Sunil Choenni

Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) · Statistical Information Management & Policy Analysis

Data reusability has become a distinct characteristic of scientific, commercial, and administrative practices nowadays. However, an unlimited and careless reuse of data may lead to privacy breaches and unfair impacts on individuals and vulnerable groups. Data content adaption is a key aspect of preserving data privacy and fairness. Often, such cont...

The selection and pre-processing of data are key activities in the interpretation and extraction of knowledge from data streams. Their role become even more crucial in the context of big data mining where huge amounts of (volatile) data from various types are normal, and simply storing all data is not only becoming infeasible but also undesired. Th...

Today, our environment and the objects therein are equipped with an increasing number of devices such as cameras, sensors, and actuators, which all together produce a huge amount of data. Furthermore, we observe that citizens generate data via social media applications running on their personal devices. Smart cities and societies are seeking for wa...

This paper tries to ascertain the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Dutch criminal justice system. In the Netherlands, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in February 2020. On March 16, 2020, the Netherlands went into its first lockdown which lasted until approximately June 15, 2020. The effect of the COVID-19 crisis on crime is am...

The profiles from data-driven profiling applications are a model of the reality. The interpretability of these profiles for end users, e.g. policymakers, is often far from trivial. How and why these models are obtained by the applications are often regarded as a black box. In recent years several profiling applications used by public organizations...

Organizations collect a vast amount of data of different types, from various sources, and through different channels. Primarily, these data are used by these organizations to facilitate their core business processes. However, today we witness a growing tendency to use these data for other purposes than that they are collected for. To this end, the...

De hoeveelheid beschikbare data is groter dan ooit en blijft razendsnel groeien. Tegelijkertijd is de technologie vandaag de dag zo ver gevorderd dat computers krachtig genoeg zijn om deze gegevens snel te verwerken en dat biedt oneindig veel mogelijkheden. Al deze nieuwe technische mogelijkheden roepen tegelijkertijd ook vragen op. Deze vragen bli...

Some public organisations, despite being committed to attain the ideals of Open Data, struggle to meet the Open Data requirements fully. Often this is the case when their data are of low quality, have (potentially) sensitive information, or have non-interoperable format and semantics. These restrictions, for example, apply quite often to the datase...

Judiciary systems comprise various partner organizations (e.g., police, public prosecutor, courts, and rehabilitation centres) that collaboratively resolve criminal cases. These partner organizations have their own data administration and management systems, which are setup/operated separately and integrated barely. This chapter explains the approa...

Making predictions with big data models. On the pitfalls for policy makers In the field of policymaking, there is a growing need to take advantage of the opportunities that big data predictions offer. A strong point of big data is that the large amounts of data that are collected nowadays can be re-used to find new insights. However, for effective...

The world changes and new digital solutions arise in a fast pace, requiring organizations to adapt fast to these changes and innovations. Consequently, the required skills and knowledge of employees to effectively contribute to the core business of an organization, are also subject to changes. Currently, Human Resource (HR) professionals cannot acq...

To enhance the transparency, accountability and efficiency of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, the ministry has set up an open data program to proactively stimulate sharing its (publicly funded) data sets with the public. Disclosure of personal data is considered as one of the main threats for data opening. In this contribution we argue...

Disclosure of personal data is considered as one of the main threats for data opening. In this contribution we consider the data that are sensitive in GDPR terms (for example, criminal justice data within the Dutch justice domain) and discuss how they can be opened. According to Dutch laws, such data can be opened if they are without personal infor...

Due to the many potential applications of Big Data, the expectations are high. However, there are some fundamental objections on the straightforward use of Big Data outcomes. In this paper, we take a philosophical view on the Big Data approach and discuss these objections. Formally, Big Data induces models from very large data sets, which are never...

Due to the many potential applications of Big Data, the expectations are high. However, there are some fundamental objections on the straightforward use of Big Data outcomes. In this paper, we take a philosophical view on the Big Data approach and discuss these objections. Formally, Big Data induces models from very large data sets, which are never...

Legitimately collected and accessed data must also be used appropriately according to laws, guidelines, policies or the (current) preferences of data subjects. For example, inconsistency between the data collection purpose and the data usage purpose may conflict with some privacy principles. In this contribution we motivate adopting the usage contr...

In this paper we present a data-driven profiling approach that we have adopted and implemented for a municipality. Our aim was to make profiles transparent and meaningful for citizens, policymakers and authorities so that they can validate, scrutinize and challenge the profiles. Our approach relies on a Genetic Algorithm (GA) that searches for usef...

