Jasmine McNealy presents her talk "An Ecological Approach to Data Governance."
Data are currency. Data provide the fuel for decision-making and profit-making. Data offer evidence for enhancing health services, infrastructure, and zoning, and for addressing environmental concerns. But the collection and use of data is spurring conflicts between cities, corporate and civil society organizations, and constituents. These conflicts occur on the grounds of data ownership, access, privacy, and security.
Dr. McNealy traces these conflicts to our perception of data as a singular piece of property. A better metaphor for data, she contends, would be that of a networked representation or observation in an ecosystem. Dr. McNealy argues that we require an ecological approach for understanding this era of emergent technology and data — both for creating adequate policy, and for protecting the vulnerable.
This event is moderated by Data & Society Director of Research Sareeta Amrute.
For more information about this talk and future events, visit datasociety.net.
This talk was recorded on January 8, 2020.
Sareeta A.: 00:09 Hi everybody. Welcome. Good evening. As you settle in, I'll start with some brief introductions. My name is Sareeta Amrute, I'm the Director of Research here at Date and Society as well as associate professor of anthropology at the University of Washington. It's my sincere pleasure and honor to welcome you to Data & Society for this Databite. And now I'm thrilled to introduce Jasmine. Our speaker tonight, Jasmine McNeely. Jasmine McNeely was one of our 2018-2019 Data & Society fellows. She is an associate professor at the University of Florida and a fellow at the Stanford University Digital Civil Society lab. She's also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Both an attorney and a social scientist, she studies media information and emerging technology with a view towards influencing law and policy. Her current research focuses on privacy, surveillance and data governance with an emphasis on marginalized communities. Everyone, please help me welcome Jasmine McNeely.
Jasmine M.: 01:17 Thank you, Sareeta, for that probably more than generous introduction. Also want to thank Janet Haven, danah, Rigo, CJ, Audrey, Sam, all of the D&S crew for allowing me to come back. It's good. It's good to be back. So, TLDR... stakes are high. Stakes are high and our data metaphors are failing us, and we need a different way of thinking about data to create better governance and therefore a better existence. The longer version. I think I need to start off with some background. I tell people I like to study failure or I'm interested in failure. Now I understand that this is an unconventional way to begin this talk I'm about to give, but stick with me and it'll, it'll kind of make sense.. in a second. I should probably also clarify, I don't, I don't study failure or I'm not interested in failure just for failure's sake.
Jasmine M.: 02:27 So this is not a schadenfreude, kind of thing. I'm not interested in the mistakes, the errors, the mis-happenings and misadventures of other people or organizations. What I am interested in is looking at what failure does, I'm interested in the consequences. And we've seen just enormous, significant consequences in this space of technology in society. But more than that, I think there is an opportunity here. So there's the the opportunity to learn, but there's also an opportunity to change things, right? So just as a foundational matter, we can change life, we can change lives, we can change how things function currently, and we can change how things are predicted to be in the future. But to make changes, this requires us to get to the roots of our problems, of these failures. And many times these failures, the roots of these failures are in our social interactions, the language that we use and even our like imaginations, how we imagine things or the perspectives we bring to these issues or how we describe things. Because many times, too many times, I think, we omit, we ignore, or we erase very important ideas, important context and important people. So in this space, when I'm thinking about getting us to think differently and more holistically about what it is we mean when we say "data." Because how we imagine data leads to how we govern data.
Jasmine M.: 04:21 How we govern data sucks. And, here's what I mean. We have in the United States anyway, very piecemeal legislation related to what we call "privacy." States do a better job than the feds. The feds have very sectorial related privacy or security laws. And because governance is larger than government, we have to think about what are the firms or the organizations that are also governing our data, or data in general. There are bright spots of course, I'm thinking of course of the University of California Systems Privacy and Information Security initiative where they took time, got together and thought about where data is, what data is, how it's being shared, how it's being used, collected, all of those things. Of course there are, you know, arising legislation they give California again with the CCPA. GDPR does some good stuff. Vermont just passed a law. Other States are taking up bills, so there's some bright spots. But we still lack like a unifying idea about where we want to go when we talk about data and governing data. And here's the thing, I really can't overstate the importance of good data governance and good data framework. So data is the fuel for all kinds of systems and programming. So we think of the choices cities make, the choices civil society organizations make and of course the choices that corporations make related to data or using data as the fuel for that. So data is used to train artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, offers recommendations in for example, the healthcare setting and, used to evaluate programs as well. Data is everywhere in all kinds of systems, including our criminal justice system, our banking and loan systems, even our labor system has data.
