Child Data Citizen: How Tech Companies Are Profiling Us from Before Birth

by Veronica Barassi

Overview

An examination of the datafication of family life—in particular, the construction of our children into data subjects.

Our families are being turned into data, as the digital traces we leave are shared, sold, and commodified. Children are datafied even before birth, with pregnancy apps and social media postings, and then tracked through babyhood with learning apps, smart home devices, and medical records. If we want to understand the emergence of the datafied citizen, Veronica Barassi argues, we should look at the first generation of datafied natives: our children. In Child Data Citizen, she examines the construction of children into data subjects, describing how their personal information is collected, archived, sold, and aggregated into unique profiles that can follow them across a lifetime.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262044714
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	12/22/2020
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Veronica Barassi is a Professor in Media and Communications at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. She is the author of Activism on the Web: Everyday Struggles against Digital Capitalism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 Digital Routines 17

2 Datafied Families 33

3 Health Data 51

4 Educational Data 71

5 Home Life Data 93

6 Social Media Data 113

7 Datafied Citizens 133

8 Data Justice 151

9 Conclusion 173

Notes 187

References 189

Index 211

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“In this superb book, Barassi provides a rich and illuminating account of the way data about children is collected and used, why it matters, and what we can do about it.”
—Lina Dencik, Reader at Cardiff University and Co-Director of the Data Justice Lab
 
“Critical concern about the rapid expansion in processing personal data from children must address the public as well as personal consequences, Barassi argues in this exciting new book, as individuals are represented as datafied citizens in a world reliant on algorithmic decision making.”
— Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics; author of Parenting for a Digital Future: How Hopes and Fears about Technology Shape Children's Lives
 
“Drawing upon rich ethnographic case studies of digital platforms, properties and practices, Child | Data | Citizen enumerates how surveillance, datafication, and profiling precede and ultimately frame childhood, parenting, and social life. With a focused concern for the agency of our children, Barassi’s research makes ever more urgent the political need to replace technological forms of social control with an agenda of care.”
— Greg Elmer, Professor, Bell Globemedia Research Chair, Ryerson University; author of Profiling Machines: Mapping the Personal Information Economy