This paper presents a framework to provide a unified view towards the visions of smart and open justice. The framework, coined as Legal Logistics, aims at unifying and embodying different datacentric services that exploit available and relevant data for supporting and enhancing the legitimacy and efficiency of legal systems. As such, the framework...

The selection and pre-processing of data are key activities in the interpretation and extraction of knowledge from data streams. Their role become even more crucial in the context of big data mining where huge amounts of (volatile) data from various types are normal, and simply storing all data is not only becoming infeasible but also undesired. Th...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly growing, and offers many economical and societal potentials and benefits. Nevertheless, the IoT also introduces new threats to our Security, Privacy and Safety (SPS). The existing work on mitigating these SPS threats often fails to address the fundamental challenges behind the mitigation measures proposed, an...

Reliable management information is invaluable for policymakers and advisers to make informed policy decisions. Depending on the information needs of the policymakers and the characteristics of the data required, different approaches exploiting different ways to process data from multiple sources, may be used. In this chapter, we describe three info...

Data quality management is a great challenge in today’s world due to increasing proliferation of abundant and heterogeneous datasets. All organizations that realize and maintain data intensive advanced applications should deal with data quality related problems on a daily basis. In these organization data quality related problems are registered in...

Purpose Information dissemination has become a means of transparency for governments to enable the visions of e-government and smart government, and eventually gain, among others, the trust of various stakeholders such as citizens and enterprises. Information dissemination, on the other hand, may increase the chance of privacy breaches, which can...

The collection and analysis of relevant data for evaluating public policies is not a straightforward task. An important type of such studies is the so-called ex-post evaluation. The main objective of ex-post evaluations is to determine to what extent a realized intervention is successful in tackling a societal challenge, e.g., youth unemployment. A...

When datasets are collected and accessed legitimately, they must still be used appropriately according to policies, guidelines, rules, laws, and/or the (current) preferences of data subjects. Any inconsistency between the data collection and data usage processes can conflict with many principles of privacy like the transparency principle, no second...

While in business and private settings the disruptive impact of ICT have already been felt, the legal sector is now also starting to face such great disruptions. Innovations have been emerging for some time, affecting the working practices of legal professionals and the functioning and legitimacy of legal systems. In this paper, we present our visi...

Judiciary systems comprise various partner organizations (e.g., police, public prosecutor, courts, and rehabilitation centres) that collaboratively resolve criminal cases. These partner organizations have their own data administration and management systems, which are setup/operated separately and integrated barely. This chapter explains the approa...

Dealing with data quality related problems is an important issue that all organizations face in realizing and sustaining data intensive advanced applications. Upon detecting these problems in datasets, data analysts often register them in issue tracking systems in order to address them later on categorically and collectively. As there is no standar...

While in business and private settings the disruptive impact of advanced information communication technology (ICT) have already been felt, the legal sector is now starting to face great disruptions due to such ICTs. Bits and pieces of innovations in the legal sector have been emerging for some time, affecting the performance of core functions and...

Institutions such as governmental and scientific organizations share information to gain the public trust. Information sharing, on the other hand, may cause privacy breaches and undermine the stakeholders' trust in such information sharing institutions. Thus, information sharing may work against the purpose of gaining trust through transparency. Mo...

To gain insight into the success and possible bottlenecks in the criminal justice domain, good and trustworthy management information is required. This paper presents a case study of a data space system that facilitates the monitoring of data flows within as well as between organizations involved in the Dutch criminal justice system. To build such...

Some organizations have faced serious obstacles for disseminating their data according to the Open Data requirements and characteristics, e.g., for everybody and any use. Often this is the case when the data is of low quality, has (potentially) sensitive information, or has non-interoperable data format and semantics. Not being able to (completely)...

The question of how to make a city or government better by exploiting information and communication infrastructures, referred to as smart city, entails an emerging field of research. Large quantities of data are generated from these infrastructures and infusing these data into the physical infrastructure of a city or government may lead to better s...

Information sharing has become a means of gaining public trust for institutions such as governmental and scientific organizations. The transparency sought through information sharing contributes to the trust of various stakeholders such as citizens, other organizations and enterprises in such institutions. Information sharing, on the other hand, ma...