Jasmine M.: 06:45 But we have a problem with how we imagine data currently and I want to talk about that. So let's look at an example.
Jasmine M.: 06:58 How many of you ever heard of GED match? Yay, Audrey! So, GEmatch is an ancestry site. So people make accounts, submit DNA, or products that from which DNA can be processed, and they are able to look at what's produced. Um, if you don't know.. you may remember GED match because it's the site that helped capture the Golden State Killer or the alleged Golden State Killer. Right?
Jasmine M.: 07:36 So news broke April, 2018, that the site had cooperated with law enforcement. But after news broke, and it was very big news GEDmatch first changed their terms of service. But this change happened after people had already submitted. So at this time, not quite, or around 1 million people were participating on this site. So it wasn't a huge site. But I mean, okay, a million is huge, but it wasn't huge compared to the big ones like 23andMe, 23andMe is a big site. GEDmatch is not as big, but it's still a lot of people. So after news broke, developers changed their terms of service and now the change says we may disclose your raw data, personal information and or genealogy data if it is necessary to comply with the legal obligations such as a subpoena or warrant. We will attempt to alert you to this disclosure of your raw data, personal information or genealogy data unless notification is prohibited under law. So what I find interesting about this terms of service language, not just from GEDmatch. And you should note the stories came out about them and I should also note that in November, just last year, 2019 news broke that a police officer got a judge in Florida, a Florida state judge, and that's important fact about Florida state judge to allow them access to the entirety of the GEDmatch database. So not just the folks who had opted in to allowing law enforcement to look at their DNA, but you can easily see yourself there. Quite frankly, the language that we use with each other is that it talks about property, talks about your data. And here's why. Property analogies fail us when we talk about data. "So what is property?" Is the big question. Property is a creation that is protected by the state. So this allows the ownership of a thing. And I think it'd be either like real property or it could be intangible property. I'm thinking of course of things like copyright or patent, intangible property. But property rights say the state is going to protect your ownership of a thing. But it also means that your ownership rights are restrained. That there is what's called a bundle of rights. So this is property law: your one class on property law unless you took a lot more in law school and you learn the bundle of rights. So you have like a bundle of sticks and these sticks are the enumerated rights that belong to you as a property owner. And these rights include things like, the right to use, the right to, cultivate land, the right to exclude. So these are these rights related to property and they've been been interpreted as rights about relationships between people. Like what I can say you can do related to my property and not in relation to people in a thing. But, if we think about history, particularly in the United States, but across the globe, property is not something that has always been inclusive. It's never been inclusive thing in these United States. So not everybody was allowed to have even the sticks in that bundle of rights respected. So if we think of, and thank you Sareeta for doing that call to the Lanape people because Native Americans had their rights to land stripped both just from settler colonialism but also U.S. Supreme Court decision. African Americans were treated as property, right? And denied rights to self-fulfillment. Other folks, women, other various other folks were denied rights related to ownership, both of property and self.
Jasmine M.: 12:43 So historically property has a problem. Even now, people without marginal identities and everybody can have our property, particularly real property, taken from us within the U S constitution eminent domain resides. So it gives the power to the state to take property with just compensation, but your property can be taken. There's also things called a regulatory taken, which means that your ownership rights are so constrained related to your property that basically they've taken your property from you even if you maintain possession of it. So these are important things to think about when we think about property and data as property because property has restrictions, property has restraints, property has issues. Property rights then are grounded in expectations, right? Your expectations about what you can and cannot do with your property and what other people or organizations can and cannot do with your property according to your rules related to it. But here are some other issues related to property. Data, to be useful, has to be collected. It has to be captured, right?
