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New Publication

This piece was originally posted on the blog site of the United Nations World Data Forum. Read the original piece by Stefaan Verhulst (The GovLab), Eugenia Olliaro (UNICEF), Danzhen You (UNICEF), Estrella Lajom (UNICEF) and Daniel Shephard (NORRAG) here.   Issues surrounding children and data are rarely given the thoughtful and dedicated attention they deserve. An increasingly large amount of data is being collected about children, often without a framework to determine whether those data are used responsibly. At the same time, even as the volume of data increases, there remain substantial areas of missing data when it comes to children. This is especially true for children on the move and those who have been marginalized by conflict, displacement, or environmental disasters. There is also a risk that patterns of data collection mirror existing forms of exclusion, thereby perpetuating inequalities that exist along, for example, dimensions of indigeneity and gender. This year’s World Data Forum, to be held in Hangzhou, China, offers an opportunity to unpack these challenges and consider solutions, such as through new forms of partnerships. The Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative offers one important model for such a partnership. Formed between The GovLab and UNICEF, the initiative seeks to produce guidance, tools, and leadership to support the responsible handling of data for and about children across the globe. It addresses the unique vulnerabilities that face children, identifying shortcomings in the existing data ecology and pointing toward some possible solutions. The issues considered by RD4C are vital for data practitioners, and embody the conference’s theme of supporting innovation and partnership for better and more inclusive data. The initiative’s core principles, developed through field visits and rigorous desk research, emphasize the need for organizations to be participatory, engaging and informing those affected by data use, as well as people-centric, thereby ensuring the needs and rights of children, their caregivers, and their communities are prioritized by those handling data. RD4C also embodies the Summit’s call for building trust and ethics in data, urging organizations to be professionally accountable, prevent harm across the data lifecycle, and work to protect children’s rights. Through these principles, RD4C highlights and supports best practices around the world, develops tools to help practitioners operate ethically, and enables the use of data effectively in a manner that acknowledges the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders within a data system. The International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC), launched in 2020, offers another key model for partnership and innovation. It seeks to address the urgent data needs of one of the world’s most vulnerable groups of children – those who have migrated or been displaced. Worldwide, there exist an estimated 35.5 million international migrant children and 36.5 million children who have been displaced by conflict and violence. Many face severe risks and deprivation, yet are commonly missed in data collection efforts, and remain all but absent in social statistics. Reasons for these shortcomings include a lack of political will, a shortage of technical capacity and human and financial resources, and a failure of coordination across the national statistical system. Through its cross-sectoral membership – representing UN agencies and other international organizations, NGOs, think tanks, academic experts, and member states – IDAC acts as a voice for these children. Guided by its joint Secretariat (UNICEF, IOM, UNHCR, OECD and Eurostat), IDAC provides a platform to gather all concerned stakeholders to discuss challenges and to co-create tools and public goods aimed at strengthening foundational data and social statistics on migrant and displaced populations. The initiative is driven by a conviction that the surest way to leave no child behind is through collective innovative data solutions, forged collaboratively among all stakeholders. NORRAG’s Missing Data Project was launched in 2021 to bring academics, policymakers, and practitioners together to discuss the gaps in the global education system that risk hampering progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals related to education. The project has identified gaps in terms of uses of data, types of data, and groups of people. Across these missing uses, types, and groups of education data – two gaps were highlighted related to gender and indigeneity. Two partnerships provide examples of how to begin addressing these persistent gaps that continue to affect children globally. Partnerships are key to addressing these two education data gaps that are rooted in historical repression. Such partnerships should be led by affected communities themselves and engage stakeholders at all levels of the education system to address persistent gaps in data collection, use, and governance. For data on gender and education, the Accountability for Gender Equality in Education (AGEE) project is developing an innovative indicator framework for gender equality in education through a series of critical participatory discussions with youth advocacy groups, civil society organizations, academia, and government entities. These discussions have provided insight into what constitutes gender inequality in education in different contexts and what data should be prioritized. The AGEE project is led by a partnership between University College London’s Institute of Education, University of Kwazulu-Natal, University of Malawi, and the University of East Anglia. For data on education and indigenous peoples, Indigenous Peoples from multiple countries collectively developed the Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics (CARE) principles for good Indigenous Data Governance in 2019. Indigenous Data Governance and Sovereignty are foundational for addressing persistent gaps in education data for Indigenous Peoples. The enactment of such principles by indigenous leadership provides a path forward to ensure that data for the education of Indigenous children represents their worldviews, priorities, values, and cultures. In conclusion, the importance of utilizing data for and about children responsibly cannot be overstated, and the World Data Forum plays a critical role in promoting this objective. Our session focused on “Data and Children: gaps, opportunities, and responsibilities (TA1.32, Tuesday, 25 April 2023 at 15.00) seeks to review progress made and focus on the crucial role partnerships play in enhancing the quality, availability, and use of data related to children. Such partnerships are essential for ensuring data is leveraged to address the complex challenges that children face, from poverty and malnutrition to lack of access to education and healthcare in a responsible and systematic way. Ultimately, the success of efforts to improve the lives of children worldwide hinges on the continued attention and investment in data-driven solutions, and events like the WDF are instrumental in advancing this crucial work.

Event

This piece was originally publushed on The GovLab's Data Stewards Network.   Data Privacy Day is an international event celebrated every 28 January to “create awareness about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data, and enabling trust.” Through it, we are reminded just how valuable our data is and the obligation that organizations have to handle it responsibly, ethically, and in accordance with individuals’ rights. The GovLab (one of the partners operating RD4C with UNICEF) has published countless pieces on data privacy and how it is an essential component of data responsibility. To support the conversations happening around the world about this issue, we would like to highlight several publications that we consider especially relevant:   Reports: The #Data4COVID19 Review: Assessing the Use of Non-Traditional Data During a Pandemic Crisis: This report, produced with the support of The Knight Foundation, describes the use of non-traditional data from private sources during the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece seeks to unpack some of the challenges around this data, which can include sensitive information, and some of the ways that organizations can mitigate those risks and bolster public trust in their work. New Brief Released: What Is Mobility Data? Where Is It Used?: This brief—which accompanied the release of the report “The Use of Mobility Data for Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic” by The GovLab, Cuebiq, and the Open Data Institute—briefly explains the different types of mobility data and the data privacy implications of them. The goal is to help policymakers better use mobility data while addressing arguments that they could facilitate surveillance. Blogs: Selected Readings on Data Governance: This second piece from our Selected Readings series builds on the knowledge base on improving data governance. While focused on effectiveness and legitimacy, it includes several pieces that explain how approaches that mitigate privacy risks can improve projects and bolster opinion of them. Selected Readings on Personal Data: Security and Use: This piece of our Selected Readings series provides an annotated and curated collection of pieces on personal data. It provides several articles that explain how organizations can promote privacy by design, describe the factors involved in the governance of online personal data, and offer recommendations for data (re)use. The GovLab Index: Privacy and Security: This blog is a series of statistics on privacy and security. It describes public attitudes toward their privacy rights in the United States and globally as well as the kinds of privacy-related behaviors people engage in. Digital Self-Determination Studio Series: In collaboration with the Big Data for Migration Alliance and the International Digital Self Determination (DSD) Network, The GovLab hosted a studio series aimed to unpack what the concept of DSD could mean for migrants and principles for their implementation–emphasizing privacy and personal data protections. Essays, Papers, and Articles: Reimagining data responsibility: 10 new approaches toward a culture of trust in re-using data to address critical public needs:  This article by Stefaan Verhulst in Data & Policy looks at the risk around data science and explores ways to address problems such as data privacy. It outlines 10 approaches and innovations for data responsibility in the 21st century, including end-to-end data responsibility; decision provenance; professionalized data stewardship; and group privacy. Corporate Social Responsibility for a Data Age: Published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, this piece by Stefaan Verhulst argues that data can help improve and safe lives but that harnessing it requires a transformation in how companies, governments, and other organizations operate. It emphasizes the importance of robust data protection, citing several prominent cases of data misuse. Operationalizing Digital Self Determination: In this article, Stefaan argues that data, when used responsibly, can offer new opportunities for the public good. However, this potential is limited by data asymmetries, information, and agency asymmetries that limit human potential. As one solution to rebalancing asymmetries that Stefaan provides is to look at alternative consent mechanisms, including those based around “post-consent privacy." How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the GDPR: This guest piece by Ariane Adam in the Data Stewards Network describes the impact of the European Union’s GDPR regulation on open data. Despite concerns that the legislation would prevent the release of data in the name of privacy, the author argues that GDPR “can not only assist in promoting consumer confidence and therefore business growth, but also enable organisations to safely open and share important and valuable datasets. Tools: Data Responsibility Journey: The Data Responsibility Journey for Data Collaboratives is an assessment tool that outlines the opportunities and risks to consider at each stage of the data lifecycle when implementing a data collaborative. It describes several ways that organizations can promote the data rights and data privacy of data subjects. Responsible Data for Children Principles: These principles, produced as part of The GovLab’s collaboration with UNICEF, describe the ways in which  governments, communities, and development actors can put child rights at the center of their data activities. The principles of “Prevention of Harms Across the Data Lifecycle” and Protective of Children’s Rights” remind organizations of the unique vulnerabilities around data about children. “Professionally Accountable” reinforces the need to provide mechanisms for redress should violations occur. More information on privacy challenges can be found in RD4C’s tools and case studies. *** These pieces are only a segment of our work overall on data ethics and data responsibility. As we go about encouraging organizations to prioritize data responsibility and data rights in line with the Third Wave of Open Data, we encourage you to follow us at the Data Stewards Network and Open Data Policy Lab.

New Publication

This September, the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative traveled to Uganda for its first-ever studio series to promote the responsible handling of data for and about children. Supported by UNHCR and UNICEF’s Blueprint for Joint Action, itself a commitment to accelerate efforts in line with the Global Compact on Refugees, the studios brought together national and community leaders and others to diagnose data challenges affecting the management of mental health and psychosocial services in refugee settlements in Uganda and develop new solutions to more responsibly and effectively manage data. After posting several shorter reflections on this work on its blog site, RD4C is excited today to announce the release of a full report of its activities. “Responsible Data for Refugee Children in Uganda: Improving Data Systems for Mental Health and Psychosocial Services Through A Studio Series” provides an overview of RD4C’s work over the course of a week, major reflections on the state of data responsibility in Uganda, and recommendations co-developed with UNICEF and UNHCR in Uganda, government officials, community representatives, and refugees themselves. Overview of Events The report begins with several sections: an introduction; an overview of the context in Uganda; an explanation of the field research. These parts of the report provide an explanation of the Responsible Data for Children initiative and the reason for the studio series. With over 1.5 million refugees —over half of which are children—Uganda is the third-largest refugee-hosting country in the world and the largest refugee hosting country in Africa. Many of these refugees report experiencing psychological distress and face challenges in accessing Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support (MHPSS), especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic which has exacerbated the need for MHPSS amongst refugees and host communities. Responding to these circumstances and a long-standing commitment by the Government of Uganda and UNICEF and UNHCR in Uganda to improve mental health and psychosocial services for refugee children in the country, RD4C hosted a series of workshops and focus groups. RD4C structured these engagements—held with national leaders, service providers, adolescent refugees, and others—as conversations around the Data Lifecycle. An abstraction that explains the opportunities and challenges in how data is translated from insight into action, the lifecycle includes several parts:  Planning: Defining specific objectives of a data activity; Collection: Gathering data directly from the field or collating it; Processing: Removing irrelevant or inaccurate information; Sharing: Exchanging data and other information with relevant collaborators; Analyzing: Assessing the data to extract insights; Using: Acting on the insights derived. Figure: The Stages of the Data Lifecycle The studios also made use of the Responsible Data for Children Principles as a guide for the discussion. Speaking on the value of being Participatory, Professionally Accountable, People-Centric, Preventative of Harms, Proportional, Protective of Children’s Rights, and Purpose-Driven, RD4C encouraged participants to think critically and creatively about the challenges they face and ways to address them. Findings UNICEF and UNHCR staff go through participant's inputs on the data lifecycle Through discussions facilitated in Kampala, Isingiro, and the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, the participants were able to identify major needs at each stage of the data lifecycle. These needs ranged from challenges in planning—including the need for coordination and cohesion at the national and district level—and collection—including a desire to make use of a unique identifier for each child. Participants spoke about the need for a common taxonomy and common tools during discussions on processing and the importance of exploratory and descriptive analysis in the analysis phase. In all, the discussions surface 17 major findings about data’s use to address mental health and psychosocial services in Uganda’s refugee settlements. RD4C and UNICEF and UNHCR Uganda discussed these points and validated the issues raised. Together, the partners sought to identify three of these findings to further pursue over the next 3–6 months.   Solutions and Recommendations On Friday, 23 September, RD4C and its partners, UNICEF and UNHCR, hosted its final workshop focused on ideating solutions to the most pressing challenges identified in the previous studios, interviews, and community focus groups. After some internal deliberation and validating the decision with the studio participants, the partners identified the following three priorities as being the most important and feasible to address: The Need for a Taxonomy for MHPSS Data: How can data be more consistently categorized, collected, analyzed, stored and used, particularly one that distinguishes mental health from psychosocial wellbeing in a useful fashion? The Value of a Data Catalog and Directory: How can MHPSS service providers datasets be accessed, used or reused more responsibly as per the principles of responsible data for children and requirements around personal data protection? Responsible Data Governance: How can data be more responsibly managed to promote the rights and welfare of child refugees?  Through structured brainstorming, studio participants identified several ways to address these needs that made use of existing resources and capacities. For achieving a taxonomy, for example, participants focused on engaging the existing MHPSS working group to coordinate service provider organizations. For creating a data catalog, the discussion focused on using an ongoing process by the Ministry of Gender Labour & Social Development to conduct a comprehensive data needs assessment. For data governance, meanwhile, participants thought an expert group composed of existing practitioners could help identify best practices. *** More information on each of these elements can be found in the report, available here. We will be checking in with our colleagues in Uganda in several months to see how the results of this work have been deployed and what progress has been made. In the meanwhile, we encourage anyone interested in this work to contact us at [email protected]. 

New Publication

The Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative—a collaboration between The GovLab and UNICEF to promote the more responsible handling of data for and about children—has spent much of 2022 developing ways to socialize and operationalize the principles that put the best interests of children and a child rights approach at the center of our data activities.. From publishing new case studies that provide detail on what a responsible data approach looks like in action  to supporting UNICEF and UNHCR country offices in helping them implement a responsible data for children approach to their operations to expanding its offerings in different languages, we’ve sought to help organizations understand what responsible data for children means and how they can realize it in their day-to-day operations.  Today, RD4C is continuing this work with self-guided training. Based on the tutorials offered to UNICEF staff in early 2022, these slides are a resource for organizations seeking to understand ways to operationalize the RD4C principles and implement the RD4C tools. It dives into each principle—Participatory; Professionally Accountable; People-Centric; Preventative of Harms Across the Data Lifecycle; Proportional; Protective of Children’s Rights; and Purpose-Driven. It provides real-life examples from the field about how they can be realized in practice as well as explanations of how different tools can help organizations in this goal. It closes with a handful of discussion questions that can be used by organizations to think about these issues. Organizations interested in sharing their experience with these slides can contact the RD4C at [email protected]. For those of you who would like to view the tutorials, a recording is now available on our YouTube page.

Event

On 15 November, the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) team participated in the Abu Dhabi Child Data Symposium 2022 organised by Abu Dhabi’s Early Childhood Authority (ECA). ECA has used the RD4C resources to ensure their integrated data system handles early childhood development (ECD) data responsibly.  In many ways, life is a story and early childhood sets its tone. It is an essential first chapter in a powerful book, one critical to providing strong and equal foundations to children's lives.  Ensuring every child has the best possible start in life, however, entails understanding a child as a whole. To do so, ECD actors from sectors such as health, education, nutrition and child protection need to bring together all the pieces of information they have on a specific child's overall growth, development and well-being, regardless of the services they receive. Once these bits of data are integrated responsibly, data has the potential to generate actionable insights on children's needs and drive targeted public interventions.  It is in this spirit that ECA has recently launched the Abu Dhabi Child Insights System Program. With the cross-sectoral data obtained, ECA seeks to generate two types of insights:  macro-level insights to understand state-wide ECD challenges and develop informed policies for the Emirate; and micro-level targeted insights identifying children in need and enhancing the day-to-day support offered by practitioners.   With this two-pronged approach, ECA hopes to maximise the use of data and optimise child development and wellbeing. Because integrated data systems allow the collection, processing, sharing, analysis, and use of information from many ECD programmes, they can generate risks to the children whose data has been captured. Even if aggregated and anonymised, data can pose risks related to the re-identification of children (mosaic theory), or to demographic and group privacy. ECA has used the RD4C resources to design the Child Insights System responsibly, in alignment with the RD4C principles, to ensure the interests of the child are prioritised and the risks of using their data are mitigated.  In particular, the Child Insights System is participatory and professionally accountable:  The Child Insights System aggregates multiple administrative data sets and involves key government agencies. These actors jointly assess the trends and act upon the outcomes with coordinated measures. This participatory approach ensures that all relevant actors receive the same insights and are aligned on how to enhance children's well-being.  Access is limited to accredited users on the basis of criteria such as the user's documented experience of handling sensitive data; or the user's completion of Government credentials on data governance. Access is also reviewed and revoked on a needs basis. By developing clearance mechanisms and hands-on training, ECA relies on responsible and professionally accountable practices. To design its own responsible ecosystem, ECA also aims to learn from international ECD examples. The insightful examples from Children’s Data Network (USA), Centre for Social Data Analytics (New Zealand) and Allegheny County's Department of Human Services (USA), showed how integrated administrative data systems can be built responsibly and how their insights can be leveraged to inform decision-making at programme and policy levels.  In the next months, the RD4C team will conduct an assessment of ECA’s best practices and release a RD4C case study. The emerging collaboration between ECA and RD4C is an opportunity to shed light on government-led RD4C practices in the region and on the importance of responsible data systems from the early stages of life.   [Image credit: Piero Olliaro]

World Mental Health Day

October 10th is World Mental Health Day, an international effort coordinated by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world. Essential to this work is reaching out to children and adolescents and other vulnerable groups that may experience mental distress. Indeed, while half of all mental conditions manifest by early adolescence, there remains little data of the issues they face or an understanding of how data can inform efforts to respond to mental health. As the Responsible Data for Children team returns from a week of work on the mental health and psychosocial challenges facing refugee children in Uganda, we feel it essential to step back and think about how we might map the larger field of child and adolescent mental health in a way that helps data-driven professionals prioritize topics. In 2020, The GovLab undertook just this effort. Supported by the UNICEF’s Health and HIV team in the Division of Data, Analysis, Planning & Monitoring and the Data for Children Collaborative, The GovLab hosted two virtual workshops and coordinated with over 70 experts from around the world to understand what might be included in a constitute a consensus-based data and research agenda for adolescent mental health. The agenda focused on: Systems-level aspects of mental health, how adolescent mental health affects and is affected by laws, power structures, and technological innovations; Community-level aspects of mental health, how adolescent mental health affects and is affected by norms, attitudes, behaviors, and practices of society; and Individual and family-level aspects of mental health, referring to the effect adolescent mental health has on individual people. Read the full-size map here. We invite you to look through this topic map, linked above, or through our prior blog post or open-access research article explaining this agenda more in-depth. We believe this topic map provides a model for understanding the variety of challenges that adolescents face and can be used to inform data-driven research on the topic.

