Towards Data Justice: Social Justice in the Era of Datafication (en)

Arne Hintz, Lina Dencik The technical ability to turn vast amounts
of activity and human behaviour into data points that can be
tracked and profiled has led to significant changes across
government, business and civil society. Whilst the documents on
digital surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden led to important
questions being asked about what this means for individual rights
to privacy and the protection of personal data, concerns with
datafication are now increasingly shifting towards a more explicit
engagement with power. These concerns emphasise that data processes
are not ‘flat’ and do not implicate everyone in the same way, but,
rather, are part of a system of ‘social sorting’, creating new
categories of citizens that are premised on a new order of ‘have’
and ‘have nots’ between data profilers and data subjects. In such a
context, questions of social justice come to the fore in
discussions of datafication. What are the implications of, for
example, the use of data scores in predictive policing, the
criminal justice system, migration management, and health
insurances; or of omnipresent monitoring of citizens in ‘smart
cities’? How do we address new data-based challenges to civil and
democratic rights? Do we have the tools and concepts to properly
understand them? In this presentation we explore the meaning of
social justice in an age of datafication. We propose ‘data justice’
as a frame for an agenda of both research and action. This agenda
moves beyond notions of individual privacy to broader questions of
social justice in a digital society, and connects questions of (and
campaigns on) digital and non-digital rights. It brings together
discussions on the political economy of digital platforms,
surveillance, technological design, and power shifts between
citizens and the state. And it is a call for action to address key
problems of our times in new ways. The talk will draw on the work
of a new research initiative, the Data Justice Lab, as well as
similar initiatives.