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Data & Society studies the social implications of data-centric technologies & automation.

Our Research

We produce original research on topics including AI and automation, the impact of technology on labor and health, and online disinformation.

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The Latest from Data & Society

Essentially Unprotected: Health Data and Surveillance of Essential Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic
This report explores how essential workers reacted to, and in some cases worked around, public health surveillance in their workplaces.
Digital Dopplegangers: A Workshop on Our Digital Others
This workshop will bring together work and reflections on socio-technical phenomena that speak to digital doubling.
Amazon's Trickle-Down Monopoly: Third Party Sellers and the Transformation of Small Businesses
This report details the story of a group of intermediaries integral in making Amazon a powerful corporation while remaining mostly invisible to customers.
Essentially Unprotected: Health Data and Surveillance of Essential Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic
This report explores how essential workers reacted to, and in some cases worked around, public health surveillance in their workplaces.
Digital Dopplegangers: A Workshop on Our Digital Others
This workshop will bring together work and reflections on socio-technical phenomena that speak to digital doubling.
Amazon's Trickle-Down Monopoly: Third Party Sellers and the Transformation of Small Businesses
This report details the story of a group of intermediaries integral in making Amazon a powerful corporation while remaining mostly invisible to customers.

About Us

Data & Society is an independent nonprofit research organization. We believe that empirical evidence should directly inform the development and governance of new technology. We study the social implications of data-centric technologies and automation, producing original research that can ground informed, evidence-based public debate.

We combine academic rigor with creative outreach to connect, convene, and sustain expert and practitioner networks. Since 2014, Data & Society has defined the field with original research and programming to break down disciplinary silos and connect provocative thinkers across sectors. Read more

Spotlights

AI in the Majority World

Through empirical work and partnerships, our research invigorates existing efforts to reframe the Global South as home to the majority of the human population — and to investigate and understand the diverse ethics, politics, and experiences of living with data and AI.

Storytelling Workshop
Parables of AI in/from the Global South
This groundbreaking workshop used storytelling to explore new insights on the sociotechnical implication of artificial intelligence and digital IDs in the Global South.
Perspectives
Towards a Mindful Digital Welfare State
In this series, researchers Ranjit Singh and Emnet Tafesse begin to explore what mindful appropriation of digital technologies in the provision of welfare services looks like.
Primer
A Primer on AI in/from the Majority World
A resource by Sareeta Amrute, Ranjit Singh, and Rigoberto Lara Guzmán exploring the presence of artificial intelligence and technology in the Majority World.

Race and Equity

Data & Society is committed to advancing racial equity in the design and governance of emerging technologies. Our work ranges from suggesting strategies to promote racial literacy and anti-racism in tech, to critiquing frameworks that forgo the lens of racial justice.

Report
Advancing Racial Literacy in Tech
Jessie Daniels, Mutale Nkonde, and Darakhshan Mir urge tech companies to adopt racial literacy practices in order to break out of old patterns.
Review
Sounding the Flat Alarm
Sareeta Amrute reviews Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism."
Syllabus
Critical Caste and Technology Syllabus
A new syllabus by Murali Shanmugavelan offers an in-depth guide to caste and its expressions in digital culture.

The Datafied State

Our emerging research agenda explores governments' use of tech and how that use transforms the bureaucracy.

Research Agenda
The Datafied State
Jenna Burrell and Ranjit Singh
Policy Brief
Electronic Visit Verification: a Guide to Intersecting Harms and Policy Consequences
Serena Oduro, Brittany Smith, Alexandra Mateescu
Report
Poverty Lawgorithms: a Poverty Lawyers Guide to Fighting Automated Decision-Making Harms on Low-Income Communities
Michele Gilman

Engaging Industry

What responsibility do tech companies have to the public interest? Data & Society researchers provide new frameworks to foreground ethics and equity in the design and development of new technologies.

Report
Good Intentions, Bad Inventions
Amanda Lenhart and Kellie Owens dismantle four common myths about our relationship to technology.
Report
Ethics Owners
Emanuel Moss and Jacob Metcalf present a new model of organizational responsibility in data-driven tech companies.
report
Assembling Accountability: Algorithmic Impact Assessment for the Public Interest
Emanuel MossElizabeth Anne WatkinsRanjit SinghMadeleine Clare ElishJacob Metcalf

Technology and the Pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Data & Society has brought together voices on topics such as health misinformation, low-wage and gig economy workers, and racial disparities in COVID-19's impact, reporting, and analyses.

Essay
New Digital Infrastructures of Workplace Health and Safety
Aiha Nguyen discusses the state of workplace surveillance as a result of COVID-19.
Blog Post
Vaccine Passports and Pandemic Racism
Joan Mukogosi identifies strategies that will make the road to herd immunity more equitable.
Event, Video
The Fact of Blackness
Kenyon Farrow and Tamara K. Nopper discuss strategies for demanding & using race-focused data during the pandemic.