An important determinant for the well-functioning of a criminal justice system is elapsed times. The elapsed time of a case is the period that is required to handle a case that pertains to a suspect or convict. Long elapsed times may be interpreted as delays in a criminal justice system, which in turn may lead to "justice delayed, justice denied"....

An important determinant for the well-functioning of a criminal justice system is elapsed times. The elapsed time of a case is the period that is required to handle a case that pertains to a suspect or convict. Long elapsed times may be interpreted as delays in a criminal justice system, which in turn may lead to "justice delayed, justice denied"....

Undergraduate students who seek a bachelor degree in Dutch universities of applied sciences are supposed to learn also research skills so that they can provide innovative solutions to real problems of the society and businesses in their future careers. Current education and textbooks on research skills are not tuned well to software engineering dis...

Legal persons (i.e., entities such as corporations, companies, partnerships, firms, associations, and foundations) may commit financial crimes or employ fraudulent activities like money laundering, tax fraud, or bankruptcy fraud. Therefore, in the Netherlands legal persons are automatically screened for misuse based on a set of so called risk indic...

While Open Data initiatives are diverse, they aim to create and contribute to public value. Yet several potential contradictions exist between public values, such as trust, transparency, privacy, and security, and Open Data policies. To bridge these contradictions, we present the notion of precommitment as a restriction of one’s choices. Conceptual...

Forecasting systems require large quantities of data as input for reliable and adequate estimates. These estimates are used by policy makers to develop and implement effective and sound planning policies. In this case study, a forecasting system is presented to estimate the capacity needed in the near future in the Dutch justice field that has been...

Due to expected benefits such as citizen participation and innovation, the release of Public Sector Information as open data is getting increased attention on various levels of government. However, currently data release by governments is still novel and there is little experience and knowledge thus far about its benefits, costs and barriers. This...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to derive design principles for improving the open data publishing process of public organizations. Although governments create large amounts of data, the publication of open data is often cumbersome and there are no standard procedures and processes for opening data, blocking the easy publication of governmen...

Sharing data is gaining importance in recent years due to proliferation of social media and a growing tendency of governments to gain citizens' trust through being transparent. Data dissemination, however, increases chance of compromising privacy sensitive data, which undermines trust of data subjects (e.g., users and citizens). Data disseminators...

For the purpose of good and trustworthy management of information for the government, responsible for the justice domain, the research institute was requested to build a monitor that makes it possible to periodically monitor data flows within as well as between organizations of the justice domain. The aim of this monitor is to get insight into the...

For the purpose of good and trustworthy management information for the government, our research institute has built a data space system that makes it possible to periodically monitor data flows within as well as between organizations of the justice domain. The aim of this system is to get insight into the success and possible bottlenecks in the cri...

Local governments are increasingly looking for new ways to involve citizens in policy and decision-making, for example by combining public sector data sources with data gathered by citizens. Several examples exist of data gathering where personal mobile devices act as data collectors. While these efforts illustrate the technical capability of data...

In this paper we present the concepts and implementation of a data space system for the management of data from heterogeneous sources in the criminal justice field. Our system exploits domain knowledge in the field of justice to streamline and to relate the content of different databases in the chain. In our system, domain knowledge is encoded in a...

The availability of real-life data sets is of crucial importance for algorithm and application development, as these often require insight into the specific properties of the data. Often, however, such data are not released because of their proprietary and confidential nature. We propose to solve this problem using the statistical technique of mult...

To monitor crime and law enforcement, databases of several organizations, covering different parts of the criminal justice system, have to be integrated. Combined data from different organizations may then be analyzed, for instance, to investigate how specific groups of suspects move through the system. Such insight is useful for several reasons, f...

For a successful public value strategy, the elements “public values/strategic goals”, authorizing environment” and “operational capability” should be coherently aligned. In this paper, we discuss how we have aligned these elements in the context of Open Data. We focus on the relationships between Open Data and public values, in particular, trust, t...

Due to expected benefits such as citizen participation and innovation, the release of Public Sector Information is getting increased attention on various levels of government. However, currently, data release by governments is still novel, with little experience and knowledge thus far about the benefits and barriers of release. This is compounded b...

The opening of data is considered to provide many benefits. However, opening up data by public bodies is a complex and ill-understood activity. Although many public bodies might be willing to open up their data, they lack any systematic guidance. In this paper, guidance is provided by investigating the publishing processes at the Dutch Research and...

Cyber crime increases with the advent of new online Internet services (e.g., entertainment, commerce, payment, pubic administration, social networking services). Not only do cyber criminals target governmental or public institutions, they increasingly victimize individuals and smaller organizations. At the same time, we observe that individuals and...

