5-3 Data Ownership & Indigenous Futures

Overview

Goals

• Students will be able to describe ethical and political issues of data collection and ownership.
• Students will be able to describe design practices for future technologies to protect user data.
• Students will discuss a tribal initiated program that trains tribal health leaders to collect and analyze data.

Content Standards

Prep

Teachers should complete the following preparation for the lesson:

• Place students into groups of four
• Poster paper (1/group of four)
• Markers

Lesson Guide

Data Ownership (30 mins)

This lesson looks at data ownership. Every time we use apps, websites, and devices, our data is being collected and used or sold to others. More importantly, decisions are made by law enforcement, financial institutions, and governments based on data that directly affect the lives of people. But what happens when the algorithms that make those decisions are written by biased people? What if we are harming others by collecting data in the first place? This lesson takes a look at data ownership through the lens of tribal sovereignty as we consider what it means for tribes to not have their data collected by the US government or other non-tribal entities while also allowing students to reflect on the data that is collected about them.

Teacher says the following:

We just collected data from users using the sound sensors to add some functionality
to our ledger art projects. In our projects, we printed the data to the Serial Monitor
and analyzed the data to determine how our ledger projects might work for a diverse
group of users. Like software which uses voice commands such as Alexa and Siri, we
needed some data to determine how our product will function and make modifications
to make it better. But apps like Alexa and Siri do more with the data. In fact,
every app you use on your phone collects a lot of your data not just to make their
app better, but also to sell to third parties.

Today, we will take a closer look at the data that companies collect from you.
The big question of today is: Should these companies be allowed to collect these
data, and who should have ownership of your data? Because as we will see - the
software companies own your data and have the right to share the data with
other companies, organizations, and governments.

Teacher tells students that the teacher read the terms and conditions of a free, popular video sharing app used by millions around the world, and would like to share some of the information that users agree to. Teacher tells the students that this app lists all the data that the company collects on its users. The terms and conditions state that the data belong to the company and that the company has the right to share the data with third parties. Third parties are other interested persons other than the user and the company. In this case, it could be other companies, organizations, and governments.

Teacher invites students to stand up. The teacher tells student that they will list all the data types that the company collects, and if a student does not feel comfortable with others having that data type about them, the student should sit down. Teacher reads out each data type one by one:

• Name
• Age
• Email
• Phone Number
• List of every video you watch
• List of every video you comment on
• How you type: speed, accuracy
• How long you spend on different content
• List of all your private messages (date, time, person sent to)
• Photos
• Livestreams
• Audio Recordings
• Videos
• Anything copied to the clipboard of your device
• Credit card numbers
• Home address
• All contacts in your phone (name, email, phone #)
• Contact lists from each of your social networks
• IP address
• Mobile carrier
• Internet settings
• Location via GPS (not just when in the app)
• Identifiable objects and scenery in your photos
• Faces and body features of individuals in images
• Text printout of words spoken in video and audio from your phone
• Faceprint (biometrics)
• Voiceprint (biometrics)
• Info about your photos (how it was taken, where it was taken (GPS), when it was taken)
• Browsing history
• Cookies

Think/Pair/Share

What kind of information, not included in these data types, can someone learn about you?

Should the company be able to own and share these data? Why or why not?

Teacher places students into groups of four. Pass out a poster to each student group as well as markers. Teacher asks groups to discuss the following scenario:

Consider the following scenario: There appears to be an increase in bicycle accidents
around the school before and after class. You have been tasked with collecting
data to help protect the health of your peers and improve your community. What
data might you collect and how? What responsibility do you have to protect that
data?

Explain to students that they will create a three minute presentation about the data they would collect, how they would collect the data, and their thoughts on data privacy. Be explicit about data privacy: ask students what would happen if law enforcement were to learn about behaviors of students that they might deem suspect. Students will supplement their presentation with visual representations on their poster.

Give students time to discuss, make their ideas concrete, and write on their posters. Teacher walks around and supports groups in their discussions.

Groups post their posters around the room. Groups present in front of their posters.

Data and Indigenous Futures (20 mins)

The following information is from an article posted by the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council titled “Montana, Wyoming tribes trained in gathering, analyzing health data”. Montana and Wyoming tribal leaders invited members of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to train tribal health officials to collect and analyze health data for their tribes. The teacher begins reading:

Montana and Wyoming tribes now have a new tool for collecting, tracking and analyzing
health information. The Rocky Mountain Tribal Epidemiology Center (RMTEC), part of the Rocky
Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, brought in a trainer from the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) to teach tribal health officials how to use software to
track population health data.

Questions:

• What is health data? Who owns your health data?
  • Looking for: Health data can be anything from data collected at a doctor visit to Covid-19 surveys taken online or by phone. In Montana, health organizations own your data and can share your data with the US government and other US-based health organizations.
• What might be some conflicts with US-based companies and the US government owning the health data of tribes in Montana?
  • Looking for: Tribes are sovereign nations. They decide ownership of the health data of their own populace.

Continue reading:

The tribes can develop their own surveys and analyze the data collected by them,
said Jordan Vandjelovic, an RMTEC epidemiologist who helped bring in the CDC official.
Members from Montana’s Blackfeet, Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations
and Wyoming’s Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes attended the five-day
training. They learned how to use a free program called Epi Info 7, an
easy-to-use system of creating and analyzing data.

Vandejlovic said he envisions tribes tracking diseases and other health issues.
For example, they might use it to develop a quick survey on seat belt use, import
it to a mobile device and then send a representative out with the survey to determine
seat belt usage in a particular area.

Or, he said, they might use it to gather information on the availability of healthy
meals in a specific area and cross that with the prevalence of chronic disease there.

The training helps to fulfill one of the RMTEC’s and tribal leaders council’s goals
of helping to expand and improve development of public health services, systems
and epidemiological data. "This is the first time our organization has done something
for the tribes in this capacity," she said. "They can understand their data a lot
faster now."

Questions:

• One example of this system could be tracking seat belt usage. Why might it be important for tribes to track whether people use seat belts in terms of health?
  • Looking for: Because tribes are sovereign nations, they make their own laws regarding seat belt use.
• What lessons should future tech developers learn from this collaboration when thinking about data ownership?

Vocabulary

The following are terms used in this lesson.