[PASSED] Repeal "Access to Scientific Knowledge"

[Frisbeeteria]

Repeal "Access to Scientific Knowledge"

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Category: Repeal || Resolution: GAR #604 || Proposed by: Wallenburg

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Recognizing the value of scientific knowledge and its publication to the international community,

Committed, however, to the principles of ethical research, which take precedence over convenient access to data,

The World Assembly hereby repeals General Assembly Resolution #604, Access to Scientific Knowledge, for the following causes:

1. Section 4 fails to consider the privacy and confidentiality rights of research participants.
   
   
   1. It institutes no procedures whatsoever for the anonymization of participant data which the Council for Scientific Dissemination collects: neither member states nor research entities operating under their jurisdiction nor the Council for Scientific Dissemination are directed to perform any anonymization, regardless of its necessity to the protection of personal information.
      
      
   2. It requires the communication of personal information—which may include their names, associations, place of residence, employment, sexual, or medical history, or demographic characteristics—to the Council for Scientific Dissemination whenever it is included in government-funded research or data.
2. Section 6 exacerbates these failures by directing the Council for Scientific Dissemination to publish all of this unethically communicated data.
   
   
3. Section 4 further bulldozes research ethics in coercing government-funded researchers to violate informed consent agreements with participants where these agreements specify that some collected information will not be published or communicated to third parties. This harms participants of past scientific research and erodes public trust in the sciences and the will of scientists to examine their hypotheses, for fear of harming participants.

[Wallenburg]

Repeal "Access to Scientific Knowledge"

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Recognizing the value of scientific knowledge and its publication to the international community,

Committed, however, to the principles of ethical research, which take precedence over convenient access to data,

The World Assembly hereby repeals General Assembly Resolution #604, Access to Scientific Knowledge, for the following causes:

1. Section 4 fails to consider the privacy and confidentiality rights of research participants, such that it requires the communication of personal information, which may include their names, associations, place of residence, or medical history, to the Council for Scientific Dissemination.
   
   
2. Section 4 further bulldozes research ethics in coercing researchers to violate informed consent agreements with participants where these agreements specify that some collected information will not be published or communicated to third parties.

Repeal "Access to Scientific Knowledge"

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Recognizing the value of scientific knowledge and its publication to the international community,

Committed, however, to the principles of ethical research, which take precedence over convenient access to data,

The World Assembly hereby repeals General Assembly Resolution #604, Access to Scientific Knowledge, for the following causes:

1. Section 4 fails to consider the privacy and confidentiality rights of research participants, such that it requires the communication of personal information—which may include their names, associations, place of residence, employment, sexual, or medical history, or demographic characteristics—to the Council for Scientific Dissemination whenever it is collected in the course of government-funded scientific inquiry.
   
   
2. Section 6 exacerbates these failures by directing the Council for Scientific Dissemination to publish all of this unethically communicated data.
   
   
3. Section 4 further bulldozes research ethics in coercing government-funded researchers to violate informed consent agreements with participants where these agreements specify that some collected information will not be published or communicated to third parties. This harms participants of past scientific research, erodes public trust in the sciences and the will of scientists to examine their hypotheses, for fear of harming participants.

[Haganham]

I would change Scientific Dissemination to Public Dissemination. It better underscores the issue at hand, and better reflects 6c

[Wallenburg]

I would change Scientific Dissemination to Public Dissemination. It better underscores the issue at hand, and better reflects 6c

The name of the committee isn't up to me, it's written into the target of this repeal.

[Haganham]

I would change Scientific Dissemination to Public Dissemination. It better underscores the issue at hand, and better reflects 6c

The name of the committee isn't up to me, it's written into the target of this repeal.

I don't mean change the name. I mean describe what is required as "the communication of personal information... to the Council for public dissemination." The issue is not that confidential information is being given to a WA committee. It's that the committee is sharing the information publicly.

[Fachumonn]

Repealing a great resolution just for one slightly problematic (I wouldn't even call it that) section is not a wise move.

