You Are Being Tracked, Evaluated and Sold: an analysis of digital inequalities [Audio]

LSE Podcasts

Speaker(s): Professor Bev Skeggs, Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan | If our personal data is traded in milliseconds up to 70k times per day, what does this mean? Should we care? Are we aware? Does it matter? Is it possible to escape? Bev Skeggs will draw on research that uses software to track the trackers (Facebook) and identify how a person's browser use is tracked and searched in detail for sources of potential value that can be sold to advertising companies. She argues that if we want to know how inequalities are being shaped in the present and future we need to understand the opaque mechanisms that operate through stealth and experiment with our personal disclosures. Bev Skeggs (@bevskeggs) is Academic Director of the Atlantic Fellows programme in the International Inequalities Institute at LSE. Seeta Peña Gangadharan is Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. For four years prior, she served as Senior Research Fellow at New America’s Open Technology Institute, addressing policies and practices related to digital inclusion, privacy, and “big data.” Mike Savage (@MikeSav47032563) is Martin White Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the LSE International Inequalities Institute. The International Inequalities Institute at LSE (@LSEInequalities) brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to lead critical and cutting edge research to understand why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges.