Wilson Center’s Science & Technology Innovation Program

Posts Tagged ‘Crisis Management’

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UPDATE: After Arrest, Authorities Caution Against Crowdsourced Criminal Intelligence Analysis

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Disaster Management, Foresight, Technology and the Law on April 22, 2013 at 2:02 pm

During last week’s frenzied pursuit of suspects after the Boston Marathon bombings, we commented on the danger of attempting to crowdsource a criminal investigation. After Friday’s arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, new information on how law enforcement located the suspect has shed light on the process. Despite good intentions, intelligence analysis of this type is a poor fit for untrained amateurs. From the Washington Post:

[T]he social media revolution meant that the FBI and Boston authorities were under intense pressure to move even faster, because thousands of amateur sleuths were mimicking the official investigation, inspecting digital images of the crowd on Boylston Street and making their own often wildly irresponsible conclusions about who might be the bombers.

On an investigative forum of Reddit.com, since removed from the site, users compiled thousands of photos, studied them for suspicious backpacks and sent their favorite theories spinning out into the wider Internet.

“Find people carrying black bags,” wrote the Reddit forum’s unnamed moderator. “If they look suspicious, then post them. Then people will try and follow their movements using all the images.”

The moderator defended this strategy by arguing that “it’s been proven that a crowd of thousands can do things like this much quicker and better. . . . I’d take thousands of people over a select few very smart investigators any day.”

In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via social mediacomplicated the official investigation, according to law enforcement officials. Those officials said Saturday that the decision on Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant in part to limit the damage being done to people who were wrongly being targeted as suspects in the news media and on the Internet.

Fortunately, the suspect was apprehended and critiques of Reddit’s investigative techniques were swift and emphatic. But this could have easily gone much worse. This experience provides an example of where the wisdom of the crowd can be anything but wise.

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The Boston Marathon Bombings and the Limitations of Crowdsourced Intelligence

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Disaster Management, Technology and the Law on April 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm

In the wake of the horrific bombings at this week’s Boston Marathon, a complex web of agencies has been furiously searching for suspects. Intelligence analysis is already a challenge, and attempting to identify suspects at a massively popular public event is even more difficult. Eager to scoop this major story, news outlets have repeatedly “broke” pieces on suspects only to retract them quickly. The paucity of information has been exacerbated by dubious crowd-based efforts to aid the search.

Popular news aggregator Reddit quickly created a subReddit entitled “FindBostonBombers,” inviting community members to share information and photos of the scene before, during and after the explosions. While the forum contains multiple disclaimers discouraging racism and posting of personal information, the limitations of this type of analysis quickly became apparent. These well-intentioned efforts have led to multiple false positives, and major outlets who eagerly seized the opportunity to beat the rush have been forced to back off: the “person of interest” was in fact a local high school student. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tweeting Up a Storm

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Disaster Management on December 5, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 25, 2012

Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 25, 2012

We are inundated daily with stories from the news media about the possible impact social media like Facebook and Twitter will have on our lives. When a storm like Hurricane Sandy hits the East Coast, can this technology actually help to save lives and reduce catastrophic damages? It’s possible.

For instance, mobile devices could allow emergency responders, affected communities, and volunteers to rapidly collect and share information as a disaster unfolds. Photos and videos provided through social media could help officials determine where people are located, assess the responses and needs of affected communities—such as water, food, shelter, power and medical care—and alert responders and citizens to changing conditions.

At least that is the promise. When Hurricane Irene barreled across the Eastern seaboard in August 2011, many in the news media cited it as a pivotal moment for social media for disasters. But research we conducted on the use of social media during Irene suggests otherwise. While some emergency management departments launched new social media outreach strategies during the storm, particularly to push information out to the public, many did not change their practices radically and overall use of the technology varied. Read the rest of this entry »

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Announcing the Commons Lab Zotero Library

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Disaster Management, News and Events on September 4, 2012 at 4:01 pm

The Commons Lab has made available our library of documents and citations on the popular open-source citation management system Zotero. This library is a tagged, searchable list that makes available full bibliographical information, and downloadable full text editions of publicly available documents.

The library can be accessed here: https://www.zotero.org/groups/82887/items

We hope this is a useful resource. The Commons Lab is on the lookout for more resources concerning the crowdsourcing technology and policy, and is accepting submissions for entry into the library. Please get in touch at commonslab@wilsoncenter.org with any suggestions.

 

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Statistical Significance: How Big Data is Changing the Way We See the World

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Governance on June 28, 2012 at 3:35 pm

Craig Fugate, director of Federal Emergency Management Agency, once said on predicting calamities: “Disasters are like horseshoes, hand grenades and thermonuclear devices; you just need to be close – preferably more than less.”
Luckily, the information age has given organizations throughout the world a better way to understand and begin to predict complex phenomena. This new method ties together old-fashioned statistical analysis with the explosion of crowdsourced information now being transmitted over phone networks and the internet. This includes Twitter posts, Facebook status updates, blog posts, text messages, Amazon purchase histories, and more –what  a recent white paper by UN Global Pulse dubs “Big Data.”