[Honeydewistania]

Repealing a great resolution just for one slightly problematic (I wouldn't even call it that) section is not a wise move.

Violation of bioethics not being problematic seems a bit of a stretch.

[Wallenburg]

The name of the committee isn't up to me, it's written into the target of this repeal.

I don't mean change the name. I mean describe what is required as "the communication of personal information... to the Council for public dissemination." The issue is not that confidential information is being given to a WA committee. It's that the committee is sharing the information publicly.

The committee name is "Council for Scientific Dissemination". So reads Section 2 of the target:

Establishes the Council for Scientific Dissemination (CSD).

If I called it the Council for Public Dissemination, I would be committing a proposal rules violation (Honest Mistake) for making false claims about the target.

[Desmosthenes and Burke]

I don't mean change the name. I mean describe what is required as "the communication of personal information... to the Council for public dissemination." The issue is not that confidential information is being given to a WA committee. It's that the committee is sharing the information publicly.

The committee name is "Council for Scientific Dissemination". So reads Section 2 of the target:

Establishes the Council for Scientific Dissemination (CSD).

If I called it the Council for Public Dissemination, I would be committing a proposal rules violation (Honest Mistake) for making false claims about the target.

Wally, note the lack of capitalization Haganham is using. He is saying "Give it to the Committee [for Scientific Dissemination] for [the purpose of] public dissemination"

[Wallenburg]

The committee name is "Council for Scientific Dissemination". So reads Section 2 of the target:

Establishes the Council for Scientific Dissemination (CSD).

If I called it the Council for Public Dissemination, I would be committing a proposal rules violation (Honest Mistake) for making false claims about the target.

Wally, note the lack of capitalization Haganham is using. He is saying "Give it to the Committee [for Scientific Dissemination] for public dissemination"

That's equally nonsensical and equally illegal. The CSD is not named "the Committee" or "the Council".

[Desmosthenes and Burke]

Wally, note the lack of capitalization Haganham is using. He is saying "Give it to the Committee [for Scientific Dissemination] for public dissemination"

That's equally nonsensical and equally illegal. The CSD is not named "the Committee" or "the Council".

The suggestion was not to misname the committee, but for the clause in your repeal to spell out what the CSD is doing with the information it receives, which is what makes the target problematic (or at least potentially so).

If the CSD simply received data and stuck it in a vault without doing anything else, it would be significantly less objectionable (or at least it would be to me, though I am not entirely convinced the mandate in Hulldom's resolution unequivocally MUST be read the way I think Haganham [and you if I understand your repeal argument] are doing).

[Wallenburg]

Edits have been made to make note of the issue of publication. I hope that is satisfactory to those concerned.

[The Wallenburgian World Assembly Offices]

Trevanyika enters the drafting room. She takes Ogenbond's coat from the chair he left it on and tosses it to the ground. Sitting back comfortably, she gets to work on the draft materials available to her.

[The Wallenburgian World Assembly Offices]

After spending the week chewing the end of several pencils, Trevanyika finds herself satisfied with the proposal as-is. She decides that she will submit it for consideration soon unless someone brings forward concerns or recommendations for improvement.

[Potted Plants United]

OOC: General support. Having been a research subject in state-funded scientific research projects of very private nature (if the sexual privacy resolutions haven't been repealed recently, think stuff along those veins), I'd be mortified to have any non-anonymized info or even my name in general to be published in relation to the research. Not to mention the unfeasability of publishing possibly tens of thousands of names.

[Attempted Socialism]

I crosspost the reasoning that lead to me changing my vote, because I think it's important to be more precise in the repeal. Data, properly handled in a lot of research, are already anonymised by any scrupulous institution. Responsible data collectors, such my institute, statistical bureaus, and several service-providers, will identify the person who answers apart from the data collected, or they will take efforts to scrub the data before handing it over to researchers. Personally I can say that I don't want personal data in my datasets at all.
So in case of responsible institutions and researchers, the data they work on should already be anonymous, and remain such when handed over. The critical part is that this cannot be guaranteed, either because of error, malice, or a reidentification process. But, crucially, it should not be possible at all; CSD should have a mandate to properly ascertain that collected data are scrubbed before it is released to anyone.