Jasmine M.: 14:09 This can be through donation or collection without choice and even in situations where there is a donation, the donation or sharing was not chosen by everyone implicated by the data. So better frame for this would be then 'capta' and other scholars have written about capta and thinking about data as 'capta' or a captive or captured thing. Now this is important too because property law has what's called the law or rule of capture, which applies to property; property in both real property but also property in other things that can be picked up and taken away. Think of this as kind of the parking spot rule. So many people who drive, you see a parking spot on the street and even if you're, you're making designs on hopping in that parking spot until you actually get into that parking spot, you don't own it. Somebody could , right, dip into it, right.
Jasmine M.: 15:16 They've captured it. They now possess it. Therefore they now own it, in this case. Similar thing for those people who think data is the new oil or gas, well, similar thing capture, say Sareeta and I, we are neighbors. We own property. You're my other neighbor. You're on the other side. We own property and all of our property sits above a lake of oil. Say I wanted to drill for oil and I drill and I hit the lake. I can suck up all of that oil without asking Serita's permission without asking your permission and I have no duty to you under the law of capture. Why? Cause I'm first, too bad for you.
Jasmine M.: 16:01 What does that mean for data? I captured it. It's mine. Last example with the law of capture, it works for wild animals as well or wild things. Things you find in the wild. I see a fox, it's cute. I want to get it. Somebody gets in front of me and grabs it. Even though I've made designs in capturing the fox, guess what? It's not my fox. First to capture, possesses or own it. And lastly, I think it's important to think about data as property missing something really important and that is the network or the attachments. So let's think back to the GEDmatch happening. The Golden State Killer did not participate in the database. Their cousin did.
Jasmine M.: 17:06 So in donating for a specific purpose. In donating DNA, that data is not only attached to the person who donates, but it's attached to all the other people who are possibly identified through that DNA. There is a network, there are attachments. What are their ownership rights then being implicated through DNA or data capture? So we have this definition of data under this property framework that is inadequate for what we actually mean and what we're actually describing. So how can we define data and what is data? It's important to know that the property language and the language of ownership in relation to personal data creates descriptions of data that are divorced from humans, divorced from individuals and ignores the possible harms. So we've grown used to saying my data, your data, their data as though data where a singular unattached object and the GEDmatch scenario demonstrates this is not so, but further data comes with other attachments as well.
Jasmine M.: 18:21 For those of you who are researchers or do any kinds of research from the date or the time of collection. And I would say at the time it's conceived in our minds, data has attachments. Why? Because there were the biases about what data you're going to collect and from who and how are attached the labels and the plans we're organizing are. Scholars have come up with many definitions of data that I think are useful to consider including Dr. Kadija Ferryman back there who has talked about data as gift that I think is an important framework to consider. Others that have talked about data include Christine Borgman, who's written a book, "Big Data, Little Data, No Data" in 2014-2015 that I think is useful to think about or look at at least. So she says that our representations of observations, objects or other entities used as evidence of a phenomenon for the purpose of research or scholarship.
Jasmine M.: 19:26 And I think this is an important definition for data, but I think this definition too is too narrow. For one it misses the network, the network to nature of data. And also it limits it to research or scholarship. And we know that data is used for other purposes. So I think a better definition would be a networked representation or observation. So this definition recognizes that data is not singular but always comes attached with labels, contexts, and biases fastened from its inception if not collection. And that these attachments increase depending on its place in the ecosystem. An even better definition I think would be a system of networked representations or observations. And for this I look to Stuart Hall. Stuart Hall's definition of representation. So different ways of organizing, clustering, arranging and classifying concepts, and establishing complex relationships between them. So this allows for the creation of correlations and predictions about relationships.
