Data for Policy 2017 – Government by Algorithm?

BIS Conference Centre, London, 6-7th September

Governments are being transformed under the impact of the digital revolution, although the speed of change is behind that of the commercial sector. Policy-makers in all domains are facing increasing pressures to interact with citizens more efficiently, and make better decisions in the light of data flooding in all forms, sophisticated computing technologies, and analytics methods.  The hierarchical structures of governments are also being challenged as these technologies equip individuals and informal networks with the necessary tools to better participate in public decision making processes, and have a societal impact at a much faster pace than ever before.  The concepts and tools from artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and now blockchain technologies are also likely to automate many services in the public sector, greatly increasing its efficiency but at the cost of potentially millions of jobs. ‘Smartification’ of people, devices, institutions, cities, and governments also brings constant, ubiquitous surveillance which, together with inference and recognition technologies, creates the potential to regulate human behaviour and may even threaten democracy.

Keynote Speakers

  • Stefaan Verhulst,GovLab, New York University, USA
  • Philip Treleaven, University College London, UK

Plenary Speakers

  • Mariana Kotzeva, Eurostat, European Commission, Luxembourg
  • Heather Savory, Office for National Statistics, UK
  • Daniel Zeichner, Chair of All Party Parliamentary group on Data Analytics, UK
  • Jon Crowcroft, University of Cambridge; The Alan Turing Institute, UK
  • Helen Margetts Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; The Alan Turing Institute, UK
  • Peter Smith, UK Administrative Data Research Network, University of Southampton, UK
  • Barbara Ubaldi, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), France
  • Stefaan Verhulst GovLab, New York University, USA

Watch videos here

Partners

University College London – Department of Computer Science and UCL Public Policy
University of Cambridge – Computer Laboratory and Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP)
UK Government Data Science Partnership – Government Office for Science (GO- Science), Office for National Statistics (ONS), and Government Digital Service (GDS)
All Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics, UK Parliament
Imperial College London – Data Science Institute
London School of Economics and Political Science – Department of Methodology
The Alan Turing Institute – UK National Institute for Data Science
The Royal Statistical Society
European Commission – Joint Research Centre and Eurostat
University of Oxford – Oxford Internet Institute
New York University – The Government Laboratory (GovLab) and the Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX)
University of Essex – Institute for Analytics and Data Science
Essex County Council
UK Administrative Data Research Network (ADRN)
Privitar
CognitionX

The Data for Policy Zenodo community was launched in April 2017. Since the 2017 conference, authors have been encouraged to submit discussion papers to the community before the conference, providing an open-access, citable means of dissemination.

Read about the experience of two conference volunteers from our partner organisation, the Office for National Statistics