We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age
A rallying call for extending human rights beyond our physical selves—and why we need to reboot rights in our data-intensive world.

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, 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 recognize 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.
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We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age
A rallying call for extending human rights beyond our physical selves—and why we need to reboot rights in our data-intensive world.

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, 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 recognize 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.
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We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age

We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age

by Wendy H. Wong
We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age

We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age

by Wendy H. Wong

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Overview

A rallying call for extending human rights beyond our physical selves—and why we need to reboot rights in our data-intensive world.

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, 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 recognize 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262376389
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 10/10/2023
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 280
File size: 670 KB

About the Author

Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science and Principal’s Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. 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.

Table of Contents

1 DATA ARE EVERYWHERE 1
2 WHY HUMAN RIGHTS AND DATA GO TOGETHER 21
3 DATA RIGHTS 45
4 IS YOUR FACE YOURS? 65
5 DO WE NEED HUMAN RIGHTS WHEN WE’RE DEAD? 89
6 BIG TECH AND US 111
7 DATA LITERACY, OR WHY WE NEED LIBRARIES, NOT TWITTER 139
8 WE, THE DATA 163
Acknowledgments 183
Notes 187
Index 261

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Wendy Wong has written a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking book that should be essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of digital technologies and human rights.”
—Ron Deibert, Professor of Political Science; Director, The Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto
 
"In accessible and inspired prose, Wong makes a powerful case for putting human rights at the center of our public conversations about datafication, big data, and AI."
—Catherine D'Ignazio, Associate Professor and Director of the Data + Feminism Lab, MIT; Co-author of Data Feminism

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