RD4C Uganda

On 23 September, 2022, the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative hosted a third and final studio in Kampala, Uganda. The studio was part of a series of studios and focus group discussions that the initiative hosted in Uganda to identify opportunities and challenges with data systems that could be acted upon to improve child refugee mental health and provide psychosocial services.  After identifying the major themes of the first two studios, the Responsible Data for Children team, supported by UNICEF and UNHCR Uganda, presented its findings in Kampala to a collection of national officials. The presentation focused on three  short-term priorities:, (1) taxonomy for MHPSS data, (2) data catalog and directory, and (3) responsible data governance.  This presentation was meant to be the prompt for an extended discussion on ways that participants could act to improve the data system affecting child refugees in the next three to six months. Subsequently, participants deliberated on the different priorities, discussing ways to address the needs identified. After dividing into three breakout groups, the participants arrived at a few solutions. The Need for a Taxonomy for MHPSS Data  Participants highlighted that a first, fundamental step was to develop a common taxonomy for MHPSS data by bringing together the already existing MHPSS refugee working groups along with practitioners in the field with direct experience with refugee children. By bringing these groups together, leaders could collectively set standards and criteria for mental health and psychosocial needs. After agreeing on standards collectively within the working group, participants emphasized the importance of the participating leaders socializing these standards within their own organizations. Only by implementing these standards and definitions internally could they become common practice. Next, once the standards and criteria for categorization are defined, the working group emphasized how all professionals working with refugee children and MHPSS should receive training to adequately and effectively categorize the data they gather. The group focused particularly on teachers and all other professionals who might make “first contact” with a child suffering from distress. Finally, participants encouraged the working group to develop and disseminate a checklist for everyone working in the field to have one standard basis to refer to. Although many check-lists already exist, these could be gathered and merged into a single standard for every actor to adopt. The Value of a Data Catalog and Directory  Participants argued for mapping the data lifecycle and the different actors involved to understand who does what, both formally and informally. This mapping, participants noted, could support accountability by identifying lines of authority and helping participants design coordination strategies around the handling of MHPSS data for and about refugee children.  Participants noted that the main actors involved in the mapping effort could be the Ministry of Health, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Gender and Labour, the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics, as well as UNHCR and UNICEF and Civil Society Organizations (at national and local levels). Participants took an expansive view of stakeholder involvement, seeking to include all those with a relevant role in the current system. As a first step, participants suggested tasking the existing MHPSS working groups to lead this mapping.  The Importance of Responsible Data Governance  Participants reaffirmed the importance for a common data governance framework that can be adopted and implemented across government and service providers. Toward that end the participants focused on what it would take to develop a manual or standard operating procedures around MHPSS governance.  Among the topics such a manual would cover include managing access to data; storage and security of data; quality, reliability and validity of data;  among other areas. To advance the creation of such a manual, the participants suggested the creation of a dedicated expert group that could compare best practices and present a draft to the MHPSS working group in the short term. ***   These are just a few reflections from our final studio. In October we will publish a more comprehensive and in-depth field report, to illustrate everything undercovered during Responsible Data for Children’s visit to Uganda. For more information on the Initiative, visit our website or reach out at [email protected].       PHOTO LEFT: Participants deliberate during Studio 1 in Kampala. PHOTO RIGHT: Participants deliberate during Studio 2 in Isingiro.

RD4C Uganda

On 19 and 21 September, 2022, the Responsible Data for Children team hosted studios in Uganda. These meetings sought input from national officials and local service providers into their attitude toward the data systems in Uganda affecting child refugee mental health and psychosocial services.  Using a data lifecycle approach—a model that tracks the development of a data initiative from planning through collection, processing, sharing, analyzing, and use of data—participants across the two days described what they saw as the major opportunities and challenges affecting Uganda’s data systems. Guided by the RD4C Principles, they described the various ways that data did and did not support the well-being of child refugees. On Thursday, the team reflected on these meetings in coordination with UNICEF and UNHCR Uganda. After reviewing what the different participants focused on, the team identified several takeaways spanning the data lifecycle. However, four short-term priorities stood out among the rest: Streamlined Decision-Making: Participants indicated they would benefit from a map of who takes decisions on what to promote a more unified approach to the mental health and psychosocial needs of children. Without this map, participants found it difficult to work with one another or to even know who to contact. In the words of one participant, “it can take a lot of coordination to get all of us organizations together.” The Need for a Taxonomy for MHPSS Data: Several participants expressed concerns that data is often cataloged differently by different organizations and that it has varying levels of quality, which could make analyses difficult. One participant noted, “When we talk about processes and standards [...] most organizations work in different silos where data is only collected to donor requirements.” The Value of a Data Catalog and Directory: Organizations could benefit from better understanding who is collecting what data, when, and for what purposes (as well as the leaders responsible) to avoid duplication and re-traumatizing children. The current lack of awareness meant that organizations often engaged in duplicative projects that could lead to refugee children having to provide the same data multiple times. Responsible Data Governance: Finally, the team noted one issue that did not come up explicitly in the discussions: data governance. There are ways to manage risks when using MHPSS data for refugee children by developing agreements for data sharing, guaranteeing group consent and participation, expanding protections, and addressing data biases. Trying to identify what is needed to promote the rights and protection of child refugees is essential so that participants don’t, as in the words of one participant, “collect data as much as possible for whatever purpose [I need].” *** These are only a few of the reflections that emerged from the first two studios. Tomorrow, we’ll share reflections on how participants used these takeaways in the final studio to generate ideas that can improve mental health and psychosocial service data systems in Uganda. Stay tuned for these insights and contact us at [email protected] for more information.     PHOTO LEFT: Mr Kato Freeman from the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development provides opening remarks  during Studio 1 in Kampala. PHOTO RIGHT: Participants deliberate during Studio 2 in Isingiro.

RD4C Uganda

In previous blogs, we’ve spoken about how the Responsible Data for Children initiative has been speaking to officials with UNICEF and UNHCR Uganda, the Government of Uganda, medical professionals, and various national level stakeholders to identify opportunities and challenges with data systems that could be acted upon to improve child refugee mental health and provide psychosocial services. You can find highlights of these conversations on the RD4C site. Today, the RD4C team supported by UNICEF and UNHCR Uganda explored how different data systems are used by organizations throughout the country to respond to refugee needs. In Isingiro, the team hosted a studio workshop with implementing organizations, regional leaders, and representatives of government. The discussion revealed critical issues, which we will highlight in a blog tomorrow, about the ways in which data can support the mental health and psychosocial well-being of refugee children. As one participant noted, “Data is key because you cannot support what you don’t know.” After the studio, the team then traveled to Nakivale, a refugee settlement in the southwest near the Democratic Republic of Congo border. In focus group settings, we then spoke with mental health and psychosocial service village health teams, child protection committee members, and adolescent refugees themselves. These conversations allowed the team to understand how child refugee mental health is understood by those directly responsible for identifying and responding to cases as well as those affected by data systems.  Tomorrow, we will provide reflections on our first two studios in anticipation for our final ideation studio on Friday. We hope you will stay tuned for these insights or contact us at [email protected] for more information.   * Cover image by Roman Nguyen/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

RD4C Uganda

Yesterday, with the support of UNHCR, the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative, a collaboration between UNICEF and The GovLab to promote more responsible and effective management of data for and about children, hosted its first studio with national-level decision-makers in Kampala to understand how data can be better used to improve refugee mental health and provide psychosocial services. Highlights of the event will be shared shortly. Today, the RD4C team joined by UNICEF and UNHCR Uganda arrived in the city of Mbarara to expand this solicitation to the field. We hope to solicit the ideas and opinions of stakeholders responsible for implementing data systems as well as designing them—particularly those who work directly with groups most affected by these data systems. Since its arrival in the city, the team has had constructive discussions with the Office of the Prime Minister Regional Office, UNHCR leadership, and officials at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital about child refugee children’s mental health and the ways that data can support them. Indeed, Dr. Godfrey Zari Rukundo, Head of Department of Psychiatry of the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital spoke, at length about the challenges he encounters. He noted, “I wish we had more data on the state of mental health among children and adolescents nationwide.” This data could be used to compare progress across regions and identify good practices to complex mental health challenges. We will be excited to receive further insights on the value and challenges facing data systems tomorrow when we travel to the refugee settlement in Isingiro to meet with community stakeholders, volunteers, and adolescents themselves. Stay tuned as we uncover more about the data ecosystem for child refugees in Uganda. You can also contact us at [email protected] for more information.   * Image by bill wegener/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

RD4C Uganda

With over 1.5 million refugees, Uganda is the third-largest refugee-hosting country in the world and the largest refugee host country in Africa. Over half of these refugees are children while an additional 23 percent are women above 18 years old. Many of these refugees report experiencing psychological distress and face challenges in accessing Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support (MHPSS). Indeed, the UNHCR estimates that 22 percent of refugee households reported at least one member was in psychological distress or scared. Many of these individuals were children. It’s for these reasons that the Responsible Data for Children initiative—a collaboration between UNICEF and The GovLab to promote more responsible and effective management of data for and about children—saw a common lines of interest to support the Government, UNICEF, and UNHCR in Uganda. Supported by UNHCR and UNICEF’s Blueprint for Joint Action, itself a commitment to accelerate efforts in line with the Global Compact on Refugees, RD4C has embarked on an exciting studio series work with local leaders to diagnose data challenges affecting refugee settlements in Uganda and develop new solutions to more responsibly and effectively manage data. From 19 through 22 September our staff are on the ground to meet with government officials, the heads of NGOs, community leaders, and refugee children themselves to find ways to improve MHPSS data systems in line with the RD4C Principles. Studio Goals Over the last few months, the RD4C team participated in interviews and meetings with practitioners involved in supporting refugee mental health and providing psychosocial services. These discussions have revealed much about how the refugee system in Uganda operates and what are the priorities for those organizations involved in managing them.  In its fact-finding work, RD4C has found that local leaders are most concerned with three basic challenges that will form the basis of its studios: Barriers limiting children’s access to data-driven services Barriers to responsible data use and reuse by organizations involved in providing MHPSS for refugee children; and Difficulties in connecting and harmonizing existing data sources—including those generated through cases, surveys, and Inter-Agency Feedback, Referrals, and Resolution Mechanisms and other MHPSS programme interventions.   Over the next few days, we’ll seek to understand what specific challenges are related to these issues and what opportunities might exist to address them in such a way as to improve their access and effectiveness.   Approach and Methodology We’ll do this by hosting three studio workshops to map common challenges and concerns and prototype a pathway forward to address these challenges through the lens of the RD4C principles.  In particular, we will host (a) one workshop with senior Ugandan government officials, (b) a second workshop with field practitioners and adolescents, and (c) a final workshop guided by the outputs of the prior engagements. In parallel to these workshops, we will host focus groups and consultations with local leaders and adolescent refugee children affected by these systems. The participation of all these partners and stakeholders will be critical.  To organize their involvement, RD4C will rely on the Data Lifecycle—an abstraction that explains the opportunities and challenges in how data is translated from insight and into action. This includes: PLANNING: Defining objectives and partnerships and designing an implementation strategy. COLLECTION: Gathering data from surveys, censuses, voting or health records, business operations, web-based collections, and other relevant, accessible sources.  PROCESSING: Removing irrelevant or inaccurate information, reformatting contents to be interpretable by an analytic software, and otherwise validating the data collection.  SHARING: Accessing data with relevant collaborators to derive insights from it.  ANALYZING: Assessing the data collection to extract insights about the issue as well as creating a loop for (re)sharing processed data and data insights among appropriate parties.  USING: Acting on insights derived. Actions can affect data collected for future operations. The conclusion of all these activities will be a summary report of the studios, a set of principles for staff to follow on MHPSS for child refugees, and a plan of action on how to embed responsible data for children concepts into refugee and host community service delivery systems. *** We hope you will stay tuned over the next few days as we publish our thoughts and reflections on all this work. We will be updating our partners throughout the week and posting various blogs that you can find on our RD4C blog site and Data Stewards Network. You can also contact us at [email protected] for more information.     * Cover photo by bill wegener/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

New Publication

In 2018, UNICEF and The GovLab launched the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative with the aim of supporting organisations and practitioners in ensuring that the interest of children is put at the centre of any work involving data for and about them. Since its inception, the RD4C initiative has aimed to be field-oriented, driven by the needs of both children and practitioners across sectors and contexts. It has done so by ensuring that actors from the data responsibility sphere are informed and engaged on the RD4C work. We want them to know what responsible data for and about children entails, why it is important, and how they can realize it in their own work. In this spirit, the RD4C initiative has started translating its resources into different languages. We would like anyone willing to enhance their responsible data handling practices for and about children to be equipped with resources they can understand. As a global effort, we want to guarantee anyone willing to share their expertise and contribute be given the opportunity to do it. Importantly, we would like children around the world—including the most marginalised and vulnerable groups—to be aware of what they can expect from organisations handling data for and about them and to have the means to demand and enforce their rights. Last month, we released the RD4C Video, which is now available in Arabic, French and Spanish. Soon, the rest of the RD4C resources, such as our principles, tools and case studies will be translated as well. We are always looking for data savvy people who can review our translations. Please let us know if you have the background and motivation to translate RD4C resources into a new language to expand the initiative’s reach. We welcome your comment at [email protected].

World Refugee Day

Nearly half of the forcibly displaced people are children.[1] From birth, a growing number of uprooted children (whether refugee, displaced and migrant children), like many children around the globe, have their entire lives datafied. They are among a new generation of people whose information is regularly collected.[2] Organisations providing services to refugees, including children, rely on a variety of technologies and digital tools to provide services. These include biometrics that verify identities using unique physiological characteristics (such as fingerprints, iris and facial features) and ensure that refugees’ personal identities cannot be lost or subject to identity theft. Or messaging-based services and chatbots, sometimes including a level of artificial intelligence, to provide advice and psychosocial support. This data can help organisations provide better services. When the right data are in the right hands at the right time, decisions can be better informed, more equitable, and more likely to protect children's rights—especially for those in vulnerable contexts such as uprooted children. While crisis and conflict drive more children to travel alone,[3] little is known about unaccompanied children. Data could help identify and support them so they are not left behind. It has already proven integral for child protection work around the globe—such as helping children in Mozambique displaced by Cyclones Idai and Kenneth.[4] However, the data handled for and about refugee children can generate risks. Uprooted children have lived traumatic events. Driven from their homes by conflict, poverty, or climate change, they can also encounter danger, detention, deprivation, and discrimination on their journeys, at destination or upon return.[5] Organisations asking children to provide data or register for services may revisit such trauma when collecting data, especially if repeatedly conducted in an uncoordinated manner. Data breaches containing information on refugee children’ can cause children to lose trust in institutions that deliver essential services including lifesaving supplies or have severe retribution if they or their families ever return to their country of birth. What is urgently needed, is responsible data. Responsible Data for Children Refugee children should be more actively engaged and informed on what the data collected about them is going to be used for. Their specific and distinctive needs, interests and expectations should be recognised and prioritised in programmes involving and supporting them. Recognising that refugee, migrant and displaced children as children first and foremost—with rights to protection, development and participation[6] , includes recognising that collecting, storing, preparing, sharing, analysing, and using data about children create unique opportunities and risks. All of this is central to Responsible Data for Children, a joint endeavour between UNICEF and The GovLab to highlight and support best practices around the responsible handling of data for and about children. Guiding the effort are the Responsible Data for Children principles. Drawing upon field-based research and established good practice, the Responsible Data for Children principles were conceived to guide responsible data handling toward saving children’s lives, defending their rights, and helping them fulfil their potential from early childhood through adolescence—paying particular attention to marginalised and vulnerable groups such as refugee children. In its forthcoming work, Responsible Data for Children will be looking at ways it can directly support practitioners in the field, including in refugee settings. It will be collaborating with UN staff, civil society partners and government officials to help them build the principles directly into their existing work in ways that can improve the lives of refugee children. These efforts will seek to be collaborative and include the input of children and their caregivers. *** As data practitioners think of ways to best support refugee children on World Refugee Day and every day, we invite them to look at Responsible Data for Children. By operationalizing its principles, we can ensure that data is used for the benefit of refugee children everywhere.   [Image credit: Piero Olliaro]   [1] https://popstats.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/ [2] https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/digital/who-knows-what-about-me/ [3] https://data.unicef.org/resources/idac-data-insight-1/ (Fact 9) [4] https://odpl.thegovlab.com/ccm-directus/assets/o6245olwrwg4488k [5] https://www.unicef.org/migrant-refugee-internally-displaced-children [6] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/nearly-37-million-children-displaced-worldwide-highest-number-ever-recorded 

Case Study

This week, as part of the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C), The GovLab and UNICEF launched its latest case study focused on the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey’s (MICS) deployment in Zimbabwe to combat domestic violence.  The largest source of statistically sound and internationally comparable data on women and children worldwide, UNICEF has carried out more than 330 MICS surveys, including three in Zimbabwe. It relates how Zimbabwe’s National Statistical Agency and the MICS team sought to counteract a lack of data on the incidence of domestic and gender-based violence by deploying a module focused on these issues. The insights generated from the work subsequently informed national legislation and a variety of national initiatives to combat domestic violence.  As with the first series of case studies released last year, the study highlights practices for responsible handling of data for and about children; identifies challenges and suggests ways for  practitioners to evaluate and address them; and encourages a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management. The deployment of MICS in the country captured the RD4C principles of being purpose-driven (targeted at filling a specific data gap and informing ongoing policy discussions), participatory (involved a wide variety of stakeholders in managing each phase of the effort), and preventative of harm across the data lifecycle (relied on techniques through collection, processing, and analysis to guarantee the safety and confidentiality of respondents).  It provides a useful example for RD4C because it demonstrates how responsible practices can evolve and be supplemented over time. It also demonstrates how principles can be realized in the field in an open, participatory fashion and the challenges that practitioners can face with field work. Read the full case study here or examine the full collection of case studies here. To learn more about Responsible Data for Children, visit rd4c.org or contact rd4c [at] thegovlab.org. To join the RD4C conversation and be alerted to future releases, subscribe at this link.

