Sharpening America’s Innovative Edge

Sharpening America’s Innovative Edge. Center for Strategic & International Studies. Matthew P. Goodman et al. October 16, 2020

  The CSIS Trade Commission on Affirming American Leadership was created in the summer of 2019 to develop a series of recommendations to cement U.S. global leadership in light of a multitude of twenty-first-century challenges, both at home and abroad. In a series of reports, the commission lays out recommendations for the U.S. workforce, U.S. innovation policy, and U.S. engagement in the international trading system. This report, which is the third of four reports to be released from the commission, focuses on the U.S. innovation policy. This report recommends seven elements of a national technology strategy, organized in three lines of effort: investing in innovation; protecting critical technologies; and championing data governance. If adopted, these recommendations would sharpen the U.S. innovative edge and position the country for long-term leadership. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 48 pages].

Face Recognition Technologies: Designing Systems that Protect Privacy and Prevent Bia

Face Recognition Technologies: Designing Systems that Protect Privacy and Prevent Bias. RAND Corporation. Douglas Yeung et al. May 14, 2020

The objective of face recognition technologies (FRTs) is to efficiently detect and recognize people captured on camera. Although these technologies have many practical security-related purposes, advocacy groups and individuals have expressed apprehensions about their use. The research reported here was intended to highlight for policymakers the high-level privacy and bias implications of FRT systems. In the report, the authors describe privacy as a person’s ability to control information about them. Undesirable bias consists of the inaccurate representation of a group of people based on characteristics, such as demographic attributes. Informed by a literature review, the authors propose a heuristic with two dimensions: consent status (with or without consent) and comparison type (one-to-one or some-to-many). This heuristic can help determine a proposed FRT’s level of privacy and accuracy. The authors then use more in-depth case studies to identify “red flags” that could indicate privacy and bias concerns: complex FRTs with unexpected or secondary use of personal or identifying information; use cases in which the subject does not consent to image capture; lack of accessible redress when errors occur in image matching; the use of poor training data that can perpetuate human bias; and human interpretation of results that can introduce bias and require additional storage of full-face images or video. This report is based on an exploratory project and is not intended to comprehensively introduce privacy, bias, or FRTs. Future work in this area could include examinations of existing systems, reviews of their accuracy rates, and surveys of people’s expectations of privacy in government use of FRTs. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 88 pages].

Is Climate Restoration an Appropriate Climate Policy Goal?

Is Climate Restoration an Appropriate Climate Policy Goal? RAND Corporation.  Robert J. Lempert et al. April 6, 2018

 Since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, society has organized efforts to limit the magnitude of climate change around the concept of stabilization — that is, accepting some climate change but holding it within acceptable bounds. This report offers an initial exploration of the concept of climate restoration — that is, approaches that seek to return atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to preindustrial levels within one to two generations. Using a simple integrated assessment model, the analysis examines climate restoration through the lens of risk management under conditions of deep uncertainty, exploring the technology, economic, and policy conditions under which it might be possible to achieve various climate restoration goals and the conditions under which society might be better off with (rather than without) a climate restoration goal. This report also explores near-term actions that might help manage the risks of climate restoration. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

 [PDF format, 51 pages].

Civic Engagement: How Can Digital Technologies Underpin Citizen-Powered Democracy

Civic Engagement: How Can Digital Technologies Underpin Citizen-Powered Democracy. RAND Corporation. Talitha Dubow et al. October 11, 2017

The report gives an overview of the discussions held as part of an expert consultation on how digital technologies can be used to support citizen-powered democracy. It summarises what participating experts considered the current situation to be, overviews the key benefits and challenges associated with the use of digital technologies in our democracy, and elaborates further on potential strategies for overcoming these challenges. The report also focuses on collective aspirations for the future, and presents the consultation group’s vision of what a digitally-supported citizen-powered democracy might look like, and what the characteristics of such a democracy would be. These include: strengthened transparency and trust in democratic processes; an improved informational environment for civic and political decision-making; and the existence of well-networked, empowered communities. Emerging ideas for what kinds of digital tools might support this vision are described, which includes ideas for the analysis, synthesis and presentation of data. Finally, the report concludes with some overarching reflections on the consultation discussions, focusing in particular on the role of different actors and stakeholders in contributing to this vision. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 25 pages, 296.93 KB].