Jasmine M.: 20:40 So this definition also though requires a different approach to governance. So what does governance in the first place? I think that's probably like an unsettled question and it's goes beyond what the government does because again, as I said, there are organizations, institutions who make governance decisions for us all the time. When we talk about data governance, I think of governance is how we relate to data, the policies and processes we institute related to the use, collection, access, integrity, and security of our data. Governance is about coordination and control. It's about authority, decision-making, and accountability. And it's about establishing the structures, the infrastructure, that helps us do these things, at least attempt to to do these things. What I'm proposing is an ecological approach to data governance. Why ecological? It's simple, but it's not really simple. Um, ecology is messy. Ecology recognizes systems and relationships. Ecology recognizes that things within a system impact other things within that system and change other things within that system.
Jasmine M.: 22:12 An ecological approach could be, or could look like this, right? It would recognize a system of system in which data resides the microsystem, a mesosystem, an exosystem, and a macrosystem. So at the micro level, we have that data, right, that networked representation or observations, the very kind of off center of this, this visualization. This rest was in within a mesosystem, which looks at the network or relationships connected to data. For a genetic data like the GED match scenario. For example, the collection of my DNA not only implicates myself, but my relatives as well. The mesosystem is housed within an exosystem, which can be thought of as encompassing formal and informal structures, institutions like media, law enforcement agencies, other organizations in civil society kind of groups. The overarching macrosystem would include the political, economic, legal, whatever social environments within which all of this is happening. So we're talking about embeddedness, we talked about how structures and relationships impact these things.
Jasmine M.: 23:39 But, here's the thing. If I'm being honest while this kind of looks good and I'm glad I did on Photoshop and it was pretty easy.. it's really too simple of a representation. Like life doesn't really...we don't work like this. It's good for representation. It's good for understanding and getting concepts, but I don't think it really represents an ecosystem because remember what I said an ecosystem is messy. It just is. So I think a better view would look something like this. So this is a photo of an ecosystem. This is an urban ecosystem, but it's an ecosystem. It's an actual functioning working ecosystem. So in this picture you see a rainy night, it's actually Shanghai. I took this picture three years ago. There's people on the street, the people have their attachments, the people encounter other people, other data through advertising, signage, building overhangs, buildings to structures, house institutions, agencies, stores that people encounter.
Jasmine M.: 24:56 And all of this is embedded within an environment, political, legal, social and economic that the representations, the people, navigate through. It's a messy system and it functions. But this is the kind of thing I think we need to think about when we think about data and what we think data is. So the messiness is kind of the point. A simple analogy like property misses this, all of this happening all at the same time and it ignores the systems that are unseen, that implicate or influence data. More adequate data governance is not solely based on recognizing the need for a more descriptive view of data, but to act, to ensure that their awareness of the systems are included in the development of frameworks. Good governance is, in general, collective responsive, equitable and lawful. In enacting ecological data governance, we must use collective and participatory approaches.
Jasmine M.: 26:13 I'm thinking of, for example, the Design Justice Network. If you haven't heard of them, feel free to Google them, but they're doing amazing work. Getting people to participate in thinking about what design means and the possible implications of design. The same thing can be done for data and data governance. Participatory. This requires engagements, which traditionally marginalized and vulnerable groups and communities, many of whom are disparately impacted by data collection and uses. It also demands that organizations, whether civic civil society or corporate, be responsive to collective governance decisions. Accountability necessitates legislation as encouragement. Legislation also acts as infrastructure and good data governance requires infrastructure, which includes platforms and mechanisms that perform the plain works produced. So let's think about what this actually means by looking at another example. Again, I've used the health example I think is readily, it resonates with people. But let's try another example. Ring. Most of you all have heard of Ring and a as it's just been the holidays, we've been inundated with a lot of the feel good Ring video, right? So in this one right here, we have...
Jasmine M.: 27:48 We had the feel good ring ring videos. So I am going to play this for you if you haven't seen it.Just as a description [inaudible] porch or, or Portico. And uh, he finds that the homeowner has left a, uh, a box of snacks for delivery people. And so he gets snacks. Oh, this is so nice. And then he dances as he, uh, walks away.
Speaker 4: 28:33 Oh. Oh, wow. This is nice! Oh they got sone goodies. Oh wow.
Jasmine M.: 28:57 Okay.
