partners platforms may only handle data that can be clearly justified as necessary to support research and practice relating to the improvement of the quality, efficiency, sustainability and/or resilience of national building stocks. Justification for collection of each dataset is being recorded at https://github.com/colouring-cities/manual/wiki/I.--DATA.

  • POLICY 6: Openness and transparency. The CCRP publishes all code, data, and information within its manual - including funding sources- and releases these under open licences. CCRP academic partners also commit to maximising/advancing open knowledge exchange within and across countries.

  • POLICY 7: Collaboration and inclusivity. CCRP platforms build on collaborative maintenance models developed by global open data platforms such as Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap. These actively encourage involvement of, and maintenance by, diverse stakeholders. In the CCRP additional oversight is provided by the CCRP academic network whose members manage national platforms and collaboratively advance use of data in research. CCRP partners commit to enriching the existing collaborative maintenance model and to testing a range of methods of engagement to maximise input from academia, government, industry, the third sector and citizens, and to following the CCRP's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion protocol.

  • POLICY 8: Conduct and accreditation. All contributors to CCRP platforms and their databases are expected to conduct themselves in a way that respects the well-being of others. Those wishing to edit CCRP datasets on CCRP platforms must agree to the CCRP's Contributor Data Agreement and Code of Conduct on sign up which addresses issues of malicious behaviour.

The CCRP treats all constructive contributions submitted in line with the CCRP's Code of Conduct and Contributor Agreement with equal respect, and encourages and celebrates the input of diverse stakeholders and audiences. It reserves the right to remove contributions where malicious behaviour is suspected. Contributions are automatically credited within the Colouring Cities Leaderboards, and all supporting partnerships and help-in-kind acknowledged and thanked on dedicated platform pages.

  • POLICY 9: Branding, standardisation and reproducibility. The CCRP's purpose is to provide reproducible open code able to provide public access to data able to support net zero goals and improve the quality, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of national building stocks. CCRP interfaces are identical and include a set number of standardised data categories to ensure comparative analysis of data may be undertaken across countries. Local tailoring is encouraged where this does not compromise CCRP branding and platform interoperability and additional pages and local data categories are added provided open code for these are released through the CCRP GitHub repository.

Each CCRP platform must display the CCRP logo plus individual academic host logo. CCRP academic partners endorsed by the Alan Turing Institute are recorded on the Alan Turing Institute's website. No other individual or organisational use of platform code is endorsed. Experimentation with CCRP open code is however encouraged subject to open licence accreditation and reuse terms.

  • POLICY 11: Risk assessment. The CCRP works to mitigate risks relating to the capture and release of all data with regard to i) the security and or privacy of platform users, ii) the security and privacy of building occupiers and owners, and iii) institutional risk to CCRP academic partners managing platforms at country level. Further information on potential risks is provided at CCRP Governance. Mitigation of risks to CCRP hosts are in part addressed through protocols, codes of conduct's and data agreements which contributors and data users must sign up to and which are set out under Protocols. CCRP platform hosts are responsible for their own risk assessments, including assessment relating to release of individual datasets.

  • POLICY 12: Privacy and Security of Contributors. The CCRP prioritises citizen security, privacy and well-being over data collection and release. Each CCRP platform must clearly display its Privacy Policy (along with the CCRP Code of Conduct and Contributor Agreement) on its Colouring Cities platform Menu. Privacy Policy & Platform Security information may vary slightly depending on national requirements and it is the responsibility of individual platform hosts to check wording with their legal departments. The Colouring London Contributor Privacy Policy provides a basic template which is designed to be adjusted subject to meet legal requirements at country/institutional level. The privacy policy specifically focuses on issues relating to the privacy of the CCRP data contributor not the building occupier.

CCRP platforms must adhere to GDPR regulations or equivalent regulations within countries relating to the principles, rights and obligations relating to personal data. GDPR principles are as follows: Lawfulness, fairness and transparency, Purpose limitation, Data minimisation, Accuracy, Storage limitation, Integrity and confidentiality (security), Accountability.

