Join us for a discussion on the book 'We, the Data. Human Rights in the Digital Age' with author Prof. Wendy H. Wong. This event is hosted by the Centre for Digital Governance and the Centre for Fundamental Rights.
Our data-intensive world is here to stay, but does that come at the cost of our humanity in terms of autonomy, community, dignity, and equality? In We, the Data (MIT Press, 2023), Prof. Wendy H. Wong argues that we cannot allow that to happen. Exploring the pervasiveness of data collection and tracking, Wong reminds us that we are all stakeholders in this digital world, who are currently being left out of the most pressing conversations around technology, ethics, and policy. This book clarifies the nature of datafication and calls for an extension of human rights to recognise how data complicate what it means to safeguard and encourage human potential.
As we go about our lives, we are co-creating data through what we do. We must embrace that these data are a part of who we are, Wong explains, even as current policies do not yet reflect the extent to which human experiences have changed. This means we are more than mere “subjects” or “sources” of data “by-products” that can be harvested and used by technology companies and governments. By exploring data rights, facial recognition technology, our posthumous rights, and our need for a right to data literacy, Wong has crafted a compelling case for engaging as stakeholders to hold data collectors accountable. Just as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights laid the global groundwork for human rights, We, the Data gives us a foundation upon which we claim human rights in the age of data.
In this online event, Wendy will talk about the core lessons from her book with discussant Dr. Francesca Palmiotto (Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre for Fundamental Rights). The event will be chaired by Prof. Daniela Stockmann (Director, Centre for Digital Governance and Professor of Digital Governance, Hertie School).
Prior registration is mandatory for the event. The Zoom link will be send to registered guests on the day of the event.
Speakers
Speaker
Prof. Wendy H. Wong is currently Professor of Political Science and Principal's Research Chair at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of two award-winning books: Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights and (with Sarah S. Stroup) The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International NGOs, both published with Cornell University Press. She is on leave from the University of Toronto, where she is Canada Research Chair in Global Governance and Civil Society and Professor of Political Science. She is originally from Los Angeles.
Discussant
Dr. Francesca Palmiotto is a postdoctoral researcher at Hertie School's Centre for Fundamental Rights working in the project "AFAR: Algorithmic Fairness for Asylum Seekers and Refugees" funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Her PhD thesis is entitled “Transparent Automated Evidence”. Francesca is the co-founder and editor of the blog DigiCon (The Digital Constitutionalist). Her research interests are related more broadly to Law and Tech, with a specific focus on procedural fairness of automated decisions and evidence.
Chair
Prof. Daniela Stockmann is Director of the Centre for Digital Governance, and Professor of Digital Governance at the Hertie School. Her current research focuses on the challenge of how to tackle harmful content spreading via social media platforms, comparing policy approaches in the United States, China, and Europe. Her most recent project, funded by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council, explores the impact of the technological design of social media platforms on user behaviour regarding politics in China. Her book, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China (Cambridge University Press, 2013), received the 2015 Goldsmith Book Prize awarded by the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.
