IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2014 - 8

EtiEnnE turpin

PetaJakarta.org team survey damage along the Ciliwung River using GeoSocial Rapid Assessment Survey
Platform (#GRASP) via Twitter, as neighborhood
children look on.

can help solve some of the biggest problems facing our
earth or whether the rhetoric that says using technology to correct economic externalities is a misnomer.
Let us ponder on the affirmative however. What
role can big data play in civic infrastructure planning
and development? Can citizens contribute data via
crowdsourcing technologies to help service providers
and government have better visibility of the problems
on the ground?
for example, in the Chinese megacities that have
emerged, capturing data that indicates where there is
a pressing need for cleaner drinking water is imperative for the health and welfare of citizens. Doing this
systematically might mean that citizens contribute
this knowledge via a text message or through the use
of social media, giving municipal and provincial governments and specific agencies in charge of waterways, such as environmental protection authorities, an
ability to better plan and respond in a timely manner.
Similarly, if we can monitor zones prone to flooding that affect tens of millions of people, we might be
able to lessen the burden on these citizens by informing civil infrastructure planners in the government
to respond to the underlying problems perpetuating
the flooding during monsoon season. Refer here to
the work of Etienne Turpin and Tomas Holderness of
the SMART Infrastructure facility www.petajakarta.
org. Here citizens send a text message using Twitter, some with location information and others with

photographs attached, allowing partner organizations
such as NGOs to get a complete picture of trends and
patterns at a dwelling level, and collectively assess
areas of major concern affected by banjir (i.e., floods).
Is it possible to use this data to drive change?
Socio-technical systems in their purest form are
there to fulfill user-centered aims, and not to act against
an individual's freedom and human rights. Will we be
able to convert the present senseless surveillance fueled
by mega-companies and governments to a net-neutral
opt-in detection and alert system toward access for
basic needs and longer term sustainability for communities far and wide? At what point will citizens be able
to donate their mobile and Internet and general utilities
data without the risk of potential harm to themselves
and their families? Or are we blindly being led down a
utopian scenario that will ultimately be used to control
or manipulate the masses even further?
Additionally, what will be the repercussions on private enterprise? To date utility companies have been
taking advantage of their own inability to offer services that run on efficient energy redistribution to their
subscribers. Of course it has never been in their best
interest to "rob from the rich to feed the poor," precisely because by offering this kind of redistribution,
utilities companies would negatively be impacting on
their bottom line. What will all this big-data achieve?
An ever-greater ability to scrutinize the subscriber,
based on smart meter data, in order to generate even
more revenues for private companies who have taken
on once government-based responsibilities.
We must not be myopic - big data can be used
for us or against us. This issue presents the positive
value of "collective action," a fundamental ability to
commandeer resources together, often self-organized,
toward the benefit of our community at large. This is
not a new phenomenon but with the aid of technology, both data collection and analysis have become
possible at granular levels of detail. It is up to us to
anticipate the risks associated with such engineering
design principles, and introduce safeguards that will
make such an approach work.

Author Information
Katina Michael is Associate Professor in the School
of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Xi Chen is Professor of Marketing and Electronic
Commerce at the School of Business at Nanjing University, China.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

fALL 2014

http://www.PetaJakarta.org http://www.petajakarta

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2014