After a re-reading prompted by Wallenburg's draft repeal, I am ashamed to say that I completely missed the very real potential for dissemination of personal information that clause 4 contains, and that while the data may be scrubbed for personally identifiable markers as is proper, there is no obligation on CSD to also ascertain that data is made properly anonymous before release. While any data that scrupulous scientists work with are anonymised before handled, and as such the data that is handed over to the CSD should also be properly anonymised, there is no safeguard in place at the CSD that mistakes are spotted and that data from unscrupulous scientists are also scrubbed. This is even something I am supposed to do at work as a routine matter, so it's appalling that I didn't even think about it. The result, however, is that I have changed my nation's vote to 'against', and I hope that Hulldom will rewrite clause 4 if this resolution fails on the floor or is repealed later.

[The Wallenburgian World Assembly Offices]

I crosspost the reasoning that lead to me changing my vote, because I think it's important to be more precise in the repeal. Data, properly handled in a lot of research, are already anonymised by any scrupulous institution. Responsible data collectors, such my institute, statistical bureaus, and several service-providers, will identify the person who answers apart from the data collected, or they will take efforts to scrub the data before handing it over to researchers. Personally I can say that I don't want personal data in my datasets at all.
So in case of responsible institutions and researchers, the data they work on should already be anonymous, and remain such when handed over. The critical part is that this cannot be guaranteed, either because of error, malice, or a reidentification process. But, crucially, it should not be possible at all; CSD should have a mandate to properly ascertain that collected data are scrubbed before it is released to anyone.

After a re-reading prompted by Wallenburg's draft repeal, I am ashamed to say that I completely missed the very real potential for dissemination of personal information that clause 4 contains, and that while the data may be scrubbed for personally identifiable markers as is proper, there is no obligation on CSD to also ascertain that data is made properly anonymous before release. While any data that scrupulous scientists work with are anonymised before handled, and as such the data that is handed over to the CSD should also be properly anonymised, there is no safeguard in place at the CSD that mistakes are spotted and that data from unscrupulous scientists are also scrubbed. This is even something I am supposed to do at work as a routine matter, so it's appalling that I didn't even think about it. The result, however, is that I have changed my nation's vote to 'against', and I hope that Hulldom will rewrite clause 4 if this resolution fails on the floor or is repealed later.

"Unfortunately, it is not always possible not to capture personal data in the course of scientific research. Contact information, for instance, may be necessary for scheduling participant appointments. This information is included in the section 4 mandate, and thus destruction of it through anonymization is arguably illegal as well. My office argues that the only way to prevent this information from being published is to never collect it at all, which significantly limits the ability for researchers to gather participants and attempt representative samples."

[Attempted Socialism]

I crosspost the reasoning that lead to me changing my vote, because I think it's important to be more precise in the repeal. Data, properly handled in a lot of research, are already anonymised by any scrupulous institution. Responsible data collectors, such my institute, statistical bureaus, and several service-providers, will identify the person who answers apart from the data collected, or they will take efforts to scrub the data before handing it over to researchers. Personally I can say that I don't want personal data in my datasets at all.
So in case of responsible institutions and researchers, the data they work on should already be anonymous, and remain such when handed over. The critical part is that this cannot be guaranteed, either because of error, malice, or a reidentification process. But, crucially, it should not be possible at all; CSD should have a mandate to properly ascertain that collected data are scrubbed before it is released to anyone.

"Unfortunately, it is not always possible not to capture personal data in the course of scientific research. Contact information, for instance, may be necessary for scheduling participant appointments. This information is included in the section 4 mandate, and thus destruction of it through anonymization is arguably illegal as well. My office argues that the only way to prevent this information from being published is to never collect it at all, which significantly limits the ability for researchers to gather participants and attempt representative samples."

