Re: [projectvrm] Toronto police handing out tickets to good samaritans

[Devon M T Loffreto < >]

reminds me of the recent Coke ad spot that uses surveillance footage from cameras deployed in different public locations to showcase random acts of kindness... ie surprise kissing attacks, etc. http://youtu.be/lrkWgmrEobc

as to your point on "balances of power"... agreed... its one of, it not the, most interesting outcomes of fixing bi-directional power exchange in transactions. Leverage of all kinds is affected.

I think that the irony that needs to be interrogated is that personal sovereignty is not an attack on National sovereignty models, but actually creates more empowerment and integrity, if done right, in both vectors... the Individual and the system.

Devon

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:26 AM, T.Rob < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

As some of you know from reading my "other" blog (
<http://ask-an-aspie.net> http://ask-an-aspie.net ), I write a lot about
compassion-based cultural change and different ways to accomplish that.  So
naturally, I'm drawn to articles like: Toronto police to start handing out
'positive tickets' to Good Samaritans (http://bit.ly/10ZggRP )
Occasionally, they cross over.  The bulk of this article turned out to be
about privacy and trust issues with the program.





Some recipients will be invited to take a survey online in order to be
entered into a draw for a larger prize.



...



Lekan Olawoye, who runs Toronto's For Youth Initiative and is chair of the
Premier's Council on Youth Opportunities, called the positive ticketing
program "a good first step," but he'd like to see a more robust, force-wide
strategy for engaging youth, which should be based on feedback from those
young people.



"I'm a little a skeptical," he said in an interview Wednesday. "With any
police officer stopping a young person with whom they don't have a good
relationship, it's going to be difficult."



Olawoye said it's unlikely that youth, especially the most hard-to-engage,
would trust the police enough to go online to give their personal
information.



According to the police website, the survey will ask where the positive
ticket was issued, the person's name, email address or phone number, age and
home address, as well as questions about their views on the positive ticket
program. It also says none of the information collected will be used outside
of the positive ticketing program.



"There's a lack of trust," said Olawoye, adding that people who are used to
being stopped and asked for their information may not trust or understand
what police will do with the data.



Deputy Police Chief Peter Sloly said officers do not ask for any information
when they first hand out the ticket and coupon, it's only those who want to
be eligible for a bigger prize who are asked to voluntarily provide any
information.



Information and privacy rules



The province's information and privacy commissioner said her office is
working with the Toronto Police to help ensure that its program respects
people's privacy.



"For this program to succeed, people have to be confident that, as a general
rule, their data is only used for the purposes for which it was provided,"
said Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian.



"The police have indicated that they won't be using the data for any
purposes other than to administer the Positive Ticketing program. I think
that this is a critical commitment, particularly for a program whose purpose
is 'to build stronger relationships with the community and break down
barriers that get in the way of communication and trust.'"





This illustrates my thesis regarding balances of power in the relationship.
Police have such an excess of power in the relationship with citizens that
the potential for abuse of personal information is greater, as are the
potential consequences.  Whereas the discussion and perspective seems to be
one of breaking down "barriers that get in the way of communication and
trust" the biggest barrier is the power differential and that is not likely
to go away.  If they are serious and want people to trust the police, what
is needed is absolute transparency.  Open the survey program to external
audit and publish the findings for citizens to review.  Find ways to provide
independent review by any interested citizen while preserving the
confidentiality of the data.  There's a much higher standard they must meet
than a vendor approaching their customers on a more equal basis for
commercial transactions.



It would be interesting to explore the spectrum of power differential
relationships and the ways in which VRMy solutions improve or degrade at
different points along that scale.  Although we really like peer-to-peer,
we'll never get to be peers with some entities we'd like to participate in
this ecosystem.



-- T.Rob