By Tawana Petty In 1985 my father died of AIDS. I was nine years old and it was nine days after my ninth birthday. Although a devastating loss for me, it would be years before I would learn the truth about why my dad died, what...
In 2019, the city of Detroit caught the national spotlight with its efforts to resist facial recognition technology (FRT). The implementation of this technology was through an initiative called Project Green Light, a public-private partnership led by the Detroit Police Department. The project seeks to...
Our Data Bodies was happy and grateful to be represented in the first Making A Feminist Internet convening held on the African continent at the end of October this year! The convening was hosted by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and took place just...
Kim M Reynolds spoke with Tawana Petty to learn more about the anti-surveillance work going on in Detroit, which is currently one of the national spotlights for resistance against facial recognition technology. Can you briefly introduce yourself and the work you do? My name is Tawana Petty,...
By Kim M Reynolds As of May 31st of 2019, a new policy was implemented by the State Department requiring all visa applicants to the U.S. to submit five years of all social media history. While there has been long standing surveillance of online activity by...
By Seda Gürses, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, and Suresh Venkatasubramanian In this post, Seeta Peña Gangadharan joins forces with Seda Gürses and Suresh Venkatasubramanian to briefly canvas research and works that challenge studies of fairness, accountability, and transparency in statistical and automated decision systems. FAT* stands for...
By Seeta Peña Gangadharan Refusal is an important part of how we challenge pervasive data collection and data-driven systems. In the below transcript (remarks prepared for a TedxLondon talk), Seeta Peña Gangadharan introduces Jill, Bebop, Mika, and Sam, all of whom have shared their stories of...
By Kim M Reynolds and Seeta Peña Gangadharan Fresh off the launch of the Digital Defense Playbook: Community Power Tools for Reclaiming Data, Our Data Bodies presented Building Power Not Paranoia: Community-Based Data Defense, at the 5th annual Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, Spain. This workshop...
By Kim M Reynolds and Seeta Peña Gangadharan In March 2019, Our Data Bodies celebrated the publication of the Digital Defense Playbook, a popular education resource that captures ODB's three-year journey in talking with residents in the most marginalized neighborhoods of Charlotte, Detroit, and Los Angeles....
More than three years in the making, the Digital Defense Playbook: Community Power Tools for Reclaiming Data introduces a set of tried-and-tested tools for diagnosing, dealing with, and healing the injustices of pervasive and punitive data collection and data-driven systems. The Playbook contains in-depth...