New Video

Data about children is everywhere. Every year, the average child will have more data collected about them than a similar child born any year prior. While all these data give opportunities to better understand children's needs and provide well-informed services, they can also generate risks - many of which are not fully understood by the people handling data, and little known by children themselves. The Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative – a collaboration between The GovLab and UNICEF - seeks to build awareness on how data affects and is affected by children. Importantly, it advocates for informing and engaging with children better. A new video features children and adolescents who take the viewer through some of the benefits that data can offer to improve their lives, while highlighting the importance of mitigating the risks posed by an increasingly datafied society. The seven RD4C principles can help mitigate these risks: they offer actionable ways to put the best interests of children at the centre of data use and reuse activities involving data for and about children. They were established as a North Star to guide the RD4C work and promote a culture of responsible data practices.  Aspiring to be field-oriented and answer the specific needs of children worldwide, including the most marginalized and vulnerable, the seven RD4C principles were conceived through field visits and in alignment with other data governance efforts across sectors. Since 2018, they have informed public-access case studies, tools and reports, to support those who work with data for and about children to put in place responsible handling practices that value children's needs, preferences and priorities. The video will soon be subtitled in other languages too, which will be released on the RD4C YouTube channel page. We encourage you to stay tuned and subscribe today!   This video was developed in partnership with Highway Child, to whom we are grateful for the thorough work. [Image credit: Piero Olliaro]

New Video

In April, the RD4C—a collaboration by UNICEF and The GovLab—hosted a series of tutorials to support UNICEF staff in operationalizing RD4C principles and implementing RD4C tools in ways that built on lessons learned from UNICEF and partners.  Led by UNICEF’s Eugenia Olliaro and The Govlab’s Andrew Young, Andrew J. Zahuranec and Marine Ragnet, the two-hour talk brought together UNICEF staff from different parts of the world to learn how they could realize the principles in the areas they work. It then sought to understand possible challenges, gaps, risks, and lingering questions on responsible data for children that UNICEF staff might have encountered in their countries and regions.  The event began with an introduction by Mark Hereward, Chief Data Officer at UNICEF, on the need for strengthened governance of data. Following these overviews, Andrew Young and Eugenia Olliaro explained what each RD4C principle means, demonstrating their application in practice through real-life examples from the field. Andrew J. Zahuranec and Marine Ragnet, meanwhile, presented tools that could be used to enforce the principles. The session dove into each principle in detail:  The participatory principle involves engaging and informing individuals and groups affected by the use of data for and about children. The team discussed how InForm, an Open Data Kit-based data collection and management tool, illustrated the principle in practice. The tool centralizes dispersed data streams, secures collected data in a common platform, and enables data analysis and visualization. InForm illustrates the participatory principle because any deployment requires connecting disparate sources held by various parties. It calls on agencies to work together to ingest and centralize many data sources instead of having them engage only with their own data systems and data collection processes. A professionally accountable initiative would operationalize responsible data practices and principles by establishing institutional processes, roles, and responsibilities. For example, Afghanistan’s Nutrition Online Database was a web-based information system providing access to aggregated nutrition data to inform planning and service delivery at the national, provincial, and zonal level. Afghanistan and partners provided training to data users to more effectively monitor conditions. Administrators also received manuals with guidance on how to avoid unauthorized access. A people-centric approach is also one that incorporates responsibility by ensuring the needs and expectations of children, their caregivers, and their communities are prioritized by actors handling data for and about them. To demonstrate it in practice, the team used the example of the Aurora Project, a child-protection platform developed by UNICEF Romania with partners. The program was people-centric because its components were crafted in recognition of the influence and importance of not just a child’s experience and needs but also that of their caregivers.  Prevention of harms across data lifecycles: Establishing end-to-end data responsibility by assessing risks during the collecting, storing, preparing, sharing, analyzing, and using stages of the data life cycle. UNICEF’s MICS, a series of surveys launched to monitor the status of children around the world, served as a use case for this principle. The MICS team emphasized that ensuring the security of the data was paramount. During survey collecting, they discussed how data collected in the field undergoes rigid checks for quality during the interview process—checking and cross-checking data across the interview.  Proportional: Aligning the breadth of data collection and duration of data retention with the intended purpose. This was illustrated through the Childline Kenya case study, a helpline offering services for children subjected to violence or neglect. The Childline case study was considered because  the start of each call, the counselor informs the caller that while the discussion will be recorded, all information provided will remain confidential, accessible only by case management personnel, unless it needs to be shared with service providers for a specific, authorized referral. Being protective of children’s rights in programming entails recognizing the distinct rights and requirements for helping children develop to their full potential. Childline Kenya was again used as a use-case to illustrate this principle. The Childline Kenya program installed specific requirements such as letting only approved staff members have the necessary digital credentials for accessing, changing, or printing certain case records and  creating an audit trail when a user edits, deletes, or prints a client record—but not when a user only accesses the record. Leading a purpose-driven initiative entails identifying and specifying why the data is needed and how the intended or potential benefits relate to improving children’s lives. InForm provides a good example for it because the program was developed with a “user-centric design approach” to ensure that the tool would be useful for compiling and visualizing data. This fact is evident not only from the platform’s origins, which sought to respond to a clear, pressing need to compile data, but to the way UNICEF sought to respond to that need.  The session then included reflections from the field with Mac Glovinsky at the Learning Passport. Mac discussed his experiences with Responsible Data for Children and how it had helped advance his work. He spoke to how the RD4C principles could be realized in the field, honing in on some of the success and challenges encountered.  The second part of the session was not recorded, to give UNICEF staff the opportunity to add to the conversation by exchanging on their respective experiences with RD4C in the field. During breakout sessions, participants shared present and past work with each other, discussed the challenges they faced, and posed questions to the RD4C team. This input will inform RD4C work and future training programmes as it enters its third year of operation. UNICEF field offices interested in sharing their experience and learning, can contact the RD4C team to be featured in a blog post. Please contact us at [email protected]. For those of you who would like to view the tutorials, a recording is now available on our YouTube page.

Event

On 8 March 2022, the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) team—a collaboration between The GovLab and UNICEF—hosted a special 75-minute webinar on the RD4C principles and tools meant to enable the responsible handling of data for and about children. Led by The GovLab’s Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew J. Zahuranec and UNICEF’s Eugenia Olliaro and Robert MacTavish, attendees included practitioners from UNICEF, its partners, along with academics working on issues related to children’s data protection.  Over the course of the session, participants learned in-depth information about how the RD4C tools can help them in the areas they work. The webinar began with an explanation the Responsible Data for Children initiative hopes to achieve. Focusing on the eight reasons why responsible data for children matters, Stefaan discussed why child welfare advocates should pay attention to data. He described how children are at the forefront of datafication, the fact that children have less agency, that data violations can result in lifelong loss of trust, and other issues.  Eugenia subsequently explained the role that the RD4C principles—participatory, professionally accountable, people-centric, prevention of harms across the data lifecycle, proportional, protective of children’s rights, and purpose-driven—could play in addressing these challenges. Developed through a review of literature and case studies, the principles steer the user toward best practices on responsible data handling for children.  Following this initial stage-setting, Andrew and Stefaan introduced the different RD4C tools, which seek to operationalize the principles in an user-centric manner, and explained how they could be used. In particular, they discussed:  The RD4C Data Ecosystem Mapping Tool, which intends to help users to identify the systems generating data about children and the key components of those systems.  The RD4C Decision Provenance Mapping, intended to provide a way for actors designing or assessing data investments for children to identify key decision points and determine which internal and external parties influence those decision points.  The Ethical Assessment – Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF, that “forms part of our safe data ecosystem, alongside data management and data protection policies and practices.” The RD4C Opportunity and Risk Diagnostic; which provides organizations with a way to take stock of the RD4C principles and how they might be realized as an organization reviews a data project or system.  The 22 Questions to Assess Responsible Data for Children, used for rapidly assessing initiatives or systems that handle data for and about children against the RD4C Principles.  In the final 30 minutes, Alessandra Fassio of Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF shared with participants how her institution has used RD4C tools to support its work, allowing participants to see how the tools are operationalized in a specific context.  The event closed with a question and answer session moderated by Robert, during which the RD4C team emphasized the importance of supporting broader collaboration on data responsibility and child welfare issues. The team invited attendees to share their work and experiences.  If you work in these areas and would like to share your experience and learning, we would be delighted to host a guest blog featuring your best practices. Furthermore, we are hoping to encourage greater awareness of the various resources and research that exist in the field by expanding our Selected Readings page. If either of these items interest you, please contact us at [email protected].  For those of you who would like to view the webinar, a recording is now available on our YouTube page. 

Lessons from the Field

The Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative is committed to highlighting innovative, data-driven approaches to promote the responsible handling of data for and about children. This week, building on its case study published last year, the RD4C team interviewed the Aurora Project’s Voichita Tomus to understand how she and her colleagues are using data to improve children’s lives. The eleven-minute video allows Voichita to talk at length about the Aurora Project, a child-protection platform developed by UNICEF Romania and its partners. The tool enables social workers and community health care providers to diagnose and monitor vulnerabilities experienced by children and their families. Through the administration of a child protection questionnaire, the system supports the determination of a minimum package of services needed by children and their families.  It also enables child protection evaluation and planning work at the national level.    In the video linked above, Voichita talks about this work and answers important questions about the data Aurora uses, the most serious challenges it faces, what enables its success. We encourage those interested in responsible data for children to watch to understand how real-world practitioners are applying the RD4C principles to the areas they work.   Follow our blog to read our next “Lessons from the Field” and join the RD4C conversation to receive regular updates. 

New Publication

This week, the peer-to-peer government learning platform apolitical featured an article by Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young of The GovLab highlighting the rationale behind the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative. The article lists eight reasons why responsible data for children matters.  The article starts from the following observation: “The relationship between the datafication of everyday life and child welfare has generally been under-explored. This neglect is a lost opportunity, and also poses a risk to children, who are in many ways at the forefront of the steady incursions of data into our lives.” As a response, the article outlines eight reasons why child welfare advocates should pay more attention to data, and why we need a framework for responsible data collection and use for children including:  Children are at the forefront of datafication: Today’s children are the first generation to grow up amid the rapid datafication of virtually every aspect of life. Children have less agency: Unlike adults, children typically do not have full agency to make decisions about their participation in programmes or services that may generate and record personal data. Even aggregated data can be dangerous: Aggregated, anonymized data is not a panacea. There continues to be risk of re-identification through the mosaic effect and other challenges. Data violations can result in lifelong loss of trust: When data is mishandled data subjects lose trust in institutions.. This, in turn, can reduce the uptake of essential services, and stunt benefits of technology. Children’s interests can be overlooked: As technologies are implemented and the data volume increases,  existing protections to protect children may be overlooked. AI and algorithmic bias pose particular risks: AI can expedite processes but contain hard-to-detect biases that result in real adverse effects. These risks are only heightened when it comes to children. Risk of revisiting trauma: Children served by organizations may have suffered trauma. Asking children to provide data or register for services may revisit such trauma. The relationship between privacy and children’s self development Having the freedom and autonomy to experiment with different identities, without prying eyes or chilling dataveillance, is important for children’s self-development. Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the article. Those interested in learning more or partnering with us can contact rd4c [at] thegovlab.org. To join the RD4C conversation and be alerted to future releases, subscribe at this link. Cover image by Alex Radelich/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

Announcement

Since its formal launch in November 2019, the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C) by The GovLab and UNICEF has sought to provide guidance, tools and leadership to support the responsible handling of data for and about children. This work has included case studies on UNICEF projects around the globe, selected readings on important issues facing the field, blogs on new developments, and—prominently—tools that practitioners in the field can use to promote the responsible use of data in the contexts they work.  On Tuesday, 8 March 2022, RD4C will provide additional guidance on how to use these tools with a special 90-minute webinar open to UNICEF, its partners, and all those working on issues related to children’s data protection. Led by The GovLab’s Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew J. Zahuranec and UNICEF’s Eugenia Olliaro, attendees will learn how to use various tools, including: RD4C Data Ecosystem Mapping Tool; RD4C Decision Provenance Mapping; Ethical Assessment – Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF; RD4C Opportunity and Risk Diagnostic; and 22 Questions to Assess Responsible Data for Children. During the first hour, Stefaan, Eugenia, and Andrew will explain what risks and opportunities these tools address, demonstrating to participants how to use them. In the final 30 minutes, participants will hear from Alessandra Fassio of Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF on how her institution has used RD4C tools to support its work. The webinar will be recorded and published on the RD4C site and YouTube page. All those interested can learn more register for the event here.   Image by Ben Wicks/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

Guest Blog

This piece was written by Elizabeth Laird, Director, Equity in Civic Technologyfor the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). Her work engages civic institutions to promote the responsible, equitable use of data and technology to improve outcomes for individuals and the public good, while ensuring it does not come at the expense of privacy and civil rights. Learn more here. Two years into the pandemic, questions about parental rights in school have taken center stage in public debates, particularly in school board meetings and state houses across the United States. Not surprisingly, this extends to the use of data and technology in schools. CDT recently released research that found that parental concerns around student privacy and security protection have risen since the spring, growing from 60% in February 2021 to 69% in July 2021. Far from being ambivalent, we also found that parents and students expressed eagerness to play a role in decisions about technology and data but indicate these desires are going unmet. Most parents and students want to be consulted but few have been asked for input: 93% of surveyed parents feel that schools should engage them regarding how student data is collected and used, but only 44% say their school has asked for their input on these issues. While much of this debate has focused on the United States and similar countries, these issues have global resonance as all families have a stake in how their children are educated. Engaging students and families has always been an important component of primary and secondary education, from involving parents in their children’s individual experiences to systemic decision-making; however, there is significant room for improvement, especially as it relates to the use of education data and technology. Done well, community engagement (aligned with the Participatory principle in the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative) is a two-way, mutually beneficial partnership between public agencies and community members in which questions and concerns are identified, discussed, and decided jointly. It benefits public agencies by building trust, helping them achieve their mission, and minimizing risks, including community pushback. It helps communities by assisting agencies to better meet community needs and increasing transparency and accountability. To assist education practitioners in improving their community engagement efforts, CDT recently released guidance that focuses on four important steps: 1. Plan: Establish Goals, Processes, and Roles To implement community engagement strategies that are intentional, inclusive, and transparent, agencies should collaborate directly with communities at the outset to establish goals, processes, and roles. This planning should include establishing measures of success, clarifying how decisions will be made, ensuring diverse representation, and being clear about any public agency limitations.   2. Enable: Build Collective Capacity Successfully and robustly engaging communities requires building capacity — both within communities and within the public agencies that seek to engage them. Building collective capacity entails assessing what community members and public agencies need to engage, providing support to enable engagement (e.g. child care, transportation, food), and ensuring multiple modes of engagement to accommodate different needs. This work means assessing the specific context in a child’s community to understand which stakeholders are most relevant in a specific country, region, and locality.   3. Resource: Dedicate Appropriate People, Time, and Money Effective community engagement requires substantial resources, including people, time, and money. Without these appropriately in place, community engagement initiatives will not be as successful, which can undermine trust and community relationships rather than strengthen them. To allocate sufficient resources, public agencies should address internal buy-in and staff time, provide financial resources including compensating community members for their time, and build in enough time in the decision-making process to allow for community input.   4. Implement: Carry Out Vision Effectively and Monitor Implementation After planning, enabling, and resourcing community engagement efforts, public agencies should move forward with implementing the vision for community engagement that they have mapped out with their communities. The execution of data sharing-related community engagement will vary based on a number of factors, but there are common emerging practices that will benefit all such engagement efforts: providing training to agency staff and community members; making resources available before, during, and after engagement events; collaborating with trusted community partners; and being flexible in the engagement process to make adjustments as needed (and requested by community members). These best practices can be realized in any setting for the betterment of children around the world.   As parents continue to demand a more active decision-making role in their child’s education, education practitioners would benefit from proactively engaging community members around how data and technology are used to deliver educational services. The actions outlined here are intended to help administrators most effectively engage the community while balancing their other responsibilities. Even if a situation does not allow for implementing all the suggested practices, community engagement is a critical component of the data sharing that should not be skipped.   This image by Zach Vessels/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

