All content tagged with: Technology
Filter
Post List
BLOG 3: Surveillance, Dark Sousveillance, & the Law
By: Rihan Issa, Executive Articles Editor, Vol. 27 Part 1 of the series discussed the argument in Simone Browne’s book, Dark Matters. She highlighted the importance of racializing surveillance as an important conceptual understanding of the way surveillance has been used to order society along racial lines. She argues that…BLOG 2: Runaway Slave Advertisements & Counting Violent Extremism
By: Rihan Issa, Executive Articles Editor, Vol. 27 In part one of the blog series, I presented an overview of Simone Browne’s argument in Dark Matters. She argues that one cannot understand the history of surveillance without examining its racial past. She presents a few examples of the racial roots…BLOG 1: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness & Countering Violent Extremism
By: Rihan Issa, Executive Articles Editor, Vol. 27 Government surveillance is inevitable in our current reality. So present, it seems it is a fact of life rather than a direct invasion into the lives of marginalized communities. Government surveillance obstructs marginalized communities’ growth and transformation into healthy, safe, and vibrant…When Critical Race Theory Enters the Law & Technology Frame
Michigan Technology Law Review is proud to partner with our peers to publish this essay by Professor Jessica Eaglin on the intertwining social construction of race, law and technology. This piece highlights how the approach to use technology as precise tools for criminal administration or objective solutions to societal issues often fails to consider how laws and technologies are created in our racialized society. If we do not consider how race and technology are co-productive, we will fail to reach substantive justice and instead reinforce existing racial hierarchies legitimated by laws.Aligned: Sex Workers’ Lessons for the Gig Economy
Society’s perception of a type of work and the people who engage in money-generating activities has an impact on whether and how the law protects (or does not protect) the people who perform those activities. Work can be legitimized or delegitimized. Workers are protected or left out to dry depending upon their particular “hustle.” This Article argues that gig workers and sex workers face similar challenges within the legal system and that these groups can and should collaborate to their collective advantage when seeking reforms. Gig workers have been gaining legitimacy while sex workers still primarily operate in the shadow economy. This Article digs into the sometimes-conflicting desires of individuals working as sex workers and gig workers to inform how gig workers can achieve the power and economic independence necessary to prevent workplace exploitation.Digital Colonialism: The 21st Century Scramble for Africa through the Extraction and Control of User Data and the Limitations of Data Protection Laws
As Western technology companies increasingly rely on user data globally, extensive data protection laws and regulations emerged to ensure ethical use of that data. These same protections, however, do not exist uniformly in the resource-rich, infrastructure-poor African countries, where Western tech seeks to establish its presence. These conditions provide an ideal landscape for digital colonialism. Digital colonialism refers to a modern-day “Scramble for Africa” where largescale tech companies extract, analyze, and own user data for profit and market influence with nominal benefit to the data source. Under the guise of altruism, large scale tech companies can use their power and resources to access untapped data on the continent. Scant data protection laws and infrastructure ownership by western tech companies open the door for exploitation of data as a resource for-profit and a myriad of uses including predictive analytics. One may believe that strengthening data protection laws will be a barrier to digital colonialism. However, regardless of their relative strength or weakness, data protection laws have limits. An analysis of Kenya's 2018 data protection bill, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and documented actions of largescale tech companies exemplifies how those limits create several loopholes for continued digital colonialism including, historical violations of data privacy laws; limitations of sanctions; unchecked mass concentration of data, lack of competition enforcement, uninformed consent, and limits to defined nation-state privacy laws.
We Have the Technology: Reducing Deaths by Cops and Crashes
By Chris Hemry Executive Editor, Vol. 24. The police have a lot of power over civilians. This is especially palpable on the roads.[1] The police can pull you over for a “broken taillight,” order everyone out of the car, frisk everyone, arrest the driver for the broken taillight, impound the car, and then search every container inside.[2] Of course, where there is power, there are abuses of power, and discretion is often abused along racial lines. Police pull over more non-white drivers for minor infractions.[3] They also search non-white drivers more often and issue them more tickets.[4] Police kill Black motorists at much higher rates, and use non-lethal force against them more than twice as often.[5] At the same time, “[p]eople who are police, are related to the police, hold positions of power and authority, or who frequently work with or come in friendly contact with the police are largely immune from traffic enforcement.”[6] So what can we do about it? One solution would be to simply stop enforcing traffic laws. This option seems pretty attractive, given everything above.[7] For places with smaller populations, it may even be feasible. Several European cities have experimented with the idea of eliminating traffic controls with surprising success.[8] Nonetheless, traffic safety is a serious concern; every year, there are over five million crashes, resulting in over thirty thousand deaths.[9] Studies consistently show that reduced enforcement results in more crashes.[10] Conversely, “highly visible, sustained, and widespread” enforcement has been shown to be the most effective.[11]