For public organizations data integration and sharing are important in delivering better services. However, when sensitive data are integrated and shared, privacy protection and information security become key issues. This means that information systems must be secured and that access to sensitive data must be controlled. In this paper, a framework...

Release of Public Sector Information (PSI) is increasingly being mandated on top levels of government. On a local level, PSI release is not always without difficulty. In this paper, we examine how the paradigm of co-creation and participation can be applied to PSI release in the public sector on a local level. A pilot study was organized focussing...

There is an increasing demand for opening data provided by public and private organisations. Various organisations have already started to publish their data and potentially there are many benefits to gain. However, realising the intended positive effects and creating value from using open data on a large scale is easier said than done. Opening and...

In this paper, two methods have been compared to estimate the number of problem drug users (PDU): the treatment multiplier (TM) method and the capture-recapture(CRC) method using national police register data and data from probation services and treatment institutes for addiction. This paper introduces the CRC method as a more practical alternative...

Many people are concerned about how information systems deal with human values such as privacy and trust. In this paper, we discuss the role of human values in the design of information systems. We elaborate on the nature of human values and discuss various approaches on how to address human values, including value-sensitive design, worth-centered...

The use of cameras is growing: not only personal computers and laptops are standard equipped with a camera, but also the public domain is increasingly equipped with cameras. Today's camera is not merely a pair of eyes. A surveillance camera can see much more than a single person can do. The rapid proliferation of camera technologies makes today's c...

Although it is widely accepted that citizens benefit or may benefit from the applications of information technology, there are also complaints about these applications. This paper is devoted to the complaints of citizens that pertain to the applications of information technology itself, or about facts in which this technology is playing a significa...

A method, named Trendwatch, has been developed for explaining and predicting trends in which a structural break has occurred. Using this method it is possible to explain such a break in terms of causal networks of factors. The thus created explanation is validated using evidential arguments based on expert opinions. Moreover, this explanation is us...

For the execution of the criminal law, several organisations are involved in the criminal justice system. Each of these organisation has their own more or less isolated databases/sources. As the interest in the criminal justice chain as a whole increased in the nineties, the need for coherent information about the entire chain increased as well. Th...

INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the concept of sensitive environments. Sensitive environments are essentially spatial and public areas like streets or school that are provided with an intelligent infrastructure that collects sensory information of users while they move and interact. Such sensitive environments offer researchers an environment w...

The ageing population as well as the tight labor market put pressure on future health care. In this article, we explore the role of monitoring systems in small-scale housing for older people with dementia. By incorporating principles of value-sensitive design in a human centered design process we developed a system for remote monitoring at night in...

For many standard as well as emerging criminal law Web 2.0 applications, such as the development of mashups and dataspace systems, privacy preserving data integration is of crucial importance. In many organizations different databases contain different kinds of data concerning the same entity. This may have several good reasons. However, to have an...

Most ICT systems follow the closed-world assumption since the data they rely on is restricted in meaning and usefulness to the boundaries of the system: the data is defined for the purpose of the specific system and generally not useful in other ICT application. In this paper, we argue that to design ICT systems that feature sensitive environments...

In this paper, we have analyzed the complaint database of the National Ombudsman who handles complaints with regard to almost all government organizations in the Netherlands. We searched for trends with regard to complaints and handling of complaints during a period of 25 years. For this purpose, we have applied a combination of conventional databa...

In many organizations different databases contain different kind of data concerning the same entity. This may have several good reasons. However, to have an integral and unified view of an entity, data reconciliation is of crucial importance. In this paper, we present an approach for data reconciliation that is based on available schemata of data s...

To shape an effective and sound public safety policy, policy makers have a need for statistical insights in factors that may influence public safety. In this paper, we present a tool that collects and processes safety related data from relevant sources. This data is presented in a uniform and accessible way to users. Besides data that is directly r...

Crime and law enforcement is a broad policy field in which many organizations are involved, each having a database covering a part of the criminal justice chain. To monitor crime and law enforcement, we therefore have to deal with many organizations and with challenges of the data as redundancy, changing of semantics over time and how to combine re...

Each year, several information products concerning registered drug related crime in the Netherlands are produced by the Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) of the Dutch Ministry of Justice, as a contribution to the National Drug Monitor (NDM). The main goal of the NDM is to collect data and report about drug use. Many of the NDM products are b...