Announcement

This week, as part of the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C), The GovLab and UNICEF launched the first of their new slate of case studies on responsible data for children.  The piece focuses on the deployment of InForm—a platform that allows for data centralization and standardization. As with the first series of case studies released last year, the study of InForm aims to highlight and support responsible handling of data for and about children; identify challenges and develop practical tools to assist practitioners in evaluating and addressing them; and encourage a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management. It analyzes how data practitioners used InForm in Mozambique to respond to Cyclone Idai, with a focus on the RD4C Principles. The analysis found InForm captures the RD4C Principles of being purpose-driven; participatory; proportional; and preventative of harms across the data life cycle and professionally accountable. To further advance its responsible data approach, the case study suggests that the platform might develop standard operating procedures for handling sensitive data could prove useful. Personnel might also seek to remain cognizant of the time and resource constraints on implementing parties and the need to engage partners early in deployment. Read the full case study here or examine the full collection of case studies here. To learn more about Responsible Data for Children, visit rd4c.org or contact rd4c [at] thegovlab.org. To join the RD4C conversation and be alerted to future releases, subscribe at this link.   Image by Martin Bekerman/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

Lessons from the Field

Since its launch, the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative has studied  the use of data for and about children in humanitarian settings to offer insights on promising, responsible data practice.  Childline Kenya, one of the first of these studies to be published, remains today as an important example of responsible data practices. To understand how Childline Kenya has changed since we published our case study, we interviewed Martha Sunda, Executive Director of Childline Kenya. The conversation, summarized below, touched on how Childline operates, the challenges and opportunities it faces, and potential lessons that could help other practitioners in handling children’s data responsibly. What is Childline Kenya and what data is involved in it? Childline Kenya is an NGO that operates a national child helpline service. It works closely with the Government of Kenya as its strategic partner, as well as with other stakeholders, to provide support to children subjected to any kind of violence or neglect. The organization offers counseling, psychotherapy, play and art therapy, family therapy and legal support. It also provides linkage to other child protection service providers for additional support. .  According to Martha, this programming is based on three pillars. The first one is a preventive approach related to creating awareness of child protection and everybody’s role in protecting children. The second one is focused on the importance of accessing child protection services in the fastest way possible. This is done by providing the helpline channels as well as by informing the public about other ways to seek support, such as the Children’s Office or the Police. Finally the third pillar revolves around response to reported concerns.  While people can request support on these three pillars through various platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and email, a central part of its outreach is a toll-free telephone service. This service is available from anywhere in Kenya twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This is important to provide people with a variety of platforms they can use, depending on which one they feel most comfortable with or have access to.  More than reporting the issue, Childline Kenya seeks to solve it. “Whenever we have an opportunity we keep creating awareness on the issue.”   “Our goal is to have these cases that are reported responded to efficiently and effectively in the best interest of the child. [...] Therefore, the data that we get to [...] [guide] our work is around the child themselves. What are the safeguarding or protection issues that they have? Who has perpetrated them? Are there any caregivers in the scenario, [...] any other siblings? Do these children go to school now or not? Are there any developmental issues that we need to take note of [...]?” “We are also able to determine what else needs to be done, or whether we need to fast track some things. [...] So that also helps to determine what needs to be done to be able to assist this child in the best way possible.” She added that the organization makes sure that the data processed by them is restricted to the minimum necessary to help the child or for advocacy and programming purposes. What are the most serious challenges you face in promoting responsible use of data related to the calls you receive through your helpline? As the helpline service is co-managed by Childline Kenya and the Government of Kenya, Martha explained that the responsibility over the data processed is also shared. In this sense, Childline Kenya is not able to control how the government uses the data and vice versa.  She argued that can be limiting especially in cases where either partner feels that a certain level of detail should not have been released. Even though this situation is rare, Martha stated that, “it remains a risk [...] that needs to be sorted out. We have tried to mitigate [that], so in the system we know who exactly is [...] in there at what level and we also keep an audit trail in the helpline system. So in case someone has edited something or downloaded something we have the audit trail and we are therefore able to hold them responsible.”  She expanded on this point by explaining several challenges. First, she noted that the linkage to the government information system also creates a problem related to feedback. When the case is referred to this governmental system, the NGO has to request information about the solution of the case manually, as there are only a few cases where this information is given proactively. Another challenge relates to how much information should be released to partners when a child is being referred to them or when the media is covering a case. She argued that there was  difficulty in finding the balance between providing the service in the best way possible without overexposing the child or breaching confidentiality. Children and families could also put themselves at risk as they might reveal more information than they should when they are reached out by the media. Finally, she described the issue of duplicate data, something already described in the “RD4C Case Study: Childline Kenya.” According to Martha, data duplication is something over which Childline Kenya has little control since a child or their family might report the case to various offices when they feel their expectations were not met: “When you start gathering this data and putting it together you find reports of the same child from three different entities.” Though this is not the rule, it is important to consider a margin of error when dealing with the data produced by the service. What are the most important factors that have enabled your success thus far and how will you promote the responsible use of data for children going forward? Martha explained that the service is very successful because they try to create awareness of the importance of data security with all the stakeholders involved. This awareness raising involves children and their families, the media and other stakeholders who are often not included in the child protection community.   “We dont assume that they would know things that are part of child safeguarding so whenever we have an opportunity we keep creating awareness on the issue,” Martha said.  She also emphasized the importance of good practices being applied internally to lead by example. Childline Kenya makes sure that it follows data protection guidelines and standards locally and globally. Other partner organizations have gone to Kenya to learn what the institution is doing to replicate Childline Kenya’s work in their own countries. Martha also attributed Childline’s success to the involvement of partners. When partnering with other institutions, Childline Kenya requires that they sign a safeguarding policy if they do not have their own so as to commit to protecting children under Childline Kenya’s standards.  Martha emphasizes that this policy was not simply checking a box. Rather, partnership is a process in which the institution actually demonstrates an understanding of the importance of these policies, providing instruction for an informed decision. She noted the engagement with the government was formalized by a memorandum of understanding that holds both of them responsible. What are the major changes or new policies and processes that have been implemented since the development of the case study? Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Martha stated that remote access to the helpline service was made available to staff so that they could work from home. This presented new challenges related to data protection as the institution focused on the process of setting up the remote access.  In order to access the platform, a specific device had to be configured and a licence installed. This device could not be shared with other people and other applications could not be accessed while the Childline system was in use. This work was important to protect the data from external parties and from malicious softwares.  *** Childline Kenya still faces some challenges since the case study development, such as finding a balance in sharing data about a case with partners and the media, data duplication, and shared responsibilities with the government. However, it is clear that the initiative's success is intrinsically related to the responsible data handling practices it has been implementing. Especially in situations where Childline Kenya’s service is increasingly needed, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, these practices allow the most vulnerable children in the country to have their immediate needs met while still having their data handled responsibly. Follow our blog to read our next “Lessons from the Field” and join the RD4C conversation to receive regular updates.    [PHOTO CREDITS: Unsplash/Julian Hochgesang; Unsplash/Belle Maluf; Unsplash/bennett tobias licensed under CC0]

Responsible AI

Protecting children is a global responsibility, one that requires organizations around the world to understand the opportunities and challenges posed by new technologies, including rapid advancements in computation and machine learning. From 30 November to 1 December 2021, UNICEF and the Government of Finland are helping spur action on this topic by hosting the Global Forum on AI for Children. Bringing together the  foremost policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in a virtual setting, the forum will advance emerging conversations on children’s rights, digital technology policies, and AI systems.  One of these conversations will be centered on embedding responsible data for children in the AI ecosystem. In a breakout group on 1 December at 8:45 AM EST // 3:45 GMT+2 titled, “Protecting children’s data, privacy and prioritizing fairness in an AI world,” UNICEF Program Officer and RD4C team member Eugenia Olliaro will participate in a discussion on the RD4C Principles and how they can reduce unwanted and discriminatory bias for children through better policies and practice. She will be joined by Maria Luciana Axente (Responsible AI and AI for Good Lead, PwC), Edson Prestes (Full Professor, Federal University of Rio Grande Sul), and Julia Reuben (Assistant Deputy Director, Allegheny County Children, Youth, and Families). The forum, which is part of UNICEF's AI for Children project, will provide an important space for reflecting on and promoting more responsible handling of data for and about children in the rapidly emerging AI environment. The full forum agenda can be found here and registration is open here.    [PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/Andy Kelly is licensed under CC0]

RD4C Toolkit

ACCESS THE TOOL HERE Around the world and across domains, institutions are using data to improve service delivery for children. Data for and about children can, however, pose risks of misuse, such as unauthorized access or data breaches, as well as missed use of data that could have improved children’s lives if harnessed effectively.  The RD4C Principles — Participatory; Professionally Accountable; People-Centric; Prevention of Harms Across the Data Life Cycle; Proportional; Protective of Children’s Rights; and Purpose-Driven — were developed by the GovLab and UNICEF to guide responsible data handling toward saving children’s lives, defending their rights, and helping them fulfill their potential from early childhood through adolescence. These principles were developed to act as a north star, guiding practitioners toward more responsible data practices. Today, The GovLab and UNICEF, as part of the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C), are pleased to launch a new tool that aims to put the principles into practice. 22 Questions to Assess Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) is an audit tool to help stakeholders involved in the administration of data systems that handle data for and about children align their practices with the RD4C Principles.  The tool encourages users to reflect on their data handling practices and strategy by posing questions regarding:  Why: the purpose and rationale for the data system; What: the data handled through the system;  Who: the stakeholders involved in the system’s use, including data subjects; How: the presence of operations, policies, and procedures; and  When and where: temporal and place-based considerations. The 22 Questions provide a framework through which users can assess their current efforts, as well as concrete recommendations for bolstering data responsibility by mitigating risks of both misuse and missed use of data.  Interested in organizing n responsible data for children audit consultation with the RD4C team? Want to receive a tutorial on how to implement the audit tool? Contact us at rd4c [at] thegovlab.org to explore opportunities for collaboration toward making the RD4C Principles more actionable at your institution. 

Code of Ethics

Reposted from Data.org Saving children’s lives, defending children’s rights, and helping children fulfill their full potential. With goals as ambitious and admirable as this, it goes without saying that the best interests of kids are always put first. Right? Maybe, but the Data for Children Collaborative isn’t leaving it to chance. Housed at Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Data for Children Collaborative is a unique partnership between UNICEF, the Scottish government, and the University of Edinburgh that is focused on not just using data to drive outcomes for children, but building safeguards, resources, and protocols to make sure that data is used ethically, responsibly, and transparently. The Challenge The Edinburgh-based Collaborative looks at the big, seemingly intractable problems our global society faces through a lens of impact and intervention for children. From population health and poverty to COVID-19 response and climate change, how these issues affect children is nuanced and requires an equally nuanced approach. As organizations seek to tackle these challenges, the Collaborative serves as a matchmaker, bringing together academic expertise and practical know-how to utilize the power of data to keep children safe, healthy, and thriving. To harness that power effectively and responsibly, though, data security and responsibility are paramount, says Alessandra Fassio, the advocacy and relations manager for the Data for Children Collaborative. Photo by UNICEF “What I was really interested in was that ‘data for good’ ethics piece of the puzzle. Because we’re working for children, obviously they’re a vulnerable group and often don’t have insight about how data about them is being used,” she said. “Ethics is the buzzword, and everyone is talking about it but there is very little practical implementation on how to do it.” That is the question that the Collaborative set out to answer: how do we define and support strong data ethics in a way that ensures it is no longer an afterthought? How do we empower organizations to make it their priority? The Solution How? Make it easier and more intuitive. Fassio, Data for Children Collaborative Director Alex Hutchison, and the rest of their five-person team set out to create a roadmap for data responsibility. They started with their own experiences and followed the lifecycle of a non-profit project from conception to communicating results. The journey begins – for project leaders and for the Collaborative – with an ethical assessment before any research or intervention has been conducted. The assessment calls on project teams to reflect on their motivations and ethical issues at the start, midpoint, and results stages of a project, ensuring that the priority stakeholder remains at the center. Some of the elements are directly tied to data, like data collection, security, and anonymization, but the assessment goes beyond the hard data and into its applications and analysis, including understanding stakeholder landscape and even the appropriate language to use when communicating outputs. For the Collaborative, that priority is children. But they’ve designed the assessment, which maps across to UNICEF’s Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) toolkit, and other responsible innovation resources to be adaptable for other sectors. “We wanted to make it really accessible for people with no background in ethics or data. We wanted anyone to be able to approach it,” Fassio said. “Because it is data-focused, there’s actually a very wide application. A lot of the questions we ask are very transferable to other groups.” The same is true for their youth participation workbook – another resource in the toolkit. The team engaged young people to help co-create the process, staying open to revisions and iterations based on people’s experiences and feedback. Photo by UNICEF Though that process of iteration and reflection is ongoing, Hutchison has been pleasantly surprised by the willingness of people to engage with and deploy the tools in meaningful ways. “I think there’s a broad acceptance across the technology sector that ethics is recognized as something that’s really pivotal,” she said. “We’ve been constantly really impressed with how well people engage with the ethics assessment that we’ve built, rather than seeing it as ‘oh, here’s something else that needs to be done. They’re really welcoming the fact that it can add value to their project.” The Takeaway Like the expression measure twice, cut once, the major argument that the Data for Children Collaborative is making is that ethics isn’t an add-on. Data responsibility and ethics must be built into a project from the get-go. The Collaborative helps connect the right spheres of influence and expertise to ensure that project teams are asking the tough questions and thinking critically about their approach. “Let’s get all the right people around the table, look at the question we’re trying to solve for, and ask ourselves, is data the right way for us to do this?” Fassio asks. “It’s about designing in an ethical way. Building it in from the start is a more proactive way and it then lends itself to being less of a blocker. There’s a misconception about ethics trying to pause innovation or stop innovation from happening and that’s not the case.” That frontloaded work takes time, but the results make it worthwhile in the end. They advise project teams to work at their own pace, never hesitating to ask questions and lean on colleagues with relevant experience. When they reflect on the past year and a half of getting the Collaborative launched and underway, they wouldn’t change much, except maybe scaling up faster, knowing now how sorely needed these resources are across the non-profit landscape. Photo by Ruel Saldico But the early results are in, and the toolkit has helped drive responsible social change across several disciplines. The ethical assessment has helped shape the data confidentiality policies around work on HIV. It has influenced the language used in reporting on access to services by children in poverty. And in the latest example, has shaped the design and release of hugely impactful data in the Climate Risk Index, a UNICEF report that global climate activist Greta Thunberg has described as the first comprehensive view of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Unlike many data projects, where it can take years for change to be felt or heard, Hutchison said, the Climate Risk Index was a powerful moment for the Collaborative to see immediate response and impact. It was a reminder for their team that they’re on the right track, fueling their momentum moving forward as they seek out new partners, aligned funders, and more ways to get their tools into the right hands. Approximately 1 billion children (nearly half of the world’s children) live in extremely high-risk countries. Data from The Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI). “There are so many opportunities for people to do good work with data,” she said. “It’s almost infinite, the examples where this can work and make a difference.”

Responsible Data Towards...