Jasmine M.: 29:02 Note the Amazon delivery truck just as a side. If you don't know what ring is, Ring is an Amazon acquisition where a user's doorbell is equipped for both internal and external cameras, which are equipped with motion detectors. And every time something disturbs the motion detector, the owner of the ring gets sent a notice and a video of what's happening out there. So, again, this was the super happy delivery person. There are also ring videos is shared. Uh, like the squirrel that that sat on the shoulder was really weird. Um, there's videos of people falling, people being scared because also equips. The ring is also equipped with a microphone so you could yell out at people. And of course, people allegedly stealing packages. These cameras, again, when alerted they take video, but it's not video that just all only directly in front of the camera. As you see the video goes almost like 30 feet out into the street. So the question is, let's talk about this video.
Jasmine M.: 30:29 What's interesting about video is that this video has currency or value as well. Social value and value to the organization. It includes sound. Ring is touted as a great crime fighting tool and Amazon has now connections with, I think it's up to 400 law enforcement agencies across the country now. So it's you looked at as assisting law enforcement and being a great crime fighting tool. There is even so much a partnership that Amazon was putting bait packages on porches and buildings in order to catch supposed "porch pirates." So it's important to consider the implications of video capture, which is data collection in a system like this. While most would find, finding alleged thieves to be a highly important thing. There are a few other important issues that have to be considered. One, Ring was found to have allowed employees to watch and share un-encrypted video. This right here is Ring TV and you can go onto the website and you can watch shared Ring videos all you want.
Jasmine M.: 31:49 Ring videos can be shared also on the neighbors app, which is kinda I guess like a social networking site for Ring homeowners. This is an actual example of a sponsored ad that was being shared on Twitter by Ring. And you can see it has a image from video where, and they say, "do you live in this zip code? Um, do you recognize her?" She was caught on video camera doing whatever she was supposedly have done. So here's the problem. These people have not been convicted of anything. Further, it's not, like I said, this reaches out 30, 30 feet out into the street. So other people walking past are implicated in videos like this as well. So this is being used as a marketing or was being used as a marketing tool.
Jasmine M.: 32:52 Wired wrote about the "ringification" of suburban life and what the implications are for our changing the nature of how we relate to our neighbors. So in these cases, video contains network representations that under a property frame would belong to the Ring owner. Ring owner is the person who owns a device that captured them, but it's also licensed in perpetuity to Ring under the terms of service. So what's the problem with this? So most of us don't want our representations captured just for living our lives. But lives are changed through the sharing of these representations through video to law enforcement and to media.
Jasmine M.: 33:45 Here's an interesting story that that came out that many of the uh, videos that are shared to police are basically people just walking by. But the homeowner felt they were "suspicious." And so they sent him to beliefs. And now I'm saying Ring because that's the easy, you know, recognizable name. But Nest as well. Other video surveillance, like systems, same thing. So media also shares these videos. If you watch television news or you go online, these are being embedded in stories. Again, representations of people who have been convicted of nothing. And some of them will never be convicted of anything because they're not doing anything. The damage is done. So there's also, there's a short term damage of being implicated in a crime and there's the longterm damage. Police can keep ring camera, video forever and share it with whomever they'd like, according to the organization. So let's think of the long-term possible impacts of this kinds of thing. Possible use of a face for training, things like facial recognition technology because it's not like law enforcement doesn't do things like that. But also having your face permanently connected to criminal activity.
Jasmine M.: 35:19 So this requires us to think more ecologically. An ecological approach demands that we consider these questions. One, who is being represented? Two, for what purpose? Three, what are the major institutions that are implicated and then what are the impacts of those major institutions. Four, what is the environment of this data sharing and collection? What is the political environment? What is the social environment that drives institutions and drives, impacts. The possible harms require that we consider more than just the property or possessory frame of the Ring owner and examine the potential for harm to the people represented in these videos. Failure to do so places property as paramount,. and will only perpetuate inequitable disparate impacts of data capture on traditionally marginalized and vulnerable groups. So here's the thing. Getting this right is really important. To get this right, we have to think holistically about data, data collection and the environment of data collection. This requires a different perspective on data and a different approach to data governance. Thank you.