The CCRP actively discourages personal data collection. Personal data are not required for platform operation other than emails where users wish to reset passwords. Sign up information explicitly state that users' names will be visible to other viewing the platform or downloading data, and that users should only enter essential information, and clearly signposts on the platform how data are stored and used This send a clear message to users that their well-being is of the highest priority and helps engender trust, as well as a wider message that efficient working platforms providing data on built environment do not have to request personal data. (A possible future addition may be a dropdown of choice of sectors from which users come to enable CCRP academic partners gather information on under represented user groups though this will be consulted on).

  • POLICY 13: Privacy and Security of Building Occupiers. Privacy and security issues relating to building occupants are also prioritised owing to the fact that CCRP platforms collect and visualise geolocated data using building footprints. Though OpenStreetMap as well as other public and commercial initiatives use point or polygon data to capture, release and/or visualise data linked to location, the CCRP works to raise awareness that additional checks are needed to maximise occupier privacy and safety.

Though building attribute categories collected using CCRP core code are not classified under UK General Data Protection Regulations as constituting personal data, the Alan Turing Institute considers that all categories of spatial data collected by Colouring Cities platforms, in particular data relating to private homes which may continue over 90% of stocks, should be assessed by academic partners prior to release regarding potential privacy and security concerns. Where concerns exist, either for the CCRP network as a whole or relating to specific country level platforms, data must not be collected or released regardless of their value to supporting sustainable development goals.

All data categories currently handled by CCRP platforms are assessed against the following ODI questions by the Alan Turing Institute with results recorded in the Open Manual 'Data' section:

  • Reasons for using the data (What is the primary purpose for collection?)
  • Positive effects (Who can positively benefit from data collection and how?)
  • Negative effects (Who could be negatively effected and how?)
  • Methods of minimising negative effects (What steps can be taken to minimise harm?).

It is the responsibility of individual platform hosts to also carry out assessments for all datasets released, relating to potential negative impacts at country level.

  • POLICY 14: Restricted content and data formats.

A number of potential privacy/security issues relating to the release of specific types of data have been identified since work began on the Colouring Cities initiative in 2016. Risk is mitigated through: i) restrictions to collection and release of named data types, ii) inclusion of feedback methods, iii) features that facilitate multi audience engagement to maximise eyes on the data, iv) controlled methods of data collection and exclusion of all free text, v) pre assessment of all released datasets using the Open Data Institute's Data Ethics Canvas; vi) requirement for CCRP academic partners to report and share concerns.

Restricted data collection policies are as follows:

  • Freetext descriptions: Freetext entrieds ** may not** under any circumstances be collected by CCRP platforms where a connection with building footprints is possible. Colouring Cities platforms may only collect numerical data or data captured through controlled options e.g. dropdown menus, Yes/No answers and prefixed hyperlinks.

  • Domestic buildings: Data relating to the interior of private homes is considered as personal data for assessment purposes. Current images or plans of the interior of private homes, may not be captured or released. Data are however permitted relating to i) number of bedrooms and amount of floor space, ii) the exterior of homes already released in the public domain and visible from the street or air (such as building age, style, number of windows/solar panels/greenwalls, rooftype), iii)the interior of non-domestic buildings, may be captured providing these do not derive from restricted sources, iv) Additional internal physical characteristics such as steepness of stairs, may be captured where these have passed the ODI assessment, where these are necessary to support CCRP objectives, where they cannot alone, or in combination with other data, reveal personal information about the occupant.

  • Liked Buildings: Under the 'Community' section contributors can provide statistical data on whether they think the building operates well. Risk however is attached to the visualisation of such data for domestic buildings. Some homes in a street may be colour-coded with multiple likes whilst others have none, leading to householders and particularly young people feeling excluded. Substantial work has been undertaken by the CCRP in this area. Initially 'typology' likes were requested rather than 'likes' for specific homes, and users asked whether the 'typology' contributed to the city. Though this helped anonymise the building - making the question less emotionally charged, and encouraging users to see the submission of statistical data on typologies as a way of contributing to the bigger sustainability picture- it was not considered sufficient to reduce identified risks. CCRP core code currently does not permit 'Likes' for domestic buildings.

