‘Not the Real Me’: Social Imaginaries of Personal Data Profiling

Abstract

In this article, I present findings from my Data Personas study, in which I invited Australian adults to respond to the stimulus of the ‘data persona’ to help them consider personal data profiling and related algorithmic processing of personal digitised information. The literature on social imaginaries is brought together with vital materialism theory, with a focus on identifying the affective forces, relational connections and agential capacities in participants’ imaginaries and experiences concerning data profiling and related practices now and into the future. The participants were aware of how their personal data were generated from their online engagements, and that commercial and government agencies used these data. However, most people suggested that data profiling was only ever partial, configuring a superficial and static version of themselves. They noted that as people move through their life-course, their identities and bodies are subject to change: dynamic and emergent. While the digital data that are generated about humans are also lively, these data can never fully capture the full vibrancy, fluidity and spontaneity of human experience and behaviour. In these imaginaries, therefore, data personas are figured as simultaneously less-than-human and more-than-human. The implications for understanding and theorising human-personal data relations are discussed.

Research-Creations for Speculating About Digitized Automation: Bringing Creative Writing Prompts and Vital Materialism into the Sociology of Futures

“…The key concepts of affective forces, relational connections, and agential capacities that we have taken from vital materialism theory can be used to analyze research materials in which imaginaries about technological futures are expressed and everyday practices enacted (Lupton, 2019b(Lupton, , 2021b. In this approach, vital materialism theory and sensory sociology methods come together with the sociology of futures (Coleman, 2017).…”

“…In previous research on people’s understandings, practices, affective responses and imaginaries related to digital technologies and digital data, we have experimented with innovative research methods drawn from participatory design approaches (Lupton & Michael, 2017), video ethnography (Watson et al, 2021), zine-making (Lupton & Watson, 2020), design personas (Lupton, 2021b), and creative writing prompts (Lupton & Watson, 2020). Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19, these studies were conducted in face-to-face settings.…”

“…However, most address public-facing discourses about future technologies rather than people’s everyday ideas and practices. The relationships between discourse and embodied practices and how sociotechnical imaginaries are enacted as part of mundane routines are often not investigated (Dawney, 2011; Lupton, 2021b).…”

Represent me: please! Towards an ethics of digital twins in medicine

“…the conclusions drawn about a person by means of correlation and analogies apply to the person represented. 20 The respective context therefore represents a central distinguishing feature here, insofar as different contexts are associated with different degrees of vulnerability of the person to be represented. 21 A prediction about the probability to get cancer within the next year has a different risk to add new injuries than, for example, a prediction about training optimisation.…”

A feminist Critique to digital consent

“…But while data are us, they are only part of us; We do not equal our data. Because when companies extract data from us, they take away the context it was performed in; it moves away from the history, culture, and social dynamics that made this behavior or preference meaningful to us (Lupton, 2020). And precisely this dehumanization and disembodiment make data portable, an exchangeable currency in the adtech ecosystem.…”