Speaker 5: 36:40 [inaudible].
Sareeta A.: 36:41 I'm going to take the MCs prerogative of AMS asking just a few questions to start us off and then turn it over to the audience. I'm sure many of you are waiting to ask Jasmine some some questions. My first question really has to do with this metaphor of ecology and ecosystem. You mentioned Stuart Hall and his seminal writings on the complexity of representation as well as infrastructure. Could you maybe take us through a little bit more? What's your inspiration and thinking through that and also, I was really intrigued by the imperfect model you put up of micro ,miso, exo and macro. Given that it's not really correct, it's not messy enough. Can you talk a little bit about what those levels do for you? In the way you think about your analysis.
Jasmine M.: 37:27 So the, on the ecology question, well ecology is the study of relationships, the study of dynamics between things in an environment, right? I think when we have these conversations about technology and society and data, we usually leave out things that are making impacts or impacting things.So you introduced me, you said I was a both an attorney and a social scientist. What I see in law and policy is a real ignorance towards how people actually behave. It's a law is normative, right? Law is like, I tell you to cross at the light, you're only going cross at the light. But we as people are irrational. We don't behave well at all and we don't do things as we should. So we have to recognize then that there are some dynamics at play.
Jasmine M.: 38:25 Whether it's time, whether it's you know, relationships between people, whether it's a duress, whatever, that there are things that happen that don't follow set formulas and we need to out what those are. What are the triggers for those and then what those mean. Then for how we can more adequately protect people. In this case when we talk about privacy/data protection, like what are the things that can actually be done? Ecology looks at systems, the entirety of the system. I think we leave out too many times things in the system that are really important for getting this right and so I wanted to look at the relationships, relationships between people, between organizations, between the language that we use and how we at least attempt to create policy for it. On the Stuart Hall question, I just like really enjoy Stuart Hall but also because I think the his, his definition of a system of representation to me when I read it, I was like, that's an algorithm. That's an algorithm, but when we talk about algorithms, we think only super technical techie things, but he was saying this is the algorithm, this is how we can think about it with respect to representation and we know that the algorithms we usually talk about now have a problem with representation, whether it's over-representation or under-representation. Why? Because of the data. And so I wanted to think about that and what that means in this ecosystem. Organizations, individuals as well, but organizations using data, how does that represent us and what do these representations look like?
Sareeta A.: 40:10 It's really interesting to me that you mentioned the normative nature of law and the fact that people don't behave the way we want because often our most technocratic solutions in fact come out of the realization that people don't behave the way we want. And so therefore we create systems to encourage them to behave that way. So a really simple example of that might be the speed bump to get the cars to slow down, right? The sleeping policemen. Um, but your approach is actually precisely moving us in the opposite direction. So not more normative frameworks, but actually pushing us towards an investigation of the meso. So my question, and this is a little bit of a kind of hardball one is, what would you say to someone who says, well, I agree with you on your critique, but this, the solution to this is actually to strengthen property rights. Why is that not the correct way to go about solving these problems?
Jasmine M.: 41:08 Well, I think for me, when I was researching this and thinking about this, what sticks out to me is that property is actually a limitation. It's a limitation on your rights. So basically you're saying that when we talk about personal information, personal data in particular, that I'm limited in how I can relate to myself and I'm limited in how I can exclude people from me or exclude organizations from me or exclude systems from me. And I think most people have a fundamental problem when other people tell them that they have to do something with themselves or with representations of themselves. Now we can get into like, you know, things like, well what if your out in public and you're caught on video? Uh, but you have a, and you know, you have a really low expectation of privacy on public you're, right? But for the most part though, when we're thinking about these systems where you're perpetually in a system, I think most people would say, you know what?
Jasmine M.: 42:18 This is not a right that property actually protects or or actually considers. It's actually a limitation. I'm also interested in the eminent domain. That means somebody, that means the government could take my property, including my data as property. Somebody could take it for a public purpose. And now, not even just public purpose, but sometimes for private purposes as well. So what does that mean then? Do you actually own the property? Can you actually exclude government? Government is actually some of the biggest offenders of data collection, misuse and abuse. Do we want to allow that? Because under a property frame, that's perfectly okay. So I think when we talk about property, while it's good, in some ways we think about ownership and possessory rights. When we get down to what property actually means, it doesn't really help us at all with what we actually want to do.
