The Justice, Equity and Technology Table is a collaborative network-building effort to address the impacts of data-driven policing on racialised communities throughout Europe. We aim to build a broad set of visions and strategies of confronting discriminatory policing and the use of data-driven technologies. Our work centres the needs and experiences of racialised and marginalised communities, and seeks to expose and confront the harms inflicted by the use of new forms of surveillance and control in their contexts.

Data driven policing and discrimination as an emergent issue:

Racialised and marginalized communities in Europe are over-policed and under-protected. Across the continent, evidence of racial profiling by police forces is increasing. Meanwhile, issues of institutional racism are hardly addressed. Groups and individuals confronting the harms of racial profiling, over-policing and surveillance now face an additional challenge: the shift to data-driven policing.

The increased use of technologies to assist policing and wider law enforcement practices complicates the discovery and addressing of problems of systemic, institutional racism.

In this context, the Table serves as a space of convening and organizing between those most invested in anti-racism, non-discrimination and the detrimental effect of technologies on issues of social justice.

Part of our work includes investigation into the effects of the increased use of data-driven technologies for minority groups and communities, as well as methods of contestation.

Combining a collective understanding of racialized criminalisation with insights about the incursion of new technologies into contemporary policing, the Table aims to shift the narrative and build strategies.

Aims

1

Broaden the boundaries of public discourse around data-driven technologies beyond industry-run spaces;

2

Address the consequences of automated decision-making systems for people’s basic human needs and democratic society;

3

Build bridges within social justice movements by welcoming collective reflections on power structures in the field;

4

Foster social change at the intersections of equality, social, economic, and racial justice, data-driven technologies, and their governance;

5

Transform how civil society representatives across diverse communities of practice and areas of expertise engage with automated discrimination issues.

Our work is focused around three core strategies:

Enabling connections and coordinating strategies across affected communities, to build resilient, effective and community-driven strategies for structural change;

Changing the narrative around data-driven policing while uplifting policies and practices for community wellbeing.

Pushing back on implementation of violent policing technologies and contesting racialised criminalisation;

Principles

These are principles which form the basis for our collaboration. We consider this a living document that forms part of an ever-evolving collective learning process.

We are guided by the principles of justice, equity, co-liberation, and care. We understand that technology is/has power and that technology reflects power in society.

We recognize that deployment of technological systems exacerbates existing injustices. We see structural and institutional harms perpetuated by the use of automated systems as continuation of histories of oppression and colonization.

We thank all the organizers that inspire our work and principles suchas the Movement for Black Lives, Our Data Bodies, Abolitionist Futures, Center for Intersectional Justice, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, Coalition for Critical Technology, and Detroit Digital Justice Coalition.

Technology is and reflects power

The deployment of technological systems exacerbates existing injustices. The structural and institutional harm perpetuated by the use of automated systems, can be understood as continuation of histories of oppression and colonization.

Intersectionality

We believe that all forms of oppressions are interlinked and that they need to be addressed simultaneously. We see intersectionality as a guide to connect and support each other’s struggles and to foster systemic change.

Transformation

We support each other’s learning, recognizing that we will make mistakes and are committed to learning from them to accomplish our collective aims. We see individual and collective reflexivity as an inseparable part of our work and value human relationships as fuel for social change.

Solidarity

We are committed to act in solidarity for the collective liberation of all, and in particular people who are being traditionally targeted and marginalized.

Critical Engagement

We investigate questions of power around technology. We center lived experiences and prioritize the participation of people who have been historically and structurally excluded from and attacked by technological systems.
We value diverse tactics and strategies as part of the ecology of our movements. We recognize and get inspired by the work which has been done by other organizers.

People

Escra Özkan ↗︎

Co-Director Justice, Equity and Technology Project

◼

Esra has been active in a variety of grassroots groups and civil society organisations in Turkey and in Belgium. She is interested in how social movements can provide a context for individual and community transformation as a pathway to experiencing freedom and justice in our lifetimes. She is passionate about and learning from the histories of communities of resistance and networks of solidarity. She is part of LABO vzw, a non-profit educational organisation that strives as a movement towards a strong civil society that work to create social change and a commitment to social justice. Previously she worked at European Network Against Racism (ENAR) as Network Development Officer and Merhaba vzw as Movement Project Coordinator.

