Silvia Masiero from the department of informatics at the university of Oslo is visiting us on January 10 for an invited talk, seminar and discussions. She will talk about her ongoing research around digital identities, their fairness, and their impact on sociotechnical practices.
Time: January 10, 10.00
Place: Room 242 IT-Vest, IDI Gløshaugen, NTNU.
Please contact Babak if you are interested in participating as we have limited space and will have to consider moving to another rom if many people are interested.
Summary of the talk
Digital identity systems convert individuals into machine-readable data. Despite an increasingly diffused view of digital ID as a route to development, multiple forms of harm stem from digital identity systems, culminating into systematic human rights violations and, by reflection, into the making of resistance practices. This paper focuses on how resistance to unfair forms of digital ID is conceived, planned and enacted by the people. It relies on Milan and Van der Velden’s (2016) notion of data activism, conceived as the range of sociotechnical practices that interrogate the fundamental paradigm shift brought about by datafication. Three cases from the Right to Food campaign in India, the work of human rights organisations towards restoration of the rights of double registered people in Kenya, and the international #WhyID campaign coordinated by Access Now enact a data activist lens in narrating many practices of resistance to unfair ID. It is through these practices and their constructive potential that new forms of “fair ID” can be imagined, based on respect for and indeed enhancement of human rights.
Link to presentation slides: PDF file.