Sareeta A.: 43:23 Yeah, thank you. That that leads to my next question, which is about the way your critique of data as property builds on or intersects with an older reimagining of property and its problems. It's, it's deep problems. For instance, in Cheryl Harris's seminal work, "Whiteness as Property."
Jasmine M.: 43:42 So in writing both this speech, but in the writing I did before this for this, I quote her right? So Cheryl Harris, Harris, "Whiteness is Property," is the idea that whiteness and all the benefits and privileges that come along with this is a property right protected by the state. Both explicitly in law, but also implicitly and de facto how, how things have gone particularly in the United States, but other places as well. Um, so when we think about property again, and I think about data as property, I think to build on Cheryl's work, it's when we look at data and systems, even if, how many of you have taken like a research methods class? So many people, how many of you use or have used SPSS, which is a terrible [inaudible] anyway. But when you're taught how to set up a study, what are your defaults as far as groups? What are you taught are our default? What's the zero? Usually in demographics like gender, who's zero? Men whose, who's zero with race? White. So everything else is a deviation from that. What does that mean? Everything else is a deviation. It's not the default. So when we think about data as whiteness, as property, I think moving it from the kind of intangible, kind of, I don't know, copyrighted-ish, intangible, whiteness to a data, data-fide whiteness. It perpetuates this system where privileges or benefits or defaults are inherent in whiteness.
Speaker 5: 45:49 Hmm.
Sareeta A.: 45:51 I'm going to take, I'm going to ask one more question and then turn it over. Actually, no, I'm going to stop there so that we have more time for audience questions. I was just looking at the clock. Please put up your hand and if you feel comfortable saying your name and affiliation, that would be lovely.
Speaker 5: 46:13 you have a question.
Speaker 6: 46:16 My name is Leah Diaz. I'm from Louisiana State University. I wanted to ask you, um, thinking about this, uh, ecology, ecological approach, uh, what do you think should be the steps that we should take towards that type of a new environment for data? Uh, I was thinking because you have talked about legislation also, like more participatory channels, maybe what type of organizations would be more involved just to have some ideas about this. Thank you so much.
Jasmine M.: 46:41 So one of the cool things about this is that there are organizations, community groups, grassroots community groups and individuals who are already doing this kind of work, right? They've said this is what we have now, sucks. It excludes us, ignores us. So we're going to participate with each other and we're going to make an alternative system. What I think is that, well we have to commit to, involving those kinds of groups in to the idea of ecological data governance. Who is doing this? What are their needs? How do you find out their needs? Do you go to people? In the like the Design Justice Network, they've had workshops, town halls, um, actual participatory action research where they invite people to come and really not just invite people to come, but really involve them in the process of making, of designing. I think legislation, other governance, regulatory policies for organizations need, they need to do that same thing.
Jasmine M.: 47:53 It's not as perhaps efficient as people want it to be, but I think the results are way better than what we have or what we are getting now. Yeah. So, uh, when I'm thinking about this, and I kind of connected to this conversation that I was having on a listserv about what are the important skills that are considered non-technical but people still need to have and when it came to, or what it was identified as is kind of emotional intelligence. I'm not sure people get thrown off by the emotional part, but in an intelligence related to people and related to groups and related to thinking about what's missing here and what do we need here? And being able to communicate that and get people to respond or engage with that. So I think if you're thinking of like what kind of leader or organizational leader could do this, it'd be one that wants to find out where we are missing something or some people or some bodies, right. And then, then goes out and actually finds them and involves them. I don't know if you even, is that what you're talking about? Okay.
