Predatory Data

“An illuminating and unsettling depiction of Big Tech as deeply enmeshed in an ethically compromised brand of social science.” * Publishers Weekly *
“Anita Say Chan illuminates the throughline between the nineteenth century’s anti-immigration and eugenics movements and our sprawling systems of techno-surveillance and algorithmic discrimination… . Looking to the past to shape our future, Predatory Data effectively charts a path for an alternative historical consciousness grounded in the pursuit of global justice… . Invaluable.”
* Midwest Book Review *
“Chan’s book shares lessons that society can learn from today’s global justice-based data initiatives and from the data collaborations of earlier feminists, immigrants, and other minorities who refused eugenic models.” * Eurasia Review *
“Just as eugenicists championed their data collection practices to justify their beliefs and practices as ‘evidence-based,’ today’s tech giants employ data and algorithms that harm minority groups under the guise of technological impartiality and the promise of an optimized future… . Chan urges the reader to push back, sharing a playbook for resisting datafication and prediction systems that recreate our biased past and reinforce majority voices.” * Choice *

Anita Say Chan is a feminist and decolonial scholar of Science and Technology Studies and Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Media Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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