From 3 to 6 October 2021, Bern hosted the Third UN World Data Forum (UNWDF), gathering data experts and scholars from organisations across the world. The event, intended to foster “better data towards achieving the SDGs,” used a combination of virtual and in-person sessions to bring together panellists and participants.   The keynote speaker, Microsoft President Brad Smith, confidently asserted that “no matter what the problem may be, data can play an indispensable role in solving it,” while others focused attention on the risks generated by data. Members of the RD4C team attended the conference and share some takeaways relevant to the responsible handling of data for and about children.   Three Key Takeaways  1. Build trust in data   "How we can really ensure trust in data?" asked Ola Awad, President of Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Like many panellists, she wondered how we can build and maintain trust in the data ecosystem – not only from the public, but broadly among all stakeholders.   In this age of rapidly evolving technology, widespread misinformation and scepticism towards institutions, data activities must guarantee a holistic protection of people's data; and it is essential to ensure that the needs and expectations of those affected by the use of their data are respected. The mere participation in a system should not be conflated with trust, as James Lowry, Assistant Professor at City University of New York, noted throughout his address on the issue.  2. Expand opportunities to strengthen data capacity   Another series of sessions were dedicated to seeking new approaches to develop capacity for better data. Stakeholders called for building technical know-how and strengthening data literacy at every level. “I believe we should all be data literate,” said Nicolas Kurek, UN Youth Representative.  Boosting data literacy implies increasing the data capacity of people – not only data stewards but also non-specialists – as well as ensuring the information is as intelligible and accessible as possible for anyone to make informed decisions. To accelerate the process, responsible, trustworthy, and open data ecosystem should be put in place.   3. Put the interest of people at the centre of data systems  Last but not least, the UNWDF, moderated by speakers such as independent journalist Arthur Honegger, reiterated the need to “put data into the hands of citizens.” Partnerships should be people-centric and ensure that the needs, interests, and expectations of individuals are prioritized.  Importantly, data should represent everybody and leave no one behind: individuals and groups, including marginalised and vulnerable populations, should always be informed and engaged by those handling data about them.   Activities Relevant to RD4C These are only a few overarching takeaways emerging from the UNWDF. The event also highlighted three data-for-development investment initiatives that could provide lessons for actors seeking to use data responsibly to advance children's interests:  The Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data, launched by The Bern Network as a platform to track and analyse the state of financing for data and to help countries, donors and development partners identify funding opportunities.  The Global Data Facility, World Bank-hosted fund to support fundamentals and frontier data and statistics priorities at the global, regional, national, and community levels.  The Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF’d), multilateral financing instrument supported by the UN and an increasing number of governments to expand shared capabilities for using data to better anticipate, prevent, and respond to complex risks in fragile and crisis-affected settings.  RD4C to accelerate progress on SDGs  While the forum did not focus on children specifically, the discussions highlighted the importance of designing and respecting responsible data practices for vulnerable groups, including children.   The Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative advocates for responsible handling of children's data and follows a set of actionable principles to ensure that the best interest of children is put at the centre of data activities. The takeaways outlined above provide useful insight on how the RD4C community can continue to work toward more responsible handling of data for and about children globally.  Resources  For more information on the RD4C initiative, visit the website.  For more information on the Forum see the Summary Report and The Bern Data Compact for the Decade of Action on the SDGs.    [Image credit: Piero Olliaro]

RD4C Brief

The Importance of Principles Data responsibility is growing ever more complex. There is no standard operating procedure or one-size-fits-all approach that can guarantee responsible and effective data handling. Institutions and researchers have released an array of data responsibility tools and platforms, but the utility of these tools depends on the context in which they are deployed.  Given the contextual nature of data responsibility, many institutions look to principles as a “north star” toward which to organize their efforts. Responsible data principles can provide practitioners with guidance and support without being overly prescriptive. Principles provide a framework of good practices while giving practitioners the space to adapt and refine their activities based on the unique situation in which they operate.   The IASC Principles  On February 3, 2021, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee — the preeminent humanitarian forum in the United Nations system — released its Guidance on Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action. The Guidance includes the Principles for Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action as well as recommended practices that can help humanitarian actors meet them. Below, we include the Principles with condensed descriptions from the original IASC guidance. IASC Principles for Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action Accountability: “...[H]umanitarian organizations have an obligation to account and accept responsibility for their data management activities.” Confidentiality: “Humanitarian organizations should implement appropriate organizational safeguards and procedures to keep sensitive data confidential at all times.”  Coordination and Collaboration: “Coordinated and collaborative data management entails the meaningful inclusion of humanitarian partners, national and local authorities, people affected by crisis, and other stakeholders in data management activities…” Data Security: “Humanitarian organizations should implement appropriate organizational and technical safeguards, procedures and systems to prevent, mitigate, report and respond to security breaches.” Defined Purpose, Necessity and Proportionality: “Humanitarian data management and its related activities should have a clearly defined purpose…[T]he management of data in humanitarian response should be relevant, limited and proportionate – in terms of required investment as well as identified risk – to the specified purpose(s).” Fairness and Legitimacy: “Humanitarian organizations should manage data in a fair and legitimate manner, in accordance with their mandates, the context of the response, governing instruments, and global norms and standards, including the Humanitarian Principles. Legitimate grounds for data management include, for example: the best interests of people affected by crisis, consistent with the organization’s mandate; public interest in furtherance of the organization’s mandate; the vital interests of communities and individuals not able to make a determination about data management themselves…” Human Rights-Based Approach: “Data management should be designed and implemented in ways that respect, protect and promote the fulfilment of human rights, including the fundamental freedoms and principles of equality and non-discrimination as defined in human rights frameworks, as well as the more specific right to privacy and other data-related rights, and data-specific rights promulgated in applicable data protection legislation and other applicable regulation.” People-Centered and Inclusive: “Affected populations should be afforded an opportunity to be included, represented, and empowered to exercise agency throughout data management whenever the operational context permits.” Personal Data Protection: “Humanitarian organizations have an obligation to adhere to (i) applicable national and regional data protection laws, or (ii) if they enjoy privileges and immunities such that national and regional laws do not apply to them, to their own data protection policies.” Quality: “Data quality should be maintained such that users and key stakeholders are able to trust operational data management and its resulting products. Data quality entails that data is relevant, accurate, timely, complete, up-to-date and interpretable…” Retention and Destruction: “Sensitive data should only be retained for as long as it is necessary to the specified purpose for which it is being managed or as required by applicable law or donor audit regulations. When its retention is required, safe and secure storage should be ensured to safeguard sensitive data from being misused or irresponsibly exposed.” Transparency: “Data management in humanitarian response should be carried out in ways that offer meaningful transparency toward stakeholders, notably affected populations.” The RD4C Principles  In 2019, The GovLab and UNICEF established the Responsible Data for Children Initiative (RD4C). RD4C seeks to highlight and support best practice in the handling of data for and about children work; develop practical tools to assist practitioners in evaluating and addressing risks and challenge; and encourage a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management to improve children’s lives  The GovLab and UNICEF developed the RD4C Principles to support organizations in stewarding data collected, stored and prepared, shared, analyzed, and used to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential from early childhood through adolescence. Rather than duplicate or contradict, the IASC Data Responsibility Principles and RD4C Principles fulfill different functions. Whereas the IASC Data Responsibility Principles address responsible handling of data about all demographies in humanitarian settings, RD4C focuses specifically on how organizations can address children's data. Indeed, the RD4C Principles provide practitioners with a roadmap for implementing and embodying the IASC Data Responsibility Principles in their work with children’s data.  Below, we outline the RD4C Principles (or the 7 Ps) and reflect on how the implementation of each RD4C Principle can help practitioners adhere to the IASC Data Responsibility Principles in their engagements with children and their data. Comparative Assessment RD4C Principles Related IASC Principle(s) Implementation  Purpose-Driven: Identifying and specifying why the data is needed and how the intended or potential benefits relate to improving children’s lives. Defined Purpose, Necessity and Proportionality  Both the RD4C and IASC Principles emphasize that responsible data practices begin by being purpose-driven. A clearly defined purpose can help practitioners avoid misuses of data and organize their efforts around achieving a well-established goal or objective.  Practitioners will also be better positioned to align their downstream data practices with responsible data principles — such as Proportionality — if they are working toward a well-established purpose that can benefit children’s lives.  Participatory: Engaging and informing individuals and groups affected by the use of data for and about children. Coordination and Collaboration Transparency A Participatory approach involves collaboration and transparency, both of which are represented in the IASC Principles.  First, practitioners should seek input from and collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the design and implementation of a data initiative. These stakeholders can include children, their caregivers, and the communities in which they live as well as partners, donors and other key actors.  Second, a Participatory approach necessitates a level of transparency and effective communication to ensure that the intended beneficiaries of a data initiative and other relevant parties are kept abreast of new developments.  Professionally Accountable: Operationalizing responsible data practices and principles by establishing institutional processes, roles, and responsibilities. Accountability Confidentiality Fairness and Legitimacy Data responsibility rests upon individual and organizational accountability. Professional Accountability entails establishing and adhering to policies and procedures that place personnel in the best position to handle data fairly and legitimately, guard against inappropriate or harmful activities, and ensure that children’s data under their charge remains secure.  People-Centric: Ensuring the needs and expectations of children, their caregivers, and their communities are prioritized by actors handling data for and about them. People-Centered and Inclusive  Data can play an important role in driving effective decision-making, improving service delivery, and increasing efficiency, among other benefits. Given these facts, practitioners handling data for and about children should ensure that the needs, interests, and expectations of people—including children and their caregivers in particular—are prioritized. When making decisions regarding data handling activities, practitioners should center practices that demonstrably serve children’s interests — in an inclusive manner that takes into account vulnerable or marginalized communities — over more process-oriented benefits that could be created through data, such as efficiency gains. Prevention of Harms Across the Data Life Cycle: Establishing end-to-end data responsibility by assessing risks during the collecting, storing, preparing, sharing, analyzing, and using stages of the data life cycle. Data Security Personal Data Protection Quality Risks of both misuse and missed use of data for and about children can emerge at different stages of the data life cycle. Issues related to data security, such as breaches, unauthorized access, and other intentional or incidental misuses of data can occur at each stage of the data life cycle and require targeted strategies for mitigation. At each stage, practitioners also face challenges in preventing harms that could arise from both personal data about children as well as group, aggregated, or statistical data about children. Practitioners should also recognize data quality as a key element impacting end-to-end data responsibility. An adequate level of data quality can help practitioners to prevent harms and capitalize on opportunities to improve children’s lives with data. Poor data quality can create significant, compounding risks and negatively impact decision-making across the data lifecycle.  Proportional: Aligning the breadth of data collection and duration of data retention with the intended purpose. Retention and Destruction The collection and retention of children’s data should be relevant, limited, and adequate to what is necessary for achieving intended purposes. As indicated by the IASC Principle of Defined Purpose, Necessity and Proportionality, the issue of proportionality is closely related to and defined by the core purpose of data activities involving children. While important for all data subjects, proportional data handling and appropriate decision-making regarding the retention and destruction of data is paramount for children. Disproportionate initial data collection or longer-term retention can exacerbate children’s actual or potential vulnerabilities and pose risks to their future prospects.  Protective of Children’s Rights: Recognizing the distinct rights and requirements for helping children develop to their full potential. Human Rights-Based Approach The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that children are “entitled to special care and assistance,” and the Convention on the Rights of the Child outlines additional rights and entitlements that are unique to childhood. Data practices involving children must take into account these additional rights, as well the unique risks that irresponsible data practices can pose to children.  The RD4C Principles and the IASC Principles on Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action provide development and humanitarian practitioners with a set of complementary, mutually reinforcing frameworks to guide safe and effective data handling. Watch this space for additional reflections and guidance on applying these and other responsible data principles and practices that can minimize instances of both misuse and missed use of data for and about children.     [Photo Credit: UNICEF/UN0277463/Bindra]

Related Initiatives

Child protection, as defined by UNICEF, is the prevention of, and response to, exploitation, abuse, neglect, harmful practices and violence against children. To support their mission for a world free of harm against children, UNICEF recently published the second edition of its Child Protection Strategy 2021 – 2030 (CPS), setting the agency’s approach to child protection for  the new decade.  In this edition of the CPS, UNICEF continues  tackling global issues ranging from conflict and migration to poverty and inequality. It pays special attention to emerging challenges such as climate change, political polarization, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The CPS also discusses the Fourth Industrial Revolution, associated data-related challenges, and approaches that can improve child protection and advance responsible data for children. By including these measures in their long term strategy, UNICEF reinforces its commitment to responsible data practices. The CPS begins this discussion by reviewing new challenges to children’s welfare posed by recent technological developments like biometric technology, artificial intelligence and digital connectivity. These challenges include increased surveillance, data misuse, online abuse and bullying. The CPS suggests some ways to mitigate these problems through innovative information management systems, inter-agency tools and rights- and results-based accountability systems.  Beyond deploying technological resources to improve the quality of data, the CPS programme also aims to strengthen community engagement with caregivers, children and adolescents, reflecting the Participatory RD4C Principle to strengthen data collection efforts. Engaging with such important groups can empower those using the CPS to identify metrics of concern and effectively acquire and process data to make stronger inferences, especially as they pertain to the conditions of disadvantaged groups in society.  In addition to providing innovative technologies and community engagement strategies, the CPS programme also seeks to strengthen the RD4C Principles of Professionally Accountable and the Prevention of Harms across the Data Life Cycle through the use of audits and progress reviews. This move helps improve data governance and build more robust accountability systems. The CPS’s work is governed by a set of technical guidelines, which outline how to evaluate and effectively use different types of data in the context of children’s issues, as well as how to responsibly finance data and research work.   By including measures to counteract the negative impacts on children of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the increased handling of potentially sensitive data for and about children, UNICEF’s Child Protection Strategy institutionalizes responsible data practices when it comes to the welfare and safety of children. Given the CPS often informs different countries’ child protection laws, the hope is that the addition of responsible data practices to the CPS will motivate countries around the world to follow in suit and adopt similar policies and practices in the future to advance responsible data for children around the world.   Read the UNICEF Child Protection Strategy here.

UNICEF Innocenti Film Festival

From October 21–24, 2021, UNICEF Innocenti will host the second UNICEF Innocenti Film Festival (UIFF) to showcase “narratives of childhood from around the world.” UIFF will feature films that “promote deep reflection on the experiences that shape childhood —  within the individual, in the family, the community, in institutions and societies, of both the Global South and North.” The final program will be released soon.  The hybrid film festival will feature live socially distanced screenings in Florence, Italy at the Cinema La Compagnia, as well as on-demand virtual screenings. The films will be complemented by public dialogues with filmmakers, UNICEF personnel, and others. UIFF 2021 follows the inaugural 2019 edition, which featured over 30 films presented by filmmakers across the world. The 2019 selections included short and feature length documentaries and dramas, as well as animated films.  One of the 2019 selections, Mohamed Kenawi’s MINOR’S HOPE, puts a human face on many of the issues explored in the RD4C initiative. Kenawi’s documentary short follows three teenage asylum seekers after their arrival in Rome. The boys seek out work and a sense of belonging in their new home and rely on the support of a supervisor at their reception center. The film clearly demonstrates how the boys’ integration into their new home relies on the safe and effective collection, handling, and use of potentially sensitive information. The boys would struggle to forge a new life in Italy absent this information; faulty handling of this information could create risks to the boys’ safety or status in the country.  A recent UNICEF Child Protection Learning Brief also explores important lessons learned for supporting children on the move.  You can watch MINOR’S HOPE below.

Related Initiatives

Use and reuse of children’s data can bring opportunities and better and more targeted services, but can also create challenges and potentially serious harm if these data are mishandled and misused. Maximising the benefits gleaned from data and preventing the misuse of data requires laws, policies, frameworks and agreements that set clear benchmarks for use of children’s data as well as responsible actions from companies and organisations processing children’s data.   UNICEF has recently undertaken two major initiatives to address these requirements.  The Responsible Data for Children Initiative (RD4C), carried out in collaboration with the GovLab, supports best practice in data responsibility; identifies challenges and develops practical tools to assist practitioners in evaluating and addressing them; and encourages a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management.   UNICEF’s Office for Global Insight and Policy project on Good Governance of Children’s Data focuses primarily on legal and policy frameworks related to data, and corporate data policies. We recently took a closer look into what it would take to ensure that robust laws and policies are in place to protect children’s data, resulting in a Manifesto, or a call for action to international and national bodies to prioritise children’s issues in data governance frameworks. Both the RD4Cand the Good Governance projects place children’s rights in the centre: one of the seven principles of the RD4C project asks for a recognition of children’s distinctive rights in handling of children’s data in practice; the Manifesto calls for centrality of children’s rights in international frameworks, national and corporate policies.   In our work, we drew on a series of discussion papers on different aspects of children’s data governance authored by a working group of 17 experts, including the GovLab’s Andrew Young, who authored a paper on Responsible group data for children.  Other issues these papers unpack relate to child data governance gaps highlighted by Covid-19; the surveillance of children by governments to support national security and public order priorities; data-driven marketing to children by global brands on digital platforms and services popular with young people; the responsibility of technology companies to incorporate safety into the design of their products likely to be used by children; children’s data processing in an education context used to teach them, surveil them and make predictions about their abilities; and a fiduciary approach to children’s data governance.    The Manifesto proposes ten action points to improve global data governance for children, grouped around three critical areas. The first set of action points (1-3) calls for the strengthening of norms, standards and principles; the second set of action points (4-7) refers to requirements to put these frameworks, laws and policies into practice; and the third set of action points (8-10) describes some of the enablers of good data governance for children: PROTECT children and their rights through child-centred data governance. PRIORITIZE children's best interests in all decisions about children's data. CONSIDER children’s unique identities, evolving capacities and circumstances in data governance frameworks.   SHIFT responsibility for data protection from children to companies and governments.   COLLABORATE with children and their communities in policy building and management of their data.   REPRESENT children’s interests within administrative and judicial processes, as well as redress mechanisms.   PROVIDE adequate resources to implement child-inclusive data governance frameworks.   USE policy innovation in data governance to solve complex problems and accelerate results for children.   BRIDGE knowledge gaps in the realm of data governance for children.   STRENGTHEN international collaboration for children’s data governance and promote knowledge and policy transfer among countries.   You can read the manifesto in full here, as well as the background papers that informed its development here. UNICEF convened a webinar about the manifesto which you can watch here.   For further information or to discuss implementation of the manifesto at a national level please contact Jasmina Byrne, Chief of Policy at UNICEF OGIP at [email protected] and Emma Day at [email protected].  

