In our digital world, “data” is the world in everyone’s mouths. Data is “the new oil”, “the new currency”, the “new water”. Data is the thing companies trade with, and the largest concern of many governments and privacy advocates. And yet, there is no point in protecting sensitive data if the regulations established to do so do not take into account the dangers that real people face in the digital world.
In the post-pandemic and ever-digitalising era, terms like data and data privacy are often over-used, and debates around this type of legislation often end up feeling like walking in circles. Not this book.
In Beyond Data: Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse (MIT Press, $26.95, ISBN 9780262047821), Elizabeth M Renieris argues that laws focused on data protection, data privacy, data security and data ownership have unintentionally failed to protect people’s dignity and autonomy. In order to address this imbalance, she defends the need...