The goal of this project is to map and theorize some of the ethical consequences of using algorithms and Big data as the basis for decision-making in the public sphere.
Specifically, I will theorize how the imperatives of datafication, the becoming-data of anything that can be quantified, and privacy, the right to control personal information, can co-exist in a democracy. My central claim is that new information technologies are changing the coordinates of how we should think about these issues and therefore requires reconceptualising the nature of privacy and data itself.
The project will result in three articles. Two theoretical articles on the topic of privacy and datafication respectively, and a qualitative study of perceptions of the ethical challenges in the implementation of algorithmic/big data decision-making, using Oslo Kommunes digitalization project Origo as case study. The idea is that combining philosophical theory with empirical research is a way of rooting the project in how people actually think about these issues, apart from the more abstract legal and academic discourse.