OOC: You're replying to an OOC post.
And I simply can't see that reading in the text. To take your example here, no sane researcher would consider contact information for scheduling participant appointments as data for science and include it as a part of their database if doing e.g. regression. It might still happen to be included, by error, laziness, or the like, but if the research was done on an anonymised database (As it should) there's simply no coherent argument to be made that a different database is the one turned over to CSD. That's BS, and to include it sets your repeal up for an easy attack.

[Wallenburg]

OOC: You're replying to an OOC post.
And I simply can't see that reading in the text. To take your example here, no sane researcher would consider contact information for scheduling participant appointments as data for science and include it as a part of their database if doing e.g. regression. It might still happen to be included, by error, laziness, or the like, but if the research was done on an anonymised database (As it should) there's simply no coherent argument to be made that a different database is the one turned over to CSD. That's BS, and to include it sets your repeal up for an easy attack.

That data may⁠—although I am yet unconvinced on this notion⁠—not be scientific data, but it is data "in the sciences", as it is collected in the activity of science. I question what function it serves if not a scientific one when its absence can render research activities impossible and when the motives for its collection are scientific ones.

[Attempted Socialism]

OOC: You're replying to an OOC post.
And I simply can't see that reading in the text. To take your example here, no sane researcher would consider contact information for scheduling participant appointments as data for science and include it as a part of their database if doing e.g. regression. It might still happen to be included, by error, laziness, or the like, but if the research was done on an anonymised database (As it should) there's simply no coherent argument to be made that a different database is the one turned over to CSD. That's BS, and to include it sets your repeal up for an easy attack.

That data may⁠—although I am yet unconvinced on this notion⁠—not be scientific data, but it is data "in the sciences", as it is collected in the activity of science. I question what function it serves if not a scientific one when its absence can render research activities impossible and when the motives for its collection are scientific ones.

I don't know if we're talking past each other, so I'll try to clarify the process by which I would hand in data to a journal.
First, however, I'll note that with the definition of 'sciences' used the data we're talking about isn't required to be handed over. Is contact information, personal identifiable information, or other confidential information by necessity included in "the academic study of natural phenomena and processes, social functions and relationships, and thought about those categories"? If yes, how? If no, you're conceding to my point.
As for the data in practise, normally researchers (At least, all I know, in Denmark or internationally) don't use datasets without first anonymising them somehow. It's irrelevant to the research question, might risk objectivity (Or give the perception thereof), and both ethically and legally full of issues. That's why we ideally never have the personal data in the dataset itself, and if unavoidable we make an effort to scrub it prior to use. So if I hand over a paper to a journal based on e.g. statistical research, I have to hand over the full dataset I worked on (To show that I didn't just p-hack or use other trickery) and what I did with the data. If I use Stata, I'd hand over the raw set and the commented .do-file. Unless you think I should add personal data back in (Assuming I could get access) it should not be possible for me to hand personal information over to CSD. It might still happen by error, as I said before, but by default it shouldn't and it can't be required.

[Wallenburg]

That data may⁠—although I am yet unconvinced on this notion⁠—not be scientific data, but it is data "in the sciences", as it is collected in the activity of science. I question what function it serves if not a scientific one when its absence can render research activities impossible and when the motives for its collection are scientific ones.

I don't know if we're talking past each other, so I'll try to clarify the process by which I would hand in data to a journal.
First, however, I'll note that with the definition of 'sciences' used the data we're talking about isn't required to be handed over. Is contact information, personal identifiable information, or other confidential information by necessity included in "the academic study of natural phenomena and processes, social functions and relationships, and thought about those categories"? If yes, how? If no, you're conceding to my point.

It is included in the sciences, under that definition. If it was necessary to collect that information at any point during the course of scientific study, then it is necessarily part of that study or the study failed to progress.

Unless you think I should add personal data back in (Assuming I could get access) it should not be possible for me to hand personal information over to CSD. It might still happen by error, as I said before, but by default it shouldn't and it can't be required.