New Speaker: 49:09 [Inaudible question]
Jasmine M.: 49:13 Um, so I teach a class, I teach, I teach undergraduates. I teach a senior level class and I cross this it. So I'm in the college of journalism and communications. I teach a law class basically, which traditionally was how not to get suited your first job. So it's for telecom majors, which is digital media production, RTV traditionally folks. But I cross-listed in my class with the computer scientists and so I have half telecom, half computer science. And what I tell them is though I'd reason I did this is because one, you all are going to be working together period. But two, the way I teach it is based in teams. So I say you have the opportunity to learn skills that your employer going to want. Number one, skill communication. Can you talk about anything with people that are not in your major, who don't speak your link language and can you relate to them too?
Jasmine M.: 50:19 Its collaboration. Can you get in a room of five folks who have very different interests, who are very, you know, do different activities across campus, and can you make it work? And can you even engage the people who might be slackers or, can you make the decision to kick them out of the group? So these are skills that I say from jump that employers want for the future of work. Those are skills that are transferable to any job. It also makes them be able to talk to different kinds of people, and engage other kinds of people. Why are their thought processes important? Why is the computer science major? Why does what the computer science major think important to what the digital media student thinks? So getting them to collaborate, communicate and transfer ideas I think are important skills.
New Speaker: 51:23 [Inaudible question]
Jasmine M.: 51:31 So I think the government kind of sets part of the environment, right? The intangible, unseen, the regulations that are happening, how business does business or attempts to do business even if just for compliance sake. So privacy entities are actually within these structures and they are, I think they touch or um, change things quicker, have that impact, rapid impact with the people faster, most times than government. But government still has its structures in the community as well. So agencies, and we were thinking about New York, right? So we have institutions, structures in New York that like law enforcement, like, port authority, like, um, you know, housing and is it urban development for the city? Okay. Housing, housing, housing departments that are structures that automatically touch. But I think there's a lot of private that's going in there, but the government I think sets the environment within where these both public and private structures work, that impact, have impacts on people or on individuals.
Speaker 5: 52:54 Oh, what [question inaudible]
Jasmine M.: 52:56 yeah. So you're absolutely right. Many times the concerns of marginalized and vulnerable to communities and groups are ignored because many people say like, well, you know,
Jasmine M.: 53:10 won't happen to me. I think, and you're right. You, you didn't misquote me at all for the Golden State Killer. People can see the health, right? So you could, you get blood drawn. I get blood drawn, there's samples at the doctor. Health information is very sensitive so they could see themselves like doing something like this and then having it be come under the auspices of law enforcement. So there's that reaction right there. I think what has to happen is that the concerns of marginalized folks and as an aside, we're doing this work right now. So, right. It's like we're trying to various groups coming together or separately are doing this. Like, look, we need this. You all need to stop doing this. We're tired of this happening. To raise both awareness and to try to get policy makers of all kinds to do something different as far as public opinion. Unfortunately I think public opinion changes the quickest when something super bad happens
Jasmine M.: 54:28 And there's a lot of reasons for this. I won't get all mass comm-y on you. You talk about persuasion, we could talk about, you know, agenda setting and gatekeeping, we could talk about like people seeing themselves in, you know, the terrible thing that's happened. But I think though needs to be like a concerted effort, even if public opinion doesn't change as rapidly for policymakers and others to really look to the groups that are doing this work. So, uh, this is shout like if you haven't read Ruha Benjamin's work, she has two books out this year. "Captivating Technology" but also "Race After Technology." But in 2014-2015 she published a book called "People Science," which is about the STEM cell initiative in California. It's a really important book because she looks at both, you know, I'm not going to say both sides, but she looks at what policymakers and governmental agencies and that public/private like collaboration was doing. But she also looks at the patient advocate network folks, and also marginalized groups and thinking of like people of color who wanted to know like how this was going to both help them, but also would they be able to participate in the cultivation of this STEM cell initiative. They were already doing that work before the government hopped on it.
Jasmine M.: 56:01 Unfortunately, some of their, many of their concerns were ignored is my hope that in this whole conversation we stop ignoring. So that's why I say like that is property our imagination. We ignore those outside of the property owner. And that's so problematic because other people are implicated beyond the possessor, the owner. So many people have to be a part of this conversation and their concerns need to be heard, but thank you for that question.
New Speaker: 56:30 Please join me in thanking Jasmine