Introduction Cash Transfers have increasingly become part of the policy toolkit for social protection, poverty alleviation and the achievement of child outcomes around the world. The goals driving cash transfer programs for children include facilitating children’s increased access to basic goods and services as well as schooling and health care, reducing poverty-driven family practices that endanger children such as child marriage, and ultimately breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and inequity in the long run.  Throughout the development and deployment of these programs, and especially given the increased adoption of digital tools for their implementation, key stakeholders such as humanitarian organizations and financial service providers collect, store, use, and share vast amounts of sensitive personal data on children and their families. Data and data analyses can help stakeholders better understand beneficiaries’ needs, enhance program efficiency, and evaluate success. However, the collection of large and sensitive datasets also poses important risks regarding the beneficiaries’ privacy and the potential misuse of data by third parties, which can be all the more sensitive in the context of minors. Irresponsible handling of data can not only erode the trust between program recipients and program leaders and jeopardize the program’s success--it can also threaten children’s safety, well-being, and development. These selected readings on Data Responsibility and Cash Transfers for Children comprise two main sections: 1) Data responsibility considerations and best practices in cash transfer programs for children, and 2) Leveraging data and data analyses to assess the impact of cash transfers for children. Annotated Selected Reading List Data responsibility considerations and best practices in cash transfer programs for children “Data responsibility in cash and voucher assistance”, Guidance Note Series, Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, December 2020.  This report outlines the benefits and risks associated with the collection, storage and use of large volumes of data in the context of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programs, and recommends best practices in data responsibility for humanitarian organizations, financial service providers, and other stakeholders  Data-related benefits in CVA include: (i) improved understanding of beneficiary priorities, needs and preferences; (ii) improved targeting of assistance, including deduplication of beneficiary lists; (iii) increased efficiency and effectiveness of different delivery mechanisms; and (iv) enhanced transparency and accountability. Data-related risks in CVA include: (i) exposure of sensitive data that could lead to various forms of harm for affected people and/or humanitarian staff; (ii) breaches in data protection, data privacy and data security; (iii) potential misuse of data for non-humanitarian purposes by third parties; and (iv) loss of trust between affected people and humanitarian organizations.  Some recommendations to improve data responsibility in CVA include: (i) mapping the CVA data ecosystem; (ii) establishing an information sharing protocol specific to CVA programmes; (iii) establishing data sharing agreements for the exchange of personal data; (iv) conducting data impact assessments for all CVA interventions; (v) introducing data incident management procedures; and (vi) tracking issues and progress on data responsibility in CVA through coordination structures. “Practical Guidance for Data Protection in Cash and Voucher Assistance. A supplement to the Cash in Emergencies Toolkit”, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, January 2021.  This document translates general data protection principles into practical, actionable guidance, specific to decision making and implementation of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programs.  The document offers key data protection considerations for five main processes where beneficiary personal data is collected and processed in CVA programs: Targeting, Beneficiary Registration, Use of Financial Service Providers, Data Sharing with Governments, other Humanitarian Organizations, and Donors, and Post-Distribution Monitoring.  “Protecting Beneficiary Privacy: Principles and operational standards for the secure use of personal data in cash and e-transfer programmes”, The Cash and Learning Partnership, 2013.  This document identifies eight principles for the secure use of personal data in cash transfer programs: 1) Respect, 2) Protect by Design, 3) Understand Data Flows and Risks, 4) Quality and Accuracy, 5) Obtain Consent or Inform Beneficiaries as to the Use of their Data (and adapt methodology appropriately when working with children), 6) Security, 7) Disposal, and 8) Accountability.  Each of these principles is presented alongside concrete operational standards for implementation  In 2016, and building upon the principles outlined in this document, the Electronic Cash Transfer Learning and Action Network (ELAN) launched a Data Starter Kit that provides concrete tips to help humanitarians assess data risks, minimize data collected, and protect and securely share data.  “Humanitarian Cash Transfers Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance”, and complementary “Programmatic Guidance”, UNICEF Office of Emergency Programmes and Programme Division, 2018.  These documents provide general guidance for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a Humanitarian Cash Transfer program during a humanitarian response. UNICEF’s policies are discussed to support quick and impactful child-sensitive operational decisions The Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance includes data collection recommendations for process, output, and outcome monitoring and assessment of cash transfers to ensure efficient implementation and avoiding bottlenecks and/or negative impacts along the way. Recommendations include collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, avoiding changes to indicators once collection has started for comparable analysis over time, and adhering to the ethical standards set by UNICEF for research, evaluation, and data collection, especially when using digital technology tools. This includes privacy protections for the beneficiaries’ personal data across the data lifecycle, from informed consent before data is collected, to limiting its access, using secure storage mechanisms, using anonymization techniques before sharing, and deleting the data securely once the program has been finalized. The Programmatic Guidance document includes practical recommendations for data protection in cash transfer programs, such as incorporating a beneficiary data protection clause in every partner agreement; setting up and using a Management Information System Guidance; and setting up training on data protection for staff who work with beneficiary data. Leveraging data and data analysis to assess the impact of cash transfers for children “Making cash transfers work for children and families”, UNICEF, November 2019.  Cash transfers are one of the most common social protection interventions supported by UNICEF, reaching over 70 countries in 2015. The report provides a brief background of UNICEF’s engagement with cash transfers globally, and associated opportunities and challenges.  Positive outcomes associated with cash transfers include: directly addressing monetary child poverty and vulnerability, serving as a safety net to protect families from shocks, addressing financial barriers to basic social services like education and health, addressing financial drivers of child protection outcomes such as reduction in early marriage, and addressing the intergenerational cycle of poverty and inequity through accumulation of human capital. However, the authors point out that evidence on the long-term impact of cash transfers is still emerging and the results are mixed. Further, they stress that cash alone is not a silver bullet and that a comprehensive policy approach –improving both the quality and provision of sectoral services and removing the barriers to access – is critical to achieve significant and sustainable results. The report also provides a list 19 activities under four categories (Analysis of the Status Quo, Examining Program Design Options, Policy Engagement and Advocacy, Implementation with Monitoring and Evaluation) that could contribute to the introduction, expansion and improvement of cash transfers undertaken by UNICEF country offices. Examples of activities include: econometric analysis to simulate a policy’s potential macro (economy as a whole) as well as micro impact (at household level); costing different design options; supporting horizontal exchange of knowledge and experience; and modelling implementation through a pilot project. For each activity, the document describes potential approaches and considerations, along with country examples and further resources that provide more detailed guidance and information about each aspect of the work. “The Role of Cash Transfer in Improving Child Health: A Review of the Evidence”, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab South Asia, August 2018.  This report reviews the effects of cash transfers on child health in developing countries, as well as existing evaluations of cash transfer programs in India to understand how design and implementation features promote or hinder the success of cash transfer programs. The authors argue that “overall, the evidence suggests CTs can effectively improve a range of child health outcomes, including some, such as birth weight, height, and early cognitive development, which have been shown to have longer run implications for health and economic wellbeing.” They note that such effects are often larger among disadvantaged groups and younger children. Moreover, in reviewing cash transfer programs in India, the authors note several issues in their design and administration that affect implementation quality and overall effectiveness. These issues include inappropriate eligibility criteria leading to exclusion of deserving groups, delays or changes in the delivery of services promised to beneficiaries, lack of access to financial institutions needed to receive the benefits, burdensome bureaucracy, and insufficient grievance redress mechanisms. “Cash Transfers: A Lifeline for Children and Economies in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2021”, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office Social Policy Working Paper, January 2021.  “This working paper makes the case for quickly expanding cash transfer programs across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to protect children and support economic recovery in 2021. It does so by: (i) describing the economic, poverty and child well-being situation across the region at the end of 2020; (ii) summarizing the evidence of the benefits of cash transfers; (iii) reviewing the state of cash-based programs in SSA before the pandemic and in the immediate response period; (iv) simulating the costs and economic returns of providing cash transfers to all households with children under  five; and (v) discussing domestic and external opportunities to fund the expansion. The  analyses and recommendations draw on more than 25 global databases, projection and monitoring exercises.” The pandemic caused exceptional challenges for the economies and children across SSA, leading to the biggest rise in extreme poverty ever recorded. The authors estimate that the portion of children living in monetary poor households increased by 10% on average, pushing the regional total to more than 280 million. The consequences on nutrition and schooling have also been abysmal. Cash transfers targeted to children might be a cost-effective palliative measure: In addition to boosting economic growth, cash transfers can prevent or minimize many risks to childrens’ well being, including malnutrition, unsafe living conditions, illness, lack of schooling, child labor and abuse, child pregnancy and marriage etc. While cash transfer programs have become more popular in the region in recent years, they have remained limited (reaching about 10% of population) due to funding constraints. To expand coverage strategically, the authors recommend governments to provide monthly cash transfers to all children under five for 6-12 months, which in their analyses would generate compelling investment returns. Such a policy would be feasible via a combination of domestic budget reprioritization and the harnessing of approved but not yet disbursed emergency funding from international financial  institutions. “Effects of unconditional cash transfers on the outcome of treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM): A cluster-randomised trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”, BMC Medicine, April 2017 This study used a randomized trial with Congolese children with SAM who received treatment with or without an unconditional cash supplement of US$40 monthly for six months. The likelihood to reach full recovery from SAM was substantially higher in the intervention group than in the control group. All the nutritional outcomes in the intervention group were significantly better than those in the control group. The researchers concluded that cash transfer programs can increase recovery from SAM and decrease relapse rates during and following treatment. They highlight household financial support as a critical piece to optimize malnourishment treatment efficiency. “Humanitarian Cash Transfers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Evidence from UNICEF’s ARCC II Programme”, American Institutes for Research: International Research & Evaluation, April 2017.  From 2013-2015, UNICEF and partners conducted the Alternative Responses for Communities in Crisis (ARCC), a large-scale unconditional cash transfer programme for humanitarian response that reached over 20,000 conflict-affected families in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The researchers find evidence that families used the cash to access basic goods, services, and livelihood opportunities. The programme improved children’s access to health care by 21%, and increased primary school enrollment by 13% for boys; there was no difference in school enrollment for girls between control and treatment groups. Qualitative analysis also found that beneficiaries frequently spent part of the transfers on health and education costs for children. The authors conclude that their cash transfer program ultimately enhances beneficiaries’ well-being and resilience. “Conditional cash transfers and poverty eradication in Latin America”,  Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política and CONICET, Argentina, 2016.  This paper discusses advances and shortcomings in conditional cash transfers programs to households with children in Latin America. The author points to evidence that cash transfers to households with children have positive impacts in combating extreme poverty, providing income stability, smoothing consumption over macroeconomic fluctuations, favoring trade and development given the increase in liquidity, and lowering barriers to enter into certain productive activities. With respect to children, these programs have been associated with increases in primary school enrollment rates and a reduction in malnutrition, although effects on secondary school attendance seem less significant.  However, the author also notes that whether these programs discourage or reinforce the labour behaviour of adult household members might depend on a number of factors, from the magnitude of the cash transfer to the characteristics of the occupation (job conditions, commuting distance or number of hours worked), the demands of care and household chores, behavior of other household members. Hence, a second channel may be introduced through which transfers might lead to changes in the labour supply behaviour of adults, and the cash transfer program’s stipulated conditionalities (e.g. mandatory school attendance potentially reducing time spent on childcare and freeing up more time for work).  “A review of evidence of humanitarian cash transfer programming in urban areas”, International Institute for Environment and Development, December 2015 Humanitarian organizations are increasingly deploying cash transfer programs (CTP) in urban areas, using a range of cash modalities and delivery mechanisms in diverse emergency contexts. CTPs can help mitigate some urban protection concerns (for children and other vulnerable populations), and play a role in first phase urban humanitarian response objectives, potentially contributing to longer term development goals. Urban areas pose unique protection concerns for vulnerable populations, including children. For example, there is a higher proportion of children out of school and working on the streets than in rural areas, given barriers to school access (fees and transport) and greater opportunities to engage in paid work. Although the review found mixed results for the impact of CTP on child protection risks, the authors found evidence that they can reduce the likelihood of recourse to negative coping mechanisms such as dropping out of school and child labour Urban areas offer potential for innovative CTP mechanisms, e.g., streamlined single transfers to meet multi sectoral needs (via multipurpose grants); linking cash to existing services and training to support livelihoods recovery; and targeting higher-wealth categories with livelihoods support to re-establish credit lines and support wider economic recovery The authors highlight the need for humanitarian organizations to coordinate broadly with government and private-sector actors and any other stakeholders involved in CTP implementation, as this can enhance legitimacy and enable greater synergy around national development programs “Cash and Voucher Assistance for Education in Emergencies: Synthesis Report and Guidelines”,The Cash and Learning Partnership, 2019 Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) for education in emergencies (EiE) removes economic barriers preventing crisis affected children from accessing education, thereby leading to prevention of drop-outs, increased enrolment and attendance.  CVA for EiE should be delivered in coordination with interventions addressing protection, cultural and education service-related barriers.  The authors highlight a series of recommendations for improvement, including:  More robust needs assessment tools to inform integrated programming, as well as better response options analysis, both at the strategic and operational levels More sophisticated beneficiary targeting criteria, e.g., via in-depth analysis of the social roots of education deprivation (although this is less feasible in acute emergency situations) Paying greater attention to contextual factors (e.g. fluidity of the situation, absorptive capacity of school system) when deciding whether to use conditional or unconditional CVA Aligning the timing of the EiE-specific CVA to moments when education-related expenses are incurred  Linking humanitarian CVA with government social safety nets for increased outcome sustainability 

  What is RD4C? The Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative is a project seeking to build awareness for how data affects and is affected by children in an age of increasingly ubiquitous technology and data (re)use. Through case studies, reports, and tools, it seeks to provide a way for those who work with data about and for children to put the best interests of children at the center of their data use and reuse activities. Why create RD4C?  Humanitarian and development actors working with children rely increasingly on a wide range of technologies. These tools—which include biometrics, digital identity systems, remote-sensing technologies, mobile and social media messaging apps, and administrative data systems—and the data they create can provide opportunities to better serve children in certain contexts. However, they also generate risks. Data can be mishandled. It can be used in a way that ignores the needs and desires of their communities. It can lead to policies that exacerbate existing inequities and vulnerabilities. We created this initiative to encourage responsible approaches to data management and spark a larger conversation about appropriate data use and reuse.  The work is intended to address practical considerations across the data lifecycle, including routine data collection and one-off data collections; and compliments work on related topics being addressed by the development community such as guidance on specific data systems and technologies, technical standardization, and digital engagement strategies. What does RD4C provide? RD4C highlights and supports best practices by producing a variety of deliverables and products meant for both professionals in the field and senior decision-makers. These documents include: Principles: a set of actionable concepts, derived from desk and field research, that we recommend rights-based organizations working with children’s data adopt; Tools: a light and user-friendly way for organizations and practitioners to operationalize the RD4C Principles in the spaces they work; Blogs: short pieces from the RD4C team and practitioners in the field explaining some issue or project Case Studies: short analysis of real-world projects that provide some insight into the opportunities and challenges in realizing responsible data for children. These case studies analyze data streams deployed in countries around the world; Reports: long-form analyses that synthesize key findings and recommendations from desk and field research. These documents aim to provide actionable insights from research conducted to support UNICEF and all rights-based organizations working with children’s data; Selected Readings: collections of relevant publications and peer-reviewed research that describe how organizations can realize data’s potential to innovate and improve service delivery for children without compromising their needs or trust. How does RD4C work? RD4C seeks to engage with actors in the field as well as those that have experience and expertise in data governance to capture and provide lessons learned on how data about and for children can be leveraged responsibly. What is the geographic focus? RD4C has a global focus and can be used anywhere where an organization is using data about and for children. Case studies and other products focus heavily on those areas where UNICEF and its direct counterparts work. Who can benefit from this work? While the research that it summarizes focused heavily on UNICEF and its direct counterparts, all RD4C products are shared widely to support all those seeking to promote responsible data practices for and about children and initiate a broader conversation around these issues. Our deliverables can be used by governments, communities,  academics, and development practitioners. They contain insights useful both to senior decision-makers and professionals in the field. Who is involved? RD4C is a joint endeavor between UNICEF and The GovLab at New York University. UNICEF is a UN agency that works in the world’s toughest places to reach the most disadvantaged children and adolescents – and to protect the rights of every child, everywhere. Across more than 190 countries and territories, we do whatever it takes to help children survive, thrive and fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.  The Governance Lab (The GovLab) is an action research center at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. Our goal is to strengthen the ability of institutions — including but not limited to governments — and people to work more openly, collaboratively, effectively, and legitimately to make better decisions and solve public problems. We believe that increased availability and use of data, new ways to leverage the capacity, intelligence, and expertise of people in the problem-solving process, combined with new advances in technology and science, can transform governance. We approach each challenge and opportunity in an interdisciplinary, collaborative way, irrespective of the problem, sector, geography, and level of government.  How do I stay up-to-date on the RD4C initiative? We will share a variety of new resources related to this project throughout the year. You can receive regular updates on our work by signing up for our mailing list here.   Photo by Yusril Permana ali on Unsplash

Announcement

Data has the potential to support service delivery that can improve the lives of children. Misuse of data — as well as missed use of potentially valuable information — can also pose serious threats to children’s safety, well-being, and development. Actors working to advance children’s rights around the world need guidance, tools, and support to navigate the constantly evolving data ecosystem, capitalize on opportunities to use data responsibly to benefit children, and avoid harms resulting from irresponsible or ineffective data handling.  The GovLab and UNICEF have sought to support organizations dealing with these issues through its Responsible Data for Children Initiative (RD4C). RD4C supports best practice in data responsibility; identifies challenges and develops practical tools to assist practitioners in evaluating and addressing them; and encourages a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management.  Today, we are delighted to announce the launch of the second phase of this project.  The new effort builds on a first phase of work in which The GovLab conducted three intensive field observations with UNICEF country offices in diverse environments and created an in-depth report on the current state of responsible handling of data for and about children. Products from this phase also suggested specific pathways for improving data practices; offered customized recommendations for UNICEF country offices and implementing partners; provided case studies on notable data systems; and included lightweight tools that could be used across the children’s data ecosystem.  This work further informed the development of a set of principles that are now helping to guide responsible data handling at UNICEF and beyond. These RD4C Principles are:  Participatory: Engaging and informing individuals and groups affected by the use of data for and about children; Professionally Accountable: Operationalizing responsible data practices and principles by establishing institutional processes, roles, and responsibilities; People-Centric: Ensuring the needs and expectations of children, their caregivers, and their communities are prioritized by actors handling data for and about them; Prevention of Harms Across the Data Lifecycle: Establishing end-to-end data responsibility by assessing risks during the collecting, storing, preparing, sharing, analyzing, and using stages of the data life cycle; Proportional: Aligning the breadth of data collection and duration of data retention with the intended purpose; Protective of Children’s Rights: Recognizing the distinct rights and requirements for helping children develop to their full potential; and Purpose-Driven: Identifying and specifying why the data is needed and how the intended or potential benefits relate to improving children’s lives. The second phase of RD4C will expand on these initial outputs. Some of the work that The GovLab and UNICEF are undertaking over the next year includes: Continuing to promote and enable the use of the RD4C Principles, especially in development and humanitarian contexts, in harmony with other important guidelines and best practices, such as the IASC Operational Guidance on Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action and UNICEF’s Children’s Data Governance Manifesto; Developing and testing a new methodology and platform for auditing data systems to better understand their alignment with the RD4C Principles and identify areas for improvement; Developing detailed case studies on diverse, instructive uses of data from across the UNICEF ecosystem to identify key lessons and provide the field with good practices that can be replicated in other contexts; Creating new training programs and curricula in responsible data handling to support UNICEF field staff and other actors working to advance children’s rights; and  Producing and disseminating regular insights, updates, news, and developments on responsible data to advance children’s rights. The new RD4C.org website will act as the hub for all of this work. Please check back regularly to stay up-to-speed on new happenings from the initiative, and sign up here to join the RD4C community to be alerted to new developments and opportunities for collaboration. 

