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About

Justice, Equity and Technology Project

The Justice, Equity and Technology Project uses a social justice framework to inform research and practise-based activities that address the impact of data-driven technologies.

Since late 2020, the main part of its endeavor has involved the Justice, Equity and Technology Table, a Europe-wide civil society network around data-driven policing and discrimination.

Responding to the need for a broader set of visions and strategies for the governance of technology, the Table functions as a coordinating network of civil society representatives from across Europe’s social justice, human rights and digital rights sector. The Table comprises of a fiercely independent network of members that build collective knowledge, share timely information, foster solidarity and coordinate strategies around issues of equality, justice, data-driven technologies and their governance.

Our aims


  • Broaden the boundaries of public discourse around data-driven technologies beyond industry-run spaces         
  • Address the consequences of automated decision-making systems for people’s basic human needs and democratic society              
  • Build bridges within social justice movements by welcoming collective reflections on power structures in the field             
  • Foster social change at the intersections of equality, social, economic, and racial justice, data-driven technologies, and their governance.
  • Transform how civil society representatives across diverse communities of practice and areas of expertise engage with automated discrimination issues

Our Principles

The key principles that inform our work
  • Technology is and reflects power
    The deployment of technological systems exacerbates existing injustices. The structural and institutional harm perpetuated by the use of automated systems, can be understood as continuation of histories of oppression and colonization.   
  • Critical Engagement
    We aim to investigate questions of power around technology by centering lived experiences and prioritize the participation of people who have been historically and structurally excluded from and attacked by technological systems.  
  • Intersectionality 
    We understand all forms of oppressions as interlinked and to be addressed as such. Intersectionality is a guide to connect and support each other’s struggles and to foster systemic change.  
  • Solidarity 
    We are committed to act in solidarity for the collective liberation of all, and in particular people who are being traditionally targeted and marginalized.  
  • Transformation 
    We support each other’s learning, recognizing that we will make mistakes and are committed to learning from them to accomplish our collective aims. We see individual and collective reflexivity as an inseparable part of our work and value human relationships as fuel for social change.  

Articles

 

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Decentering Technology

Written by Seeta Peña Gangadharan and Jędrzej Niklas, this article proposes to decenter technology and bring nuance into the debate about its role and place in the production of social inequalities.  Inspired by Nancy Fraser’s theory, it proposes to situate technologically mediated discrimination alongside other more conventional kinds of discrimination and injustice and privileges attention to economic, social, and political conditions of marginality.

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Between antidiscrimination and data: Understanding human rights discourse on automated discrimination in Europe

Set against the backdrop of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this report examines how the topic of automated discrimination is making its way through European civil society organizations (CSOs) working in the feld of human rights. Our research aims to show how a range of human rights groups—including generalist organizations, groups addressing the rights of specifc populations, as well as those addressing specifc human rights, such as digital or consumer rights—make sense of data-driven technologies and confront or propose to confront their potential discriminatory impacts.

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Policing in Europe: The Nexus Between Structural Racism and Surveillance Economies

A deep dive into the use of data-driven tools in policing across Europe, and the implications of these for injustices linked to the oppression of marginalized groups and communities.

Funding grants and awards

  • LSE Knowledge Exchange and Impact (KEI) Fund. 
    'Justice, Equity, and Technology Table'.
    Total: £97,131. Period: 1/2020-7/2021.  (Seeta Peña Gangadharan)
  • Luminate
    'Justice, Equity and Technology Table'.
    Total £55555. Period: 8/2020 - 2/2022
    'Justice, Equity, and Technology Project'.
    Total: £63,562. Period: 1/2017-7/2018. (Seeta Peña Gangadharan)
  • Open Society Foundations
    'Justice, Equity and Technology Table'.
    Total £52,466. Period: 8/2020 - 2/2022
    'Justice, Equity, and Technology Project'.
    Total: £63,562. Period: 1/2017-7/2018. (Seeta Peña Gangadharan