  • Building materials and construction systems: Though these data categories have important applications in the context of sustainability and resilience including as indicators of vulnerability earthquake or flood damage, potential risks have been identified by international partners in terms of increased precision of targeting of weapons in areas of political contact, and targeting of vulnerable communities with regard to building control fines. International academic hosts will therefore determine policy at national level in consultation with relevant stakeholders.

  • Specific land uses: Security issues may arise with regard to the release of specific types of land use including defence and major infrastructure/utilities when colour-coded at building level. International academic hosts will therefore determine policy at national level in consultation with relevant stakeholders. The current default position will be to group all utilities data as one colour.

  • Land ownership: Sensitivities may exist where individuals' names are released in relation to land ownership though the level of concern is likely to vary between countries. As a default names of individuals owning properties are not collected. Dropdown menus are instead identify 'type' of ownership. Where ownership is selected as 'government' owned, 'company', or 'non-profit' an option to provide a link to publicly available information is provided. No link is made available if individual ownership option has been chosen.

  • Energy Performance: Though the release of energy performance data is important within CCRP platforms, data are openly available in many countries, with visualisation of these data helpful in driving behavioural change, sensitivities may exist in terms of colour coding of information on an individual household's relative energy usage. Response to visualisation is likely to vary considerably from country to country. The default position is that government ratings released into the public domain may be included within the database at building level, but that data should be aggregated at block level in terms of visualisation.

  • POLICY 15. Ethical applications. The CCRP promotes ethical applications of CCRP data and showcases examples in its Showcase section. Data users agree to responsible use of CCRP data. ADD LINK

  • POLICY 16: Data quality, accuracy and reliability. The CCRP works to maximise data accuracy and reliability. The CCRP works to include as many features as possbile that help users to assess the accuracy and reliability of data themselves and its fitness for purpose. This is stated in the Data acccuracy section of platform menus. Explicit emphasis is made here on the need for users to make their own assessment of the suitability of data for specific contexts e.g. school project, academic paper, policy document.Features/methods used to indicate reliability are as follows:

  • Visible Date of last edit
  • Editor name/edit history (e.g. OpenStreetMap)
  • Options to enter type of source and/or weblinks
  • Verification button
  • Phrasing of questions to address uncertainty
  • Icon displaying method of collection and whether data derives from official datasets (under development)
  • Feedback loops and cross referencing between data collection methods (being tested)
  • Use of national international standards where applicable (under development)
  • Moderation of bulk uploads by expert bodies coordinated at regional level by CCRP national academic networks (being tested)
  • Dropdown filter to allow options for which edit to viewed e.g. by date, by number verifications etc. (under development)

(CCRP platforms are designed to be collaboratively maintained. Coleman et al (2009) differentiate between ‘constructive’ motivations in crowdsourcing geographic data – including legitimate new content, constructive amendments, validation and repair, minor edits, and format changes, and ‘damaging’ motivations, which are summarised as mischief, bias, and malice or criminal intent. Interventions to address these issues within CCRP platforms include user agreement/code of conduct, conscious omission of free text boxes, and the limiting of copying and pasting of data for multiple building to one building at a time. Having as many eyes on the platform as possible, and good feedback mechanisms, are also considered by consulted software engineers as the best way to prevent malicious behaviour.

  • POLICY 17. Interoperability. CCRP platforms are designed to be interoperable. All use CCRP core code and produce over 130 standardised data sets able to analysed across countries. Core repository core code is co-worked by by CCRP academic partners. OpenStreetMap IDs for each building location are included to allow Colouring Cities open data to be easily integrated into OSM and other systems.