Digital Learning: Education and Skills in the Digital Age

Digital Learning: Education and Skills in the Digital Age. RAND Corporation. Sarah Grand-Clement et al. October 11, 2017.

The report gives an overview of an expert consultation on the role and future of education and skills in the digital world. It looks at which skills are important and necessary to undertake the different types of jobs available, and what skills we need to be thinking of developing now and in the future. It explores how we ensure that people are not left out of the digital age and have access to education on digital skills. It looks at how we think about formal education and how our thinking needs to evolve with the increasing adoption of digital tools and technologies, particularly among the younger generation. The report proposes a preliminary framework to ensure an inclusive education in an increasingly digital world and suggests roles for different stakeholders to ensure that this becomes a reality. The consultation highlighted the important role of government and industry in encouraging the greater use of digital technologies in learning. However, it also recognises that the future should not be driven by technology. The report notes that role of the educator is not diminished by the increased adoption of digital technologies, with it being seen as an effective tool to make learning more adaptive and flexible. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 23 pages, 316.14 KB].

Open Science: The Citizen’s Role in and Contribution to Research

Open Science: The Citizen’s Role in and Contribution to Research. RAND Corporation. Anna Knack. October 11, 2017.

The report synthesises the results of an expert consultation on ‘citizen science,’ which refers to the range of contributions citizens make to scientific research. It investigates definitions of citizen science and dissects the benefits and challenges that citizen science poses across the spectrum of stakeholders involved in citizen science activity. The report then illustrates the results of a future vision-building exercise and explores the critical role that digital technology plays in enabling participants’ future vision of citizen science and addressing the various challenges. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 23 pages, 319.11 KB].

Fostering Innovation in U.S. Law Enforcement: Identifying High-Priority Technology and Other Needs for Improving Law Enforcement Operations and Outcomes

Fostering Innovation in U.S. Law Enforcement: Identifying High-Priority Technology and Other Needs for Improving Law Enforcement Operations and Outcomes. RAND Corporation. John S. Hollywood et al. August 30, 2017.

The National Institute of Justice tasked RAND to host a panel of law enforcement experts to identify high-priority needs for innovation in law enforcement, covering advances in technology, policy, and practice. The needs discussed in this report can help prioritize research, development, and dissemination efforts in ways that will provide the greatest value to law enforcement practitioners.

The panel identified four top findings. First, there is a need to improve practitioners’ knowledge of available research and technology, starting with a central knowledge repository and research on how to improve dissemination and training methods. Second, there is a need for practices and technologies to improve police-community relations, both to improve encounters with the public and to improve community relations more broadly. Third, there is a need to improve the sharing and use of information in a range of ways. These include means to get crime analysis capabilities to all agencies (including small and disadvantaged agencies), software development to reduce information overload, and model proposal and contract language to make systems interoperable. Fourth, there is a need to reduce backlogs in forensic processing; panelists suggested broadening U.S. Department of Justice forensic grants outside of DNA to help address the backlogs.

Additional high-priority needs included further development of policies and use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles, best practices for selecting and using personal gear, and improving defenses against active shooters. The latter included improving both suspicious activity reporting processes and efforts to educate the public on responding to an active shooter. There is also a need for a review of technologies that might improve officers’ health. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 152 pages, 1.61 MB].

Civic Engagement: How Can Digital Technology Encourage Greater Engagement in Civil Society?

Civic Engagement: How Can Digital Technology Encourage Greater Engagement in Civil Society? RAND Corporation. Talitha Dubow, Axelle Devaux, Catriona Manville. August 7, 2017.

This Perspective explores the potential impacts that digital technologies may have on the nature of civic engagement and political processes, providing an overview of the ways in which digital platforms and tools may contribute to strengthening a more inclusive civil society, and highlighting the significant risks posed by the use of these technologies. The authors argue that these risks must be properly understood and addressed if democratic society is to benefit from continuing innovation in this space. This Perspective is part of a series of four exploring the opportunities and challenges that digital technologies are creating within society ahead of the 2017 Thought Leadership programme at St George’s House, Windsor which has been designed and delivered by RAND Europe in conjunction with the Corsham Institute. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 11 pages, 133.31 KB].