Platformization of the skin? Biometric tattoos, dataism, and consumer datification

Abstract

This theoretical essay starts from the possibility of the platformization of the skin through the use of biometric tattoos to analyze the imminent risks posed by consumer wearables and their biopolitical marketing in the context of communicative capitalism. The theme is approached through a critical perspective that goes beyond the marketing rhetoric that focuses on individual improvement and self-care through consumer datification. The aim is to overcome the opacity of technological systems associated with communication and information technologies. The work discusses the consequences of biopolitical marketing associated with the consumption of wearables; for example, the formation of profiles informed by governmentality based on a belief in dataism, which fosters objective truth markets based on the capture and analysis of big data. The essay concludes that the consumption of wearables associated with the platform economy, datification, and dataism poses risks to privacy and democracy, especially in contexts such as the pandemic, in which dependence on communication and information technologies is evident.

Inteligencia artificial y emociones: Psicopolítica mediante datos y algoritmos (2015-2022)

“…De este modo, en las corporaciones financieras y políticas, el análisis de las emociones trasegó de una psicometría a un dispositivo psicopolítico, en cuya base para la toma de decisiones están los datos de los usuarios como forma de control subjetivo (Melhado y Rabot, 2021). Ahora, es la piel vinculada con dispositivos que recogen y transmiten datos (wearables) a las plataformas digitales configuradas con la presión del cuidado, la mejora individual y que, al configurar perfiles, amenazan, tanto la privacidad como la democracia (O'Neil, 2018;De Azevedo, 2022).…”

Digital Anthropology Manifesto

“…Any optional action and any activation of a web browser, the very fact of connection, turn fragments of a person's life into data. Actually, "datification", serving "communicative capitalism" (Renata Couto de Azevedo de Oliveira) and data capitalism, brings to life a kind of quasi-formation -"dataism" (Oliveira, 2022). No traditional socio-political data collection machines (primarily the population census) reached "dataistic" proportions.…”