Data Justice

We hold that the conflation between surveillance/security and safety has made us less safe. We understand that in order to create true safety, we must strengthen interpersonal connections, resources and opportunities within our communities. We nurture the existence of a more equitable and just future online and offline, by honoring these core principles:
DDJC principles

safety (community) vs security (surveillance) graphic

Current Work

Surveillance and Security Ain’t Safety

Through a series of graphics, panels, workshops, focus groups, blogs, videos, social media posts, coalition work, and related literature, the Data Justice Program has taken seriously the need to end the conflation between surveillance/security and safety. Through our research, we determined that governmental entities, law enforcement and organizations who create, organize, enforce, or innovate from a security or surveillance mindset, tend to make already marginalized community members less safe.

DCTP worked with Data Driven Detroit (D3) to gather and house data related to Project Green Light on this interactive map.

Digital Defense Playbook Trainings

digital defense playbook cover DCTP’s Data Justice Director is a member of Our Data Bodies, a five-person team concerned about the ways our communities’ digital information is collected, stored, and shared by the government and corporations. Based in marginalized neighborhoods in Charlotte, North Carolina, Detroit, Michigan, and Los Angeles, California, we look at digital data collection and our human rights, work with local communities, community organizations, and social support networks, and show how different data systems impact re-entry, fair housing, public assistance, and community development.

Consentful Tech Trainings

DCTP’s Data Justice Program is collaborating with the Consentful Tech Project to produce a Consentful Tech Curriculum guide, and subsequent trainings, beginning in early 2020.

Equitable Census Organizing

DCTP’s Data Justice Program is collaborating with Data Driven Detroit and the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DDJC) to produce a series of Census focused materials and to organize Data DiscoTechs (Discovering Technology) community fairs and teach-ins to engage communities who are typically underrepresented in the Census. Our organizing approach consists of doing research to ensure communities have their questions answered, so that they can make critical decisions around their participation in Census 2020, while considering the implications for participation/non-participation.

Data DiscoTechs

DCTP is a convening member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition. We coordinate Data DiscoTechs, convene regular DDJC meetings and foster digital justice collaborations centered on relevant data and digital justice, and media literacy issues in Detroit.

people sitting around a table at a Discotech event

Mapping
Project
Greenlight

Collaborations

Achieving data justice is impossible without coalition building. We have been working with many other organizations to move this work forward, including these (and more!):

Co-Productions

Reading Nook

Resources

What we're reading

What we're watching