  • POLICY 18: Sustainability. The CCRP is committed to creating efficient, reproducible, adaptable, platforms providing data on composition, performance and dynamic behaviour of stocks. These also need to be sustainable, with demand for high quality, granular data on stocks only likely to increase from those working in sustainable planning, housing, heritage and climate change mitigation). The CCRP advances a highly efficient platform governance system where as many resources as possible are shared and where energy use is minimised. Platform features are also all designed to support public interest in engagement in the sustainable development of building stocks.

  • POLICY 19: Widening debate. The CCRP is committed to widening discussion on data ethics relating to geospatial data.

Relevant ethical frameworks

The following ethical frameworks are drawn from by the CCRP:

In the absence of common international principles supporting ethical and responsible practice when using location data, The American Geographical Society's EthicalGEO Initiative, working in collaboration with the Benchmark initiative (Ordnance Survey and Omidyar Network) and governments. organisations and individuals has developed the Locus Charter which looks to address ethical challenges and opportunities posed by new geospatial technologies and data sources. The CCRP works to uphold the following principles set out in the Charter:

  1. Realise Opportunities: Location data offers many social and economic benefits, and these opportunities should be realized responsibly. (The CCRP works with its international academic network to provide the smallest number of building attribute datasets necessary to support UN Sustainable Development Goals and to help improve the quality, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of buildings and cities, and the well-being of citizens).

  2. Understand Impacts: Users of location data have responsibility to understand the potential effects of their uses of data, including knowing who (individuals and groups) and what could be affected, and how. That understanding should be used to make informed and proportionate decisions, and to minimize negative impacts. (The CCRP works with international academic institutions, and their stakeholder groups, to identify as many potential uses and impacts of CCRP spatial data as possible).

  3. Do no harm: Physical proximity amplifies the potential harms that can befall people, flora and fauna. Data users should ensure that the individual or collective location data pertaining to all species should not be used to discriminate, exploit or harm. Rights established in the physical world must be protected in digital contexts and interactions. (The CCRP collates and releases open spatial data and does not directly apply data. At the same time it makes every effort to identify potential harmful applications when assessing the release of building attribute datasets, both for all countries, and for specific locations, and to produce ethical policies in relation to these).

  4. Protect the vulnerable: Vulnerable people and places can be disproportionately harmed by the misuses of location data, and may lack the capacity to protect themselves. In these contexts, data users should take additional care, act proportionately, and positively avoid causing harm. (The CCRP makes every effort to identify problems with spatial building attribute data release relating to vulnerable communities through our academic collaborations).

  5. Address Bias: Bias in the collection, use, and combination of location datasets can either remove affected groups from mapping that conveys rights or services, or amplify negative impacts of inclusion in a dataset. Therefore care should be taken to understand bias in the datasets and avoid discriminatory outcomes. (The CCRP makes every effort to identify and address bias through academic and international collaboration).

  6. Minimise intrusion: Given the intimate and personal nature of location data, users should avoid unnecessary and intrusive examination of people’s lives and the places they live in, that would undermine human dignity.(The CCRP does not collect data on individuals or on the interior of buildings which it believes should be classified as personal data).

  7. Minimise data: Most business and mission applications do not require the most invasive scale of location tracking available in order to provide the intended level of service. Users should comply with practices that adhere to the data minimization principle of using only the necessary personal data that is adequate, relevant and limited to the objective, including abstracting location data to the least invasive scale feasible for the application.(The CCRP does not track individuals, and collects the minimum number of datasets required to meet its goals).

  8. Protect Privacy: Tracking the movement of individuals through space and time gives insights into the most intimate aspects of their lives. In the rare cases when aggregated and anonymized location data will not meet the specific business or mission need, location data that identifies individuals should be respected, protected, and used with informed consent where possible and proportionate. (The CCRP does not collect data on individuals or on the interior of buildings which it considers private space).

  9. Prevent identification of individuals: As an individual’s mobile location data is situated within more and more geospatial context data, its anonymity erodes, measures should be put in place to prevent subsequent use of the data resulting in identification of individuals or their location. (The CCRP does not use mobile phone data or include data that may identify individuals).