"Shouldn't" and "can't" are distinct issues here, and the cause for the repeal. Deanonymization shouldn't be required, but it can be required by World Assembly resolution. The target does just that in practice. Member states are required to send all data in the sciences to the CSD with exceptions that do not include the confidentiality of personal information. In order to effectuate this mandate, the most obvious course of action would be to prohibit the destruction of personal information once captured.

[Attempted Socialism]

I don't know if we're talking past each other, so I'll try to clarify the process by which I would hand in data to a journal.
First, however, I'll note that with the definition of 'sciences' used the data we're talking about isn't required to be handed over. Is contact information, personal identifiable information, or other confidential information by necessity included in "the academic study of natural phenomena and processes, social functions and relationships, and thought about those categories"? If yes, how? If no, you're conceding to my point.

It is included in the sciences, under that definition. If it was necessary to collect that information at any point during the course of scientific study, then it is necessarily part of that study or the study failed to progress.

I see that there is no way of convincing you, but this is simply not accurate.

Unless you think I should add personal data back in (Assuming I could get access) it should not be possible for me to hand personal information over to CSD. It might still happen by error, as I said before, but by default it shouldn't and it can't be required.

"Shouldn't" and "can't" are distinct issues here, and the cause for the repeal. Deanonymization shouldn't be required, but it can be required by World Assembly resolution. The target does just that in practice. Member states are required to send all data in the sciences to the CSD with exceptions that do not include the confidentiality of personal information. In order to effectuate this mandate, the most obvious course of action would be to prohibit the destruction of personal information once captured.

"Shouldn't" and "can't" are exactly the points I am making. Under current CSD regulation it shouldn't happen to scrupulous researchers, but that it is possible in principle, and worryingly very possible with bad actors, is enough of a reason to repeal without the exaggeration that suddenly all personal information tangentially related to scientific data is required to be disseminated. I can only refer back to my initial post. You're setting yourself up for the easy counterargument that you're just exaggerating, something that can be avoided if you listen to feedback and feedback is supposed to be integral to the drafting process.

[Wallenburg]

It is included in the sciences, under that definition. If it was necessary to collect that information at any point during the course of scientific study, then it is necessarily part of that study or the study failed to progress.

I see that there is no way of convincing you, but this is simply not accurate.

I am quite certain that, if your position is correct, there is a way of convincing me of it. You have not done so, however.

"Shouldn't" and "can't" are distinct issues here, and the cause for the repeal. Deanonymization shouldn't be required, but it can be required by World Assembly resolution. The target does just that in practice. Member states are required to send all data in the sciences to the CSD with exceptions that do not include the confidentiality of personal information. In order to effectuate this mandate, the most obvious course of action would be to prohibit the destruction of personal information once captured.

"Shouldn't" and "can't" are exactly the points I am making. Under current CSD regulation it shouldn't happen to scrupulous researchers, but that it is possible in principle, and worryingly very possible with bad actors, is enough of a reason to repeal without the exaggeration that suddenly all personal information tangentially related to scientific data is required to be disseminated. I can only refer back to my initial post. You're setting yourself up for the easy counterargument that you're just exaggerating, something that can be avoided if you listen to feedback and feedback is supposed to be integral to the drafting process.

I am listening to feedback, why else would I be engaging with you? That I don't agree with your feedback doesn't mean I'm not listening to it. I'm not just going to take whatever you say to be the truth, you have to actually make a compelling case for your position.

[Wallenburg]

Re: Attempted Socialism again

Would you consider it a sufficient address of the issue you are trying to raise to modify the first argument thusly?

it requires the communication of personal information...whenever it is collected in the course of government-funded scientific inquiry

becomes

it requires the communication of personal information...whenever it is collected as data in the course of government-funded scientific inquiry

[Attempted Socialism]

I can see I won't have time for a substantive reply before, probably, Sunday, but today I'll apologise for my unnecessarily hostile tone yesterday, it was unreasonable and unbecoming of me, and for that I am sorry.