Though huge datasets have existed before, Big Data information has the unique characteristics of being both current and broad enough for decision-makers to make policy and operational decisions that respond to immediate issues. On one hand, Big Data is an excellent tool when leveraged effectively. It helped to save lives after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, is being mined by the intelligence community to track future trends, and may even find its way into US counterinsurgency doctrine. However, as with all human-sourced data, Big Data is notoriously fickle, and is prone to misinterpretation. With some NGOs, businesses, and governments working tirelessly to harness the power of Big Data, even as others remain far more reluctant, it’s worth considering both sides of this new venture.

What does Big Data do for us?

On one hand, having access to millions of lines of data collected from various sources can lead to insights that would have previously been impossible. One of the earlier applications of large-scale statistical analysis happened some years ago, during the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. During the trial, the relevance of large datasets was showcased by demonstrating that surges in Serbian troop movements were the primary cause of Albanians fleeing their homes, and not NATO bombings or Albanian guerilla attacks, as Milosevic claimed.

Since then, the information age has led to much greater opportunities. Google has been successful in correlating specific web search terms with outbreaks of illnesses, such as dengue fever or the flu, often before the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention or other health agencies have officially confirmed the outbreak. This method looks at the number of people who search for terms such as “dengue” using Google’s search engine, and based on how many searches occur in a specific area within a narrow span of time, Google was able to estimate the likelihood of an outbreak having occurred. In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, the disaster relief NGOs in Haiti implemented a nationwide SMS campaign, allowing anyone with a cell phone to report the locations of injured or trapped people via a simple text message. The density and content of these text messages were updated on a map in real time and used in deciding how to best deploy resources. Read the rest of this entry »

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Fordham Law and Commons Lab Partner to Address Privacy Issues Raised by Missing Persons Databases

In Commons Lab, Disaster Management, News and Events on June 13, 2012 at 11:02 am

The Fordham Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) at Fordham Law School and the Commons Lab of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars are pleased to announce a joint project on privacy and information systems that are being developed to assist efforts to locate missing persons during natural disasters.

The Privacy and Missing Persons in Natural Disasters Project is part of an international effort led by the Missing Persons Community of Interest (MPCI) that is unifying a wide array of databases and technologies to enhance searches for missing persons following natural disasters. MPCI, which emerged in response to the 2010 Haitian earthquake, includes participants from local disaster management, international humanitarian relief organizations, private sector technology companies, non-profits, and digital volunteer communities.

The Project will evaluate the privacy challenges presented by MPCI’s efforts, such as protecting sensitive information provided to locate a missing person and compliance issues related to privacy laws. Fordham’s CLIP will propose strategies and recommendations to help MPCI reduce the risk of privacy infringement and protect the safety and well-being of affected individuals, while maintaining the efficacy of missing persons’ registries.

“Fordham Law School is extremely proud that the Wilson Center has formed this partnership with the Law School’s Center on Law and Information Policy,” said Michael M. Martin, Dean of Fordham Law. “CLIP is consistently at the forefront of information law, and its project with the Missing Persons Community of Interest nobly incorporates CLIP’s legal prowess with Fordham Law’s mission of practicing law ‘in the service of others.’” Read the rest of this entry »

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Lessons Learned from the RELIEF 12-3 Event

In Commons Lab, Disaster Management, Foresight, Governance on May 31, 2012 at 10:36 am

What do data standards, cellphone cameras, and Twitter have to do with saving lives during a large-scale catastrophe? They can make all the difference. These were among a few of the topics discussed at the Research & Experimentation for Local & International Emergency First-Responders (RELIEF) event at National Defense University last week, which I had the pleasure of attending.

RELIEF, a program jointly run by the Naval Postgraduate School and the Center for Technology & National Security Policy, brings together representatives from dozens of organizations and government agencies to collaborate on cutting-edge research. Prior RELIEF events have come away with such outcomes as a method to capture and disseminate text messages over a broad area, tools to convert military satellite imagery into formats useable by civilian software, and a strategy for open-source mapping that went on to be used during elections in Afghanistan.

This quarter’s event focused on the growing trend of crisismapping – the technical merging of interactive online maps with social media and mobile technology, to create a living “picture” of a crisis zone – and the difficulties involved in its implementation. The participants included representatives from myriad government entities, including Department of State, Department of Defense (DoD), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), humanitarian mapping groups, industry, think tanks, and academia, which brought their diverse viewpoints to the table. As expected, the event covered a lot of ground in each session, but there were a number of key takeaway points that I will try to highlight.