Reposted from Ethical Research Involving Children In this series of Q&A, we speak with Stefaan G. Verhulst and Andrew Young from GovLab, (an action-oriented do-tank located at NYU) who are working in collaboration with UNICEF on an initiative called Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C) . Its focus is on data – the risks it poses to children, as well as the opportunities it offers. You have been working with UNICEF on the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C). What is this and why do we need to be talking more about ‘responsible data’? To date, the relationship between the datafication of everyday life and child welfare has been under-explored, both by researchers in data ethics and those who work to advance the rights of children. This neglect is a lost opportunity, and also poses a risk to children. Today’s children are the first generation to grow up amid the rapid datafication of virtually every aspect of social, cultural, political and economic life. This alone calls for greater scrutiny of the role played by data. An entire generation is being datafied, often starting before birth. Every year the average child will have more data collected about them in their lifetime than would a similar child born any year prior. Ironically, humanitarian and development organizations working with children are themselves among the key actors contributing to the increased collection of data. These organizations rely on a wide range of technologies, including biometrics, digital identity systems, remote-sensing technologies, mobile and social media messaging apps, and administrative data systems. The data generated by these tools and platforms inevitably includes potentially sensitive PII data (personally identifiable information) and DII data (demographically identifiable information). All of this begs much closer scrutiny, and a more systematic framework to guide how child-related data is collected, stored, and used. Towards this aim, we have also been working with the Data for Children Collaborative, based in Edinburgh in establishing innovative and ethicalpractices around the use of data to improve the lives of children worldwide. What are the ethical considerations around the collection of children’s data? Do children have any say at all in this ‘datafication’ of their lives? Among the key ethical issues concern consent, agency and privacy. Even adults face challenges in exerting individual or collective agency in some areas of the data ecosystem, especially the use of datastreams drawn from many people to create profiles or marketing segments, for example. As Martin Tisné puts it, “we are prisoners of other people’s consent.” This is even more so for children, who are often subject to other people’s consent and decision-making. For example, unlike adults, children often do not have full agency to make decisions about their participation in programs or services that may generate and record personal data. Even when children are offered a choice to opt-in or out of a service, they may not be provided with adequate support to assess associated risks and benefits. In fact, privacy terms and conditions are often barely understood by educated adults, let alone children. There is a clear need for privacy terms that are more intelligible (for both adults and children), and for a higher bar when it comes to justifying and explaining data collection in relation to children. Does anonymous data address some of these issues? Aggregated, anonymized data is often held up as a solution to potential privacy violations and a way to balance the possibilities and risks offered by data. However, a variety of studies have shown that anonymized data rarely offers a panacea and can often continue to pose risks even for adults, for example by re-identification (aka the “Mosaic theory” that refers to aggregating different personal data as to provide a mosaic of one’s identity). When it comes to children, data that is aggregated at the group or demographic level (e.g., to contain anonymized information for all children below a certain age) offers unique challenges. This is because children as a group are often uniquely vulnerable (and visible) due in part to the lack of attention to their rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Services or products targeted specifically at children (e.g., those based in a certain location or receiving services for a particular issue) can pose disproportionate risks to the entire targeted population. Aggregated “group data” about children warrants additional ethical consideration. As it stands, current data protection policies and guidance are primarily geared toward individual-level privacy risks, and often fail to address considerations related to group data — particularly group data about children. We are seeing more and more examples of misuse of data for political and other purposes? What are some of the implications of this, especially for children’s lives? First and foremost, privacy and data responsibility are essential to children’s psychosocial growth. Having the freedom and autonomy to experiment with different identities, without prying eyes or chilling dataveillance, is important for children’s identity formation. Children’s capacities are evolving and lack of protection from persistent, invasive data generation and use could impact the way they see themselves and their futures. A sense of privacy can empower children, especially older children, to engage and build relationships with their peers more comfortably and confidently by giving them the option to decide which personal details to disclose and under what conditions. The misuse of data may thus also impact civic and political engagement among young people. Further, when data is mishandled or when data violations occur, people typically lose trust in organizations or institutions (or in the broader information ecology). This, in turn, can lead to “privacy protective behavior” where individuals are not seeking essential services out of fear of unauthorized data uses, and generally limit the potential benefits of technology. For children, as for many adults, loss of trust may be a formative experience and can have considerable impact. Distrust and privacy protective behaviors related to data misuse can have far-reaching consequences, such as refusal of health care, education, child protection and other public services. As new technologies are implemented and the volumes of data increase exponentially, there is a very real risk that the rights of children, and associated adult obligations in respect to these, may be overlooked. Sometimes, this can happen because requirements in place to protect them are difficult to monitor and maintain in a new technology ecology (though of course, this is no justification). Often, too, it is simply because the rights and interests of children are not prioritized or adequately considered when organizations implement data processes or systems. For example, data analysis may be undertaken by people who do not have expertise in research involving children. Similarly, service providers collecting children’s data are not always trained in how to ethically approach and manage this work. How are algorithmic decision-making efforts and the rise of AI processes like machine learning impacting the children’s data responsibility space? And potential issues continue when we look at the impact of AI and Algorithmic bias that hasn’t been developed specifically with children in mind. Much attention has been drawn in recent years to the promise and pitfalls of algorithmic decision-making. While the use of AI in decisions can in some cases expedite processes, it can also contain hard-to-detect but nonetheless tangible biases that result in real adverse effects (e.g. on those seeking medical care, business loans, parole, or jobs). These risks are only heightened when it comes to children. Once again, children may have less agency or understanding when it comes to how AI and algorithms work; they may not even know that certain processes are the result of algorithmic assessment, modelling, or prediction. As described in UNICEF’s draft Policy Guidance on AI for Children, decision-making in international development, social service provision, and education systems are especially likely to be impacted by AI-driven mediation and filtering, often without the direct engagement or knowledge of children or their caregivers. In addition, if children are impacted by algorithmic bias, they may lack the resources or knowledge to respond or seek recourse. Finally, any decision making that targets children and is based on AI that leverages population training data, may fail to take into account children’s physiological and psychological differences (from adults) resulting in potential negative implications for their physical and mental health outcomes. It is therefore imperative that any Responsible Data Use for Children framework include a component dedicated to the role of AI and algorithms. So, how do we each play a part in ensuring responsible and ethical collection and use of data in this era of escalating datafication? More critical engagement around the lifecycle of child-related data is of paramount importance. Attention needs to be given to the collection, preparation, analysis, usage, sharing and storing of children’s data. To begin with, the public sector, businesses, and civil society organizations delivering data-related services for children need to better understand the associated risks–as well as opportunities–in an environment characterized by growing quantification and datafication. We should also be asking ourselves whether and how children and young people themselves – the sometimes so-called ‘digital natives’ – are being involved in helping to address these issues. The ethical challenges surrounding the datafication of children’s lives are ongoing and continually evolving. We welcome you to join a discussion about Responsible Data for Children by visiting RD4C.org.

The GovLab and UNICEF, as part of the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C), are pleased to share a set of lightweight and user-friendly tools to support organizations and practitioners seeking to operationalize the RD4C Principles. These principles — Purpose-Driven, People-Centric, Participatory, Protective of Children’s Rights, Proportional, Professionally Accountable, and Prevention of Harms Across the Data Lifecycle — are especially important in the current moment, as actors around the world are taking a data-driven approach to the fight against COVID-19. The initial components of the RD4C Toolkit are: The RD4C Data Ecosystem Mapping Tool intends to help users to identify the systems generating data about children and the key components of those systems. After using this tool, users will be positioned to understand the breadth of data they generate and hold about children; assess data systems’ redundancies or gaps; identify opportunities for responsible data use; and achieve other insights. The RD4C Decision Provenance Mapping methodology provides a way for actors designing or assessing data investments for children to identify key decision points and determine which internal and external parties influence those decision points. This distillation can help users to pinpoint any gaps and develop strategies for improving decision-making processes and advancing more professionally accountable data practices. The RD4C Opportunity and Risk Diagnostic provides organizations with a way to take stock of the RD4C principles and how they might be realized as an organization reviews a data project or system. The high-level questions and prompts below are intended to help users identify areas in need of attention and to strategize next steps for ensuring more responsible handling of data for and about children across their organization. Finally, the Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF developed an Ethical Assessment that “forms part of [their] safe data ecosystem, alongside data management and data protection policies and practices.” The tool reflects the RD4C Principles and aims to “provide an opportunity for project teams to reflect on the material consequences of their actions, and how their work will have real impacts on children’s lives. RD4C launched in October 2019 with the release of the RD4C Synthesis Report, Selected Readings, and the RD4C Principles. Last month we published the The RD4C Case Studies, which analyze data systems deployed in diverse country environments, with a focus on their alignment with the RD4C Principles. The case studies are: Romania’s The Aurora Project, Childline Kenya, and Afghanistan’s Nutrition Online Database. To learn more about Responsible Data for Children, visit rd4c.org or contact rd4c [at] thegovlab.org. To join the RD4C conversation and be alerted to future releases, subscribe at this link.

This week, as part of the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C), the GovLab and UNICEF launched a new case study series to provide insights on promising practice as well as barriers to realizing responsible data for children. Drawing upon field-based research and established good practice, RD4C aims to highlight and support responsible handling of data for and about children; identify challenges and develop practical tools to assist practitioners in evaluating and addressing them; and encourage a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management. RD4C launched in October 2019 with the release of the RD4C Synthesis Report, Selected Readings, and the RD4C Principles: Purpose-Driven, People-Centric, Participatory, Protective of Children’s Rights, Proportional, Professionally Accountable, and Prevention of Harms Across the Data Lifecycle. The RD4C Case Studies analyze data systems deployed in diverse country environments, with a focus on their alignment with the RD4C Principles. This week’s release includes case studies arising from field missions to Romania, Kenya, and Afghanistan in 2019. The data systems examined are: Romania’s The Aurora Project The Aurora Project is a child protection platform developed by UNICEF Romania in collaboration with NGO and government partners. The system enables social workers and community health care providers to diagnose and monitor vulnerabilities experienced by children and their families. Through the administration of a child protection questionnaire, the system supports the determination of a minimum package of services needed by children and their families. It also enables child protection evaluation and planning work at the national level. The Aurora Project reflects many of the RD4C Principles through its collection of data for clear and well- defined purposes and the various training and guidance materials provided to users. UNICEF Romania and counterparts in the Romanian Government are still working to address challenges related to sensitive group data and the potential for disproportionate data collection and retention. Childline Kenya Childline Kenya is a helpline offering services for children subjected to violence or neglect. Since it began operations in 2006, trained counselors have responded to calls, logged major components for reporting purposes, and redirected callers to relevant services. The organization emphasizes training and the rights of children while ensuring its data collection is proportional and purpose-driven. Given the sensitivity of its work, it faces some difficulties with duplicative and complex data. Afghanistan’s Nutrition Online Database Afghanistan’s Nutrition Online Database is a web-based information system providing access to aggregated nutrition data to inform planning and service delivery at the national, provincial, and zonal level. The Public Nutrition Department (PND) within the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) leads database management, with UNICEF Afghanistan acting as the lead technical developer and providing ongoing technical support. The system exists because missed use of potentially valuable data is a common challenge across the children’s data ecosystem Afghanistan. The Nutrition Online Database tries to spur the use of existing and newly developed nutrition data streams that otherwise might not inform potentially life saving nutrition planning and service delivery. It is the product of a participatory development process with key stakeholders across sectors and actors within beneficiary communities. PND, UNICEF Afghanistan, and other stakeholders support professionally accountable data use through training efforts and working groups but remain challenged by the fragmentation of nutrition systems, mandates, formats, and indicators. These factors could contribute to challenges in tracking decision-making processes affecting data responsibility across the nutrition data ecosystem. To learn more about Responsible Data for Children, visit rd4c.org or contact rd4c [at] thegovlab.org. To join the RD4C conversation and be alerted to future releases, subscribe at this link.

Reposted from The Conversation Around the world, humanitarian and development organizations working with children are increasingly reliant on a wide range of technologies used to improve the efficacy of service delivery and how to respond to, for instance, pandemics and other dynamic threats. Child rights organizations are using or exploring the use of a variety of data-driven technologies to bolster services provided to children, including biometrics, digital identity systems, remote-sensing technologies, mobile and social media messaging apps, and administrative data systems. The data generated by these tools and systems includes potentially sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII) and demographically identifiable information (DII) – data points that enable the identification, classification, and tracking of individuals, groups, or multiple groups of individuals by demographically defining factors. Given this increasingly datafied environment, and the emerging challenges involved in upholding the Convention on the Rights of the Child in our data age, there is a clear need to develop and disseminate responsible approaches for handling data for and about children. Last year, The GovLab and UNICEF initiated the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C) to support actors around the world in avoiding unintended negative consequences on data subjects and beneficiaries and, in turn, ensuring the effective use and positive impact of data. Growing opportunities, and risks Collecting, storing, preparing, sharing, analyzing, and using data about children create unique opportunities and risks. These opportunities and risks are distinct from those involved in the datafication of the general public or other vulnerable groups. To achieve responsible data for children, the public sector, data-holding businesses, and civil society organizations delivering services for children need to better understand the distinct risks and opportunities of an increasingly connected and quantified environment for children. Without question, the increased use of data poses unique risks for and responsibilities to children. While practitioners may have well-intended purposes to leverage data for and about children, the data systems used are often designed with (consenting) adults in mind without a focus on the unique needs and vulnerabilities of children. This can lead to the collection of inaccurate and unreliable data as well as the inappropriate and potentially harmful use of data for and about children. Trends and realities Research undertaken in the context of the RD4C initiative uncovered the following trends and realities. These issues make clear why we need a dedicated data responsibility approach for children. Today’s children are the first generation growing up at a time of rapid datafication where almost all aspects of their lives, both on and off-line, are turned into data points. An entire generation of young people is being datafied – often starting even before birth. Every year the average child will have more data collected about them in their lifetime than would a similar child born any year prior. The potential uses of such large volumes of data and the impact on children’s lives are unpredictable, and could potentially be used against them. Children typically do not have full agency to make decisions about their participation in programs or services which may generate and record personal data. Children may also lack the understanding to assess a decision’s purported risks and benefits. Privacy terms and conditions are often barely understood by educated adults, let alone children. As a result, there is a higher duty of care for children’s data. Disaggregating data according to socio-demographic characteristics can improve service delivery and assist with policy development. However, it also creates risks for group privacy. Children can be identified, exposing them to possible harms. Disaggregated data for groups such as child-headed households and children experiencing gender-based violence can put vulnerable communities and children at risk. Data about children’s location itself can be risky, especially if they have some additional vulnerability that could expose them to harm. Mishandling data can cause children to lose trust in institutions that deliver essential services including vaccines, medicine, and nutrition supplies. For organizations dealing with child well-being, these retreats can have severe consequences. Distrust can cause families and children to refuse health, education, child protection and other public services. Such privacy protective behavior can impact children throughout the course of their lifetime, and potentially exacerbate existing inequities and vulnerabilities. As volumes of collected and stored data increase, obligationsand protections traditionally put in place for children may be difficult or impossible to uphold. The interests of childrenare not always prioritized when organizations define their legitimate interest to access or share personal information of children. The immediate benefit of a service provided does not always justify the risk or harm that might be caused by it in the future. Data analysis may be undertaken by people who do not have expertise in the area of child rights, as opposed to traditional research where practitioners are specifically educated in child subject research. Similarly, service providers collecting children’s data are not always specially trained to handle it, as international standards recommend. Recent events around the world reveal the promise and pitfalls of algorithmic decision-making. While it can expedite certain processes, algorithms and their inferences can possess biases that can have adverse effects on people, for example those seeking medical care and attempting to secure jobs. The danger posed by algorithmic bias is especially pronounced for children and other vulnerable populations. These groups often lack the awareness or resources necessary to respond to instances of bias or to rectify any misconceptions or inaccuracies in their data. Many of the children served by child welfare organizations have suffered trauma. Whether physical, social, emotional in nature, repeatedly making children register for services or provide confidential personal information can amount to revictimization – re-exposing them to traumas or instigating unwarranted feelings of shame and guilt. These trends and realities make clear the need for new approaches for maximizing the value of data to improve children’s lives, while mitigating the risks posed by our increasingly datafied society. The full-length Responsible Data for Children Synthesis Report and other resources are available on Responsible Data for Children website, RD4C.org. The authors would like to thank Stuart Campo, Senior Fellow at The GovLab, for his important contributions to the RD4C initiative.