Sanne Stevens ↗︎

Co-Director Justice, Equity and Technology Project

◼

Sanne Stevens is a researcher, trained facilitator and advisor with many years of experience working with civil society organisations and media organisations in field of data-driven technology and digital security. Her work focuses on how data-driven technologies reinforce and transform powerstructures, surveillance technologies and strategies of subversion and resistance. Besides conducting critical research, she facilitates workshops, meetings and practical workshops for activists, journalists and civil society worldwide about basic digital security practices, surveillance, data tracking and strategies against online harassment.

Seeta Peña Gangadharan ↗︎

Associate Professor, Principal Investigator and Founder

◼

Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work focuses on inclusion, exclusion, and marginalization, as well as questions around democracy, social justice, and technological governance. She currently co-leads two projects: Our Data Bodies, which examines the impact of data collection and data-driven technologies on members of marginalized communities in the United States, and Justice, Equity, and Technology, which explores the impacts of data-driven technologies and infrastructures on European civil society. She is also a visiting scholar in the School of Media Studies at The New School, Affiliated Fellow of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and Affiliate Fellow of Data & Society Research Institute.

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board of the Justice, Equity and Technology Table serves as essential sounding board and critical friend in relation to the overall direction and activities of the Table.

Bogdan Kulynych ↗︎

PhD researcher at EPFL Security and Privacy Engineering Lab(SPRING)

◼

Bogdan Kulynych works on privacy and security as related to socio-technical systems. His interest is in studying the harmful effects of machine learning, algorithmic, and optimization systems, and, leveraging security and privacy techniques and principles, developing defences against these harmful effects. Bogdan is also a co-organizer of the Participatory Approaches to Machine Learning workshop.

Eric Kind ↗︎

Managing Director at AWO

◼

AWO is a new agency of lawyers, policy experts, technology analysts and applied ethicists orking to shape, apply and enforce data rights.Eric Kind works as a legal and public policy expert in technology, society and human rights, with particularly deep expertise on surveillance technology law and practice. He previously led public policy development efforts around complex technology policy areas such as security and intelligence, dual use export controls, artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision making, gig economy and the future of work, cyber security, competition, data protection, and platform accountability. He has also led coalitions of NGOs reforming surveillance laws and was the Deputy Director at Privacy International.

Nani Jansen Reventlow ↗

Program Coordinator
at Centre for Peace Studies

◼

Nani Jansen is currently the Director of the Digital Freedom Fund. She is a recognised international lawyer and expert in human rights litigation responsible for groundbreaking freedom of expression cases across several national and international jurisdictions. Nani is also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and Adjunct Professor at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. Nani is based in Berlin.

Sara Lalić ↗︎

Program Coordinator

at Centre for Peace Studies

◼

The Centre for Peace Studies is a civil society organization based in Zagreb, Croatia, working on refugee and integration topics through education, research, advocacy and activism.

Sarah Lalić has been working as a researcher and policy analyst in the fields of human rights and combating discrimination, racism, and xenophobia. She is an editor of several publications in the field of combating discrimination. Sara Lalić studied sociology and comparative literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb.

Sarah Chander ↗︎

Senior Policy Advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi)

◼

EDRi is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online.  Sarah Chander leads EDRi's policy work on AI andnon-discrimination with respect to digital rights. She is interested in building thoughtful, resilient movements and she looks to make links between the digital and other social justice movements. Sarah has experience in racial and social justice, previously she worked in advocacy at the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), on a wide range of topics including anti-discrimination law and policy, intersectional justice, state racism, racial profiling and police brutality. Before that she worked on youth employment policy for the UK civil service. She was actively involved in movements against immigration detention. She holds a masters in Migration, Mobility and Development from SOAS, University of London and a Law Degree from the University of Warwick.

Members

Border Violence ↗

Monitoring Network Documenting illegal pushbacks and police violence at the European borders

Ghyslain Vedeux ↗

Anti-racism activist, and Chair of  Le Cran, the biggest black association in France

The Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) ↗

Monitoring Network Documenting illegal pushbacks and police violence at the European borders

Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) ↗

Defending the rights of the Roma community in Spain and Europe

Homo Digitalis ↗

The only digital rights civil society organisation in Greece

Patrick Williams ↗

Lecturer and social researcher

GHETT'UP ↗

Organising youth empowerment in the banlieues of Paris

No Tech For Tyrants (NT4T) ↗

Student-led organisation against violent technology and hostile immigration environments

StopWatch ↗

Turning a spotlight on stop and search, campaigning against the overpolicing of marginalised communi

Technopolice ↗

Campaign coordinating the fight against new policing tech in France