  10. Provide accountability: People who are represented in location data collected, combined and used by organizations, should be able to interrogate how it is collected and used in relation to them and their interests, and appeal those uses proportionate to levels of detail and potential for harms. (All data collected by the CCRP are open, other than email addresses required for to access editing rights which are never shared and secured using standard industry methods).

The CCRP follows the principles of information management on built environment systems, developed by the Centre for Digital Built Britain at the University of Cambridge.

gemini principles

The CCRP works to support the ODI's data infrastructure principles, openness principles, and uses its Data Ethics Canvas as shown below:

ODI core questions:

  • What are we collecting?
  • How are we using it?
  • How are we sharing it?
  • How are we securing it?
  • How are we making decisions about it?
  • How are we accountable?
  • How can users influence use?
  • How can we make analysis/outputs accessible

The **ODI’s eight openness principles for personal data **are as follows:

  1. Be open with people about what personal data they are collecting
  2. Be open with people about how they use personal data
  3. Be open with people about the way personal data is shared
  4. Be open with people about the way personal data is secured
  5. Explain to people how we make decisions about them using their data
  6. Be open about their accountability mechanisms for misuse of personal data
  7. Help people understand and influence how their data is collected and used
  8. If collecting or using personal data, make their analyses and outputs as open as possible.

ODI Data Infrastructure Principles

  • Design for Open
  • Build with the web
  • Respect privacy
  • Benefit everyone
  • Think big but start small
  • Design to adapt
  • Encourage open innovation

CCRP answers to ODI's data ethics canvas questions:

  • Data Sources: The CCRP collects data from multiple sources including 3rd parties. Information on the source/s of data are sought from contributors and collected and presented wherever possible;

  • Rights around data sources: CCRP contributors must agree to sign-up to the CCRP Code of Conduct which states that upload of data from restricted or illegal sources is not permitted;

  • Limitations in data sources: The main limitation is the current absence of annually updated open footprints for many countries, where open national mapping agency footprints are not available. It is hoped that commercial suppliers that have begun to provide comprehensive open footprints over recent years will begin annual updating their databases in the near future. This issue does not prevent data collection but affects the quality and accuracy of datasets and trust in platforms;

  • Ethical and legislative context: In the European context, relevant legislation relates only to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Clearer international guidelines relating to the release and visualisation of geospatial data involving individuals' homes are required. The CCRP works to support the development of such guidelines through its 'Ethical framework' and 'Protocol' pages. The CCRP's ethical framework is influenced by data collection principles listed under 'Overall Purpose' above. The CCRP prioritises the security and privacy of platform users and building occupiers over data release and develops interfaces that assist platform users in accessing data, improving and enriching datasets, and assessing data reliability and fitness for purpose;

  • Ongoing implementation/Reviews and iterations: CCRP platforms are permanent resource designed to develop organically over time. Improvements to core code are co-worked on by CCRP academic partners and are informed by stakeholder testing at country level. (All protocols and ethics agreements will in future be integrated into the core code base so that additions to these can be more easily consulted on and integrated into code bases for all international platforms). Feedback on improvements may also be submitted on GitHib or via 'Discussion' fora on individual CCRP plarforms;

  • Reasons for using the data: CCRP data collection is limited to data that has been identified by the CCRP as being necessary for research, practice and/or education purposes relating to improvement of the quality, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of national building stocks and/or that support UN Sustainable Development Goals. This includes use in areas such planning, housing, energy reduction, heritage and health.

