Klaas Kuitenbrouwer
members of a panel. Along with Ganesh and Haque, panellists were Saskia Beer, a developer with the urban development organisation ZO!City;9 Merel Noorman, a smart-city researcher at Maastricht University; and Chris Sigaloff, the former director of Kennisland and a member of the DATAstudio’s advisory team.
Discussion DISEMPOWERMENT The discussion began with the observation that citizens experience their relationship to data primarily as disempowering. When people realise their behaviour, preference or presence has left a data trace for one reason or another, it often feels like a violation of privacy, particularly if they haven’t been notified in advance. Another common disempowering experience occurs when citizens are supposed to collaborate with data professionals around a (datafied) urban issue, but are excluded from the discussion through the professionals’ highly abstracted language. PUTTING DATA IN ITS PLACE Data itself shouldn’t be the problem, and it can’t be the entire solution. Data needs to be used in the right places and in the right ways. Where can data be useful and where can’t it? It can help us to find new stories and to tell them. It can help to break down misconceptions, reveal wrongs, and articulate complex matters in nuanced ways. Data about health, land use, air quality, mobility, cultural differences and so on can be of value for communities and should be made available for uses that serve the public interest.
[9] See: http://www.zocity.nl, retrieved on 8 February 2018.
CONSCIOUS INTENTION How can citizens get control over what their data is used for? How can more data power be placed in the hands of the people? Is it a matter of designing the right interfaces, as seen in Saskia Beer’s work? Should we create a kind of clean slate – perhaps using a Data Detox Kit – after which no one will unwittingly give away data any longer? How could a data detox benefit people at the individual level, at the community level, at the city level? Finding answers to these questions can’t just be viewed as a citizens’ problem. Citizens must pressure their public institutions to act to empower them to manage their own data.
Panellists (from left to right): Merel Noorman (smart-city researcher at Maastricht University), Chris Sigaloff (former director of Kennisland), Saskia Beer (developer with the urban development organisation ZO!City) and Maya Indira Ganesh (researcher and programme developer at the Tactical Technology Collective). Photo: Fieke van Berkom
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