Data

Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss some findings from my Data Personas study that relate to the Australian participants’ imaginaries concerning the futures of personal data. The methods adopted for this study brought together the cultural probe of the ‘data persona’ with a customized online forum for engaging the responses of the participants. Using this approach surfaced a range of intriguing insights into the sociotechnical imaginaries held by the participants in relation to the futures of personal data. The participants’ speculations about the futures of their personal data referred to ever-more detailed datafication and dataveillance. However, most participants resisted the notion that their future data personas would incorporate every aspect of their lives and thoughts. While the participants could readily identify a multitude of ways in which they are datafied as part of their everyday lives, few had directly experienced disadvantage or discrimination from data profiling. They were therefore more likely to imagine futures in which better data profiling would offer benefits rather than harms. In these participants’ accounts, therefore, was evidence both of their engagement with publicly circulating sociotechnical imaginaries about the futures of personal data and their resistance to accepting these imaginaries unquestioningly, drawing on their personal experiences of being data subjects.