  • Positive effects on people: CCRP data is designed to support multiple sectors and disciplines as well as local communities in meeting net zero goals, and in collectively improving the quality, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of individual buildings and local areas and stocks as a whole. Positive effects are currently measured by number of academic institutions reproducing CCRP code to support research in the above areas. A showcase section is also being built to aid tracking of data applications and their impact;

  • Negative effects on people: Constant vigilance is required when dealing with geolocated data relating to individual's homes - with these comprising in the UK for example over 93% of properties). Platforms are designed so that personal information relating to individuals or to the private spaces within homes, cannot be uploaded or released. Data on the interiors of homes are not released other than non-personal information such as floor space and number of bedrooms which are publicly released within government datasets. CCRP platforms are managed only by academic institutions, where checks are in place to ensure high standards of ethical behaviour. For further information see 'Policies' below.

  • Minimising negative effects: Steps taken to minimise harm include: prioritisation of the safety and security of platform users and building occupiers in all design decisions; inclusion of features to control type of data uploaded; risk assessment for all categories of data collected; maximising multi-stakeholder input and eyes on datasets through diversity of data capture methods; co-development of platforms with international academic partners; moderating bulk uploads through national academic networks; required signing of clear protocols, codes of conduct and/or data accuracy and use agreements, by participants, prior to platform use;

  • Engagement with people: The CCRP is a collaborative maintenance initiative built and maintained with specialist stakeholders including citizens. A range of data capture methods, including crowdsourcing and automated approaches, and features are integrated to maximise diversity in audience participation and engagement of stakeholders in data contribution, enrichment and verification. The CCRP academic network model is designed to maximise knowledge sharing public feedback and consultation to enable collective improvement of platforms;

  • Communicating purpose & Openness and Transparency: All information on the CCRP's objectives and methods, and partners are published in its Open Manual under an open MIT licence;

  • Sharing data with others: All CCRP code, data and methods are released under open licences.

The OKF defines knowledge as 'open if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness'. The CCRP works to support and increase open knowledge systems and platforms.

The NUA addresses issues relating to the 11th United Nations Sustainable Development Goal - 'Cities and Communities'. It was produced to drive global commitment to the goal of sustainable, inclusive, healthy and resilient cities and stocks. The CCRP looks to support the United Nation's New Urban Agenda's main principles:

  • Provide basic services for all citizens (e.g. housing, water, sanitation, food healthcare, education, culture,communication technologies.
  • Ensure that all citizens have access to equal opportunities and face no discrimination
  • Promote measures that support cleaner cities (air pollution, greenspaces, energy/transport)
  • Strengthen resilience in cities to reduce the risk and the impact of disasters (better urban planning, quality infrastructure and improving local responses).
  • Take action to address climate change by reducing cities' greenhouse gas emissions
  • Fully respect the rights of refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons regardless of their migration status
  • Improve connectivity and support innovative and green initiatives (including supporting cross sector partnerships)
  • Promote safe, accessible and green public spaces

The CCRP look to support the following articles in particular (of 30 Articles):

  • Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
  • Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
  • Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
  • Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks
  • Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (Note: Such speech must also respect other UDHR Articles).
  • Article 21. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
  • Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
  • Article 27: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

The CCRP works in line with the UK Government Data Ethics Framework. This split into overarching principles and specific actions allowing users to score their project. Overarching principles are applicable throughout the entire process and underpin all actions and all aspects of the project. Specific actions guide framework users through different stages of their project and provide practical considerations. Overarching Principles:

  • Transparency
  • Accountability
  • Fairness Specific actions to advance transparency, accountability, and fairness.
  • Define and understand public benefit and user need (included unintended consequences & human right considerations)
  • Involve diverse expertise- within team and externally
  • Comply with the law
  • Review the quality and limitations of the data
  • Evaluate and consider wider policy implications

The CCRP promotes the Turing Way and its advocacy of:

  • Open research
  • Reproducible code
  • Reproducible research and work flows
  • Open data
  • Research integrity
  • Publication of negative results

We are currently looking to draw from the Turing's AI ethics model illustrated below.

The full guidance document is available via The Alan Turing Institute's AI ethics and Governance webpage.

Protocols and Data Standards

  • For General Protection Data Regulation (GDPR), The Open Data Charter and FAIR please see the CCRP Data Standards page here.

  • For CCRP protocols, codes of conduct and data use agreements see here.