Data, Society
and the
Politics of Digital Information

Framework

• low-cost data collection methods

• low-cost data storage technologies

• low-cost analytics

• low demand of human resources

• automatization, algorhythms, AI

Data states

• lists, tables of the state's wealth, goods and possessions - 3000BC

• first demographic data collection - Florence, 14th Century

• first demographic data analysis - William Petty (1623–1687) and John Graunt (1620–1674)

• First modern census: 1719, I. Frederick William (Soldatenkönig), Prussia=garrison state

• 1749 - Gottfried Achenwall: statistik, from the italian word: statista
  1819 - L'homme moyen by Quetelet
  1850's - Control revolution - high level of bureaucratization

Data states

• basic demographic data

• ethnic, religious data (German ini.)

• education (French)

• health (American, English)

• poverty (English)

• "moral" or criminal statistics (French)

• elections (French)

Data states

• absolute monarchies

• Enlightenment

• espionage, secret services, state apparatus, military logistic

• ​knowing the state, planned state

• Prussia, Bourbon house, Napoleon, Bach-era (AHM)

Modern data states

• informer-networks - Stasi 100k, KGB 1m people

• Russia, USA, China

• mixed analogue and digital methods

• data collection outsourced to tech giants

• connecting personal data is "forbidden" by law in democracies

• state monopoly

Risks

• loosing, emptying privacy

• predicative judgements by algorythms

• "good intentioned" digital instruments and tools - health apps

• unpredictable harms - what seemed to be "precise" data collection for organization or production, can be the groundwork for exploitation, invasion or even genocide
   

Risks

• the problem is not only the growth of the risks, but the change of the nature of the risks

• many time the exchange is consensual - they ask us to provide information without knowing how the information will be used in the future and for what purpose

• we make decisions based on past and present knowledge, but we can't (or we don't want) measure future risks

• Enemy of the State, 1998
  Minority Report, 2002​

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html

Public interest

we give our data

​exchange?

Public interest

• isolation of the state

• defunct open data initiatives

• governmental interventions

• re-definition of public interest data

•  badly designed regulation

• falling of the citizen interest in public interest

• "stateism"
   

Public interest

• badly designed institutions

• different, outdated data formats

• decreasing availability of data

• closed academic sphere, rare collaboration

• bad quality of data

• non-reliable data (non-transparent and unaccountable)

• intentional wrongdoings, damaging of data