In late 2019, The GovLab and UNICEF launched Responsible Data for Children (RD4C), an initiative providing guidance, tools, and leadership to support the responsible handling of data for and about children. We shared the first outputs from the initiative in November, including an annotated collection of Selected Readings on RD4C, a report synthesizing lessons learned from field-based research and our review of the literature, and the RD4C Principles. Across the RD4C initiative, we seek to enable governments, communities, development actors, and others to put the best interests of children and a child rights approach at the center of their data activities. In this piece, we highlight 10 key takeaways from the Selected Readings on RD4C. Our review of the literature focused on policies, technical guidance, and other relevant documentation driving activity in the space. The review was ecosystem-wide, considering not only global policies uniquely focused on children’s data, but also documentation with any relevant guidance or lessons learned. For example, the review looked at documentation on a specific topical domain (e.g. guidance on handling data about refugee children) or policies guiding more general development or humanitarian action that featured some reflection on data handling. The ten takeaways included below reflect the key areas of focus as well as the emerging narratives that are present in today’s writings on the subject. This overview and summary is neither fully comprehensive of the many topics associated with children and data, nor should it be read as an endorsement of all the arguments and recommendations posed in the literature. For each takeaway, we link to and summarize how relevant works discuss the issue. Takeaways from the Literature on RD4C 1. Data can be a powerful resource to protect and improve children’s lives. UNICEF’s Data for Children Strategic Framework begins by arguing “smart demand, supply, and use of data drives better results for children.” UNICEF’s Ethical Considerations When Using Social Media for Evidence Generation makes a similar point. It finds value in social media data for amplifying humanitarian organizations’ ability to increase their situational awareness, bolster real-time monitoring capacities, and crowdsource relevant insights. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Data Responsibility Guidelines state data is a critical component of humanitarian response and suggests the management of digital data relating to crisis contexts, affected people, and humanitarian response operations allows the humanitarian community to respond in a more effective and efficient manner. Other potential benefits of data for children represented in the literature include mitigating risks of children dropping out of school and enabling family reunification, among other topics. Additionally, Global Kids Online, an international research project funded by UNICEF and WePROTECT Global Alliance, created a series of method guidesaddressing the fact that digital media environments increasingly mediate a host of activities and experiences important to children’s cognitive, emotional, and social well-being. 2. Data about children requires an additional duty of care in comparison to data about adults, and responsible data approaches must accordingly adhere to higher standards and security measures — in part because of potential long-term and unknown consequences of data’s use. The Technical Working Group on Data Collection on Violence Against Childrenstudied over 80 documents on ethical issues around data and children and found that Privacy and Confidentiality represented a top concern across a variety of framework and guideline types. A similar point is repeated in UNICEF’s Ethical Research Involving Children in Humanitarian Settings documentation. In this piece, UNICEF’s writers argue the collection and use of children’s data occurs in contexts with complex and inequitable power relations. These power asymmetries should be considered when pursuing the beneficial use of children’s data. In the same piece, the authors note children in humanitarian settings are subject to additional vulnerabilities beyond those that are ordinally occurring for children. Namely, challenges arising from structures for children’s support and development breaking down in such settings. World Vision International’s Data Protection, Privacy, and Security for Humanitarian & Development Programs acknowledges the complexities of data protection in humanitarian contexts, but also argues it is “incumbent on this sector to strive toward the highest level of integrity, ethics, and technical ability” to ensure the responsible handling of data on children given their higher degree of vulnerability. UNICEF’s Children and the Data Cycle: Rights and Ethics in a Big Data Worldposits the voices of the world’s children and those who advocate on their behalf are absent in an era of increasing dependence on data science and big data. Due to the potential for severe, long-lasting and differential impacts on children, the document argues child rights need to be integrated into the agenda on ethics and data science. Furthermore, as described in Child Privacy in the Age of Web 2.0 and 3.0, questions and challenges still remain regarding the applicability of concepts and provisions, like GDPR’s “right to be forgotten,” to children and their data, adding additional complexity. More than just a concern for digital activities, the ongoing accumulation of data about children throughout their lifetime can create a variety of unforeseen risks and challenges. 3. Responsible data approaches for children should encompass 1) measures to determine and communicate the potential value of data for those beneficiaries; 2) actions to ensure data protection and a legal basis for data activities; and 3) efforts to ensure that the potential value outweighs identified risks. In UNOCHA’s Building Data Responsibility into Humanitarian Action, data responsibility goes beyond the aims of data protection and privacy. It encompasses principles, policies, and tools aimed at unlocking the value of data in humanitarian contexts while mitigating risks and avoiding harms. The UN Global Pulse’s Privacy and Data Protection Principles embraces similar ideas, such as a) Purpose Compatibility and Risk and Harm Assessment; and b) Risk Mitigation, as central concerns for its responsible use of data. These principles underline the importance of understanding value as well as risks of data for humanitarian and development work. UNICEF’s Children and the Data Cycle: Rights and Ethics in a Big Data Worldraises concerns on privacy and loss of control of personal data over data’s lifespan. It also highlights the problem of direct or inadvertent discrimination and profiling, scope creep, and technological dependency, and provides approaches to address ethical issues in the child data cycle. Regarding metadata, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Privacy’s International’s “Doing No Harm” in the Digital Era identifies robust risk assessment and mitigation strategies that humanitarian organizations must develop to ensure that their use of new technologies does not result in any harm. The Framework for Data Sharing in Practice, from UNOCHA and Protection Information Management (PIM), highlights a Joint Benefit and Risk Assessment to systematically and collaboratively assess data sharing’s value and risks and modify actions accordingly. 4. Digital and connected identifiers can be useful for providing personalized services, but can also create additional, significant risks to children and their families. Data-driven digital identities are seen as game-changers across contexts but especially for children and other vulnerable groups. As described in UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2017 report, “as more and more children go online around the world, [digital technology] is increasingly changing childhood.” These sentiments are repeated in other documents. In its Privacy Impact Assessment of Cash Based Interventions, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) highlights the issues of profiling and social sorting as risks in the increased generation, sharing, and use of beneficiaries’ identity information. Responsible Data’s Development Book echoes these concerns, explaining that while data in the wrong hands can put individuals at risk, even data in the “right” hands can lead to discrimination or exclusion. Categorization or documentation of individuals can have unintended consequences even when actors are not acting maliciously. For adults, biometric identifiers are driving increasing parts of the responsible data literature. A working paperfrom the International Labour Office guides social protection practitioners seeking to create efficiency benefits from highly sensitive biometric identifiers while mitigating risks. The Center for Global Development, meanwhile, produced guiding documents on biometric identity information collection. These materialsadvocate for upfront privacy impact assessments to identify potential sensitivities related to data use. These researchers also outlined principles on inclusion, robust and responsive design, and accountable governance of identifiers and provide good-practice examples from countries at the forefront of ID management. Even in 2010, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review published a note highlighting the risks of collecting biometric data from refugees. More recently, ICRC noted that when biometric data collection is linked to services, such as those provided to refugees, consent cannot be viewed as free and fair. UNICEF is taking a considered approach to the use of biometrics. Its report, “Faces, Fingerprints and Feet: Guidance on assessing the value of including biometric technologies in UNICEF-supported programmes,” provides decision-makers with key questions and criteria to ensure critical assessment and due diligence on benefits and risks of investments in biometrics. 5. Children and their needs and interests should be at the center of any data collection intervention. Human-centered design is a common element of many responsible data strategies. The Engine Room, a research center, published the Handbook of the Modern Development Specialist, which focuses especially on the issue of human-centric data practices as key to responsible data use in development. With relevance for famine relief in general, not just relating to children, Oxfam’s Responsible Program Data Policy premises itself on the idea that responsible data practices at their core must safeguard people’s rights and ensure dignity throughout the data collection and use process. The Interagency Guidelines for Case Management & Child Protection recommend users prioritize the best interests of the child. In reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it makes clear that the best interests of the child should be “the basis of all decisions and actions taken.” Responsible Data’s Development Book notes the increasing reliance on quantification in development work may be motivated by funders, governments, financial incentives, or research goals. However, it argues a critical approach to avoid the use of “data for data’s sake.” Regarding social media, just one small part of the data ecosystem, UNICEF’s Ethical Considerations When Using Social Media for Evidence Generation states it is no longer sufficient for users of data and technologies to leave ethical reflection to subject-matter experts. Rather, child advocates who use social media data need to be brought into the conversation and to understand and reflect on the ethical implications of the use and potential outcomes of adopting these technologies and the data they generate. 6. Broadly applicable frameworks and guidelines can help to establish good practices, but recognition of regional context and norms are often key when seeking to ensure the responsibility of data approaches involving children. UNICEF’s Data for Children Strategic Framework’s five principles include “different data are appropriate for different uses and contexts.” Similarly, a resolution on Privacy and International Humanitarian Action agreed at an international conference of data protection and privacy commissioners committed members to consider the specific needs of international humanitarian actors operating in different contexts and with different externalities at play. In other words, a one-size-fits-all approach is not realistic. Responsible Data’s Development Book suggests a number of questions and issues to consider, but notes a project’s context determines the challenges its sponsors will face. While defining “sensitive personal data,” Privacy International’s Guide for Policy Engagement on Data Protection states there is no exhaustive list of what constitutes sensitive personal data and recommends special consideration for categories such as financial data, society security, and data relating to children. Privacy International also argues that national and local contexts should also be considered; for example, caste information is treated as highly sensitive personal data in India. Global Kids Online’s report Addressing Diversities and Inequalities calls attention to how the conceptualizations of social actors and their locations may be rich in international contexts where there has been prior research on a variety of aspects. However, these conceptualizations, when applied in other contexts, can lead to overly broad characterizations and even stereotyping. It can imply, for instance, there is an “average 12-year-old.” Still, it is also clear certain responsible data standards and principles are non-negotiable even if certain good practices depend on the context. 7. The participation of and consultation with children and their caregivers around the collection and use of children’s data is an important component of data responsibility. A paper in Conflict and Health, for example, highlights the need to consult with beneficiaries and data subjects. The authors make clear this engagement can be a complex undertaking that is highly dependent on context, especially in humanitarian settings. Additionally, The Signal Code from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative echoes this argument, including “the right to data agency” as one of its five human rights associated with humanitarian information activities. Similar views are found in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Privacy Guidelines, which includes individual participation in its eight Basic Principles of National Application. Global Kids Online’s method guide suggests children should be actively involved in the research process when research pertains to children’s opportunities. It also argues for deploying participatory and child-centered approaches to enable policy-makers and practitioners to design initiatives that respond to children’s needs. Finally, USAID’s Considerations for Using Data Responsibly at USAID states its team must respect the agency of its data subjects in all humanitarian efforts. Ensuring children and their caregivers can exert meaningful agency over children’s data is, however, a significant challenge, as unforeseen data linkages and re-uses can emerge over time. 8. The consent of data subjects and their caregivers is important, but obtaining meaningful consent is a complex and, at times, impossible undertaking when dealing with children, especially in fragile humanitarian settings. The Global Protection Cluster, European Commission, and USAID Interagency Guidelines for Case Management & Child Protection encourages actors to seek informed consent and/or informed assent, demonstrating both the importance of consent and the challenge of obtaining it in certain situations. The ICRC Handbook on Data Protection in Humanitarian Action also highlights the importance of consulting children in decisions that affect them but notes humanitarian actors must take “particular care” to ensure children understand the risks and purported benefits of the collection and use of their data, otherwise the consent they provide will not be meaningful. Indeed, a subsequent article in Humanitarian Law & Policy describes how ICRC does not operate under the belief “consent provides a legally valid basis for data processing in many emergency situations.” Meanwhile, UNICEF’s Children and the Data Cycle: Rights and Ethics in a Big Data World explains approaches adopted to ensure the realization of the rights of adolescent should differ from those adopted for younger children. Consent policies, UNICEF argues, ought to recognize children’s development, including their increasing competencies, analytical capacities and agency. In another report, Child Privacy in the Age of Web 2.0 and 3.0, UNICEF outlines national, regional, and international consent provisions, noting the adoption of some norms aimed at protecting children’s privacy and their personal information pre-date the advent of the Internet. 9. Responsibilities around the ethical use of children’s data are ill-defined and distributed. Greater cooperation and improved partnerships could be a means for addressing these challenges. The need for and challenge of determining a locus of accountability in the event of data-related harms is prevalent across strategies and policies reviewed but with little commonality in proposed approaches. The UN Privacy Policy Group’s Principles on Personal Data Protection and Privacy, consistent with many other efforts included here, in part intends to “harmonize standards for the protection of personal data,” highlighting the current fragmentation of policies, expectations, and responsibilities. Improved collaboration could help to address these challenges. Mapping and Comparing Responsible Data Approaches, developed by the Centre for Innovation and The GovLab, highlights the need for leadership and inter-agency coordination around data responsibility to drive good practice and improve coordination and cooperation. The Global Food Security Cluster and UN OCHA Field Guide to Data Sharing also makes clear that effectively leveraging data in humanitarian contexts is a joint effort, requiring good practices and collaboration across organizations, as well as across sectors. The Principles for Digital Development also culminate with the push for organizations leveraging technology to provide services to children to be more collaborative. Finally, a joint report prepared for UNICEF, UNHCR, and the ICRC also points to the value of data sharing in enhancing “coordination and collaboration across agencies” tasked with providing services to vulnerable children. 10 Low quality and/or unrepresentative data could negatively impact the responsible use of data. A focus on accuracy is essential if data will be used to inform decision-making affecting children. Though not specifically focused on children’s data, the European Union (through GDPR), the International Organization for Migration, and UNHCR, respectively, all consider data accuracy as central principles for responsible data handling. In line with the Principle on Data Accuracy, UNOCHA’s Data Responsibility Guidelines include determining accuracy and integrity of data as a necessary step when collecting and receiving data. The Center for Democracy & Technology, a technology nonprofit advocacy and research center, reviewed 18 data use frameworks and recognized the Data Quality Principle, which states personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which it is used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete, and kept up-to-date as a consistent and foundational principle. A lack of comparable data can also create issues. The Global Agenda for Children’s Rights in the Digital Age, for example, notes the challenges involved in using data to benefit children’s lives resulting from the lack of comparable baseline data related to policies and programs, as well as issues of transferability regarding solutions developed in the Global North and their applicability in the Global South. Global Kids Online’s Addressing Diversities and Inequalities method guide also notes research questions transferred (e.g. from the global North to the global South, or from wealthy neighborhoods to impoverished ones) without providing attention to local and international inequalities can generate contaminated knowledge. Our Selected Readings on RD4C will continue to grow and evolve over time. Please do share any materials that you feel should be included in our reading list. With your help, we will seek to maintain a useful and current curation of important literature in the field. Please send your suggestions to [email protected].

Thirty years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is now the most widely ratified treaty in the world. The world has achieved enormous progress in achieving the treaty’s goals, but new threats have emerged. Today’s children are quantified to an unprecedented degree. In our increasingly datafied environment, there is a clear need to develop and disseminate responsible approaches for handling data for and about children and upholding the Convention on the Rights of the Child in our data age. The GovLab’s Andrew Yong presents the RD4C website. Photo credit: Andrew J. Zahuranec   On Tuesday, to address this need, The GovLab and UNICEF launched the Responsible Data for Children initiative (RD4C) at UNICEF House. Through a brief presentation and panel discussion, UNICEF’s Robert MacTavish and The GovLab’s Andrew Young described the newly released RD4C website, Selected Readings, Synthesis Report, and RD4C Principles, as well as their hopes for how these and future outputs could strengthen data responsibility. RD4C intends to support best practice in data responsibility; identify challenges and develop practical tools to assist practitioners in evaluating and addressing them; and encourage a broader discussion on actionable principles, insights, and approaches for responsible data management. The project’s three-part research methodology involved an extensive desk review of relevant literature, key informant interviews with UNICEF personnel and others working in the space, and three field observation visits to UNICEF country offices in Romania, Kenya, and Afghanistan. “RD4C is an effort both to understand existing good practices and how other practices can be improved. It is a set of public goods to show how we can be more responsible in the way we handle data for and about children,” said Andrew Young in his opening remarks. The GovLab’s Stefaan Verhulst (left) and UNICEF’s Vidhya Ganesh (right) discuss data responsibility. Photo credit: UNICEF Data, https://bit.ly/35o5dHW   Later, Stefaan Verhulst participated in a panel with UNICEF’s Vidhya Ganesh (Director, Division of Analysis, Planning, and Monitoring), and Daniel Couture (Chief Information Officer, ICT for Development), moderated by Sumaira Chowdhury (Chief of Child Protection, OIC). There, the panelists noted the project’s potential and how it could build awareness regarding the need for special attention to data issues affecting children — especially in an age of changing technology and data linkage. Through reports, case studies, and other materials, the project would engage with governments, communities, and development actors to put the best interests of children and a child rights approach at the center of data activities. “Many of the children receiving services are the most vulnerable,” Stefaan noted. “We have to design data systems that don’t revictimize the child.” The event closed with participants once again highlighting the project’s website. There, visitors can find initial outputs from the project’s desk and field research efforts. Additional tools and materials are coming soon and will be posted on the website as they become available. Join the RD4C conversation to receive regular updates.