Civil Air Patrol

Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a volunteer auxiliary arm of the US Air Force comprised of civilian pilots, has long been used in emergency management to identify survivors and take aerial reconnaissance photos for crisis command. Event participants discussed CAP’s ability to contribute to crisismapping by being able to provide photos of affected areas that land crews cannot access, ultimately giving crisis command a clearer picture of the situation and information about where to deploy emergency response teams. The discussion was coupled with a scenario analysis of a simultaneous earthquake, fire, and chemical gas release in an urban area—a realistic situation that demonstrates both immediate and developing hazards, each with unique conditions to worry about—as a test case for CAP’s utility. Read the rest of this entry »

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Interns Wanted in Crisis Informatics

In Commons Lab, News and Events on April 23, 2012 at 4:53 pm

The Commons Lab of the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is currently seeking research interns for Summer 2012 and Fall 2012/Spring 2013. STIP analyzes the evolving implications of such emerging technologies as synthetic biology, crisis informatics, nanotechnology, and geoengineering. STIP’s research also explores prediction markets and serious games. The program provides critical yet nonpartisan research for the policymaking community and guides officials in the design of new governance frameworks. It gauges crucial public support for science and weighs the overall risks and benefits of technology for society at large.

Project Areas: Rapidly evolving information and communications technologies (ICT), like social media and mobile phones, as well as new methodologies such as crowdsourcing, have placed the extraordinary power of mass collaboration into the hands of individuals, governments, and businesses.  The Wilson Center’s Commons Lab advances research and policy analysis on these new technologies, which are giving people the tools to mobilize “digital volunteers” to support humanitarian aid and disaster response (crisis informatics), collect actionable scientific data (citizen-based science), innovate, and enhance citizen engagement in public decision-making and governance. Interns will work closely with a small, interdisciplinary team on this initiative.

  • Applicant(s) should be enrolled as a graduate student (preferred),senior undergraduate, or law student (or have graduated within the last year) with a background or interest in science and technology policy, as well as humanitarian aid, disaster management and/or citizen-based science.
  • Applicants should have strong research and organizational skills, be creative, and be able to work independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced environment. Responsibilities include: conducting qualitative research and policy analysis, writing/editing, compiling a crosscut federal R&D budget for crisis informatics, planning events and workshops, writing blog posts and using social media tools, locating inter-library loan materials, compiling bibliographies, and performing administrative tasks and other duties.
  • Solid writing, research, and computer skills are a must.
  • The summer internship is expected to last for at least three months, with the possibility of extension, from 12 to 35 hours per week with flexible scheduling.  Compensation may be available. Read the rest of this entry »

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EVENT: Integrating Official and Crowdsourced Crisis Information

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Disaster Management, News and Events on April 2, 2012 at 3:13 pm

Dr. Sophia B. Liu

Join us April 9 for a discussion about the opportunities and challenges of integrating official and crowdsourced crisis information based on the response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which was the tipping point for the use of crowdsourcing and social media in the crisis domain. In this talk, Dr. Sophia B. Liu will unpack the different interface challenges at the social, technological, organizational, and political levels. She will also discuss the meaning of “socially distributed curation” and its application to information management in the emergency domain.

Dr. Liu is currently a Mendenhall Postdoctoral research fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey investigating crowdsourced geographic information around earthquakes. She works with Paul Earle, of the National Earthquake Information Center, and Barbara Poore, through the National Geospatial Program and the Core Science Systems strategy. Specifically, Dr. Liu conducts research on the integration of official and crowdsourced geographic information pertaining to earthquakes. In May 2011, she received her PhD from University of Colorado, Boulder in the Technology, Media and Society interdisciplinary program at the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society (ATLAS) Institute. More information on Dr. Liu can be found here.

This event will be held on April 9th from 4:00 – 5:00 pm in the 4th floor conference room of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. This event is free and open to the public. Allow time for routine security procedures. A photo ID is required for entry. To RSVP for this event and to get directions to the Woodrow Wilson Center, please visit here.

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Tweeting in the Dark: How San Diego County Used Social Media During the 2011 Blackout

In Commons Lab, Crowdsourcing, Disaster Management, Governance on March 28, 2012 at 2:53 pm

Shortly before 4 pm on Sept. 8, 2011, the power went out throughout Southern California, western Arizona and northern Mexico, affecting more than 7 million people and bringing metropolitan San Diego to a standstill.

Officials with San Diego County used social media to communicate with residents during the outage and have since been lauded for their ability to effectively disseminate information  — efforts that helped make San Diego County one of the ten most-followed municipalities on Twitter. Indeed, users turned to the the social media service during the outage to share and gather information about the blackout and the response.

Tom Christensen, a communications specialist with San Diego County, coordinates social media activities for several County departments and oversaw the county’s social media communications during the power outage. Christensen, who has been with the county six years, took a few minutes to discuss his experience with Communia.

When did the county first become interested in social media?

The County of San Diego began its social media effort to highlight county programs and services in early 2009. Once that was established, we rolled out Twitter and Facebook accounts for individual county departments and now have 12 Facebook pages and ten Twitter accounts.

In terms of emergency management, we utilize the main county account (@sandiegocounty) and a ReadySanDiego (@readysandiego) account assigned to our Office of Emergency Services. Depending on the emergency situation, we also use our Health and Human Services Agency (@sdcountyhhsa) account and Department of Public Works (@sdcountydpw) account.
Read the rest of this entry »

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