LECTURE 8: 6AAVC312 -

Development and

DATAFICATION’
humanitarianism in a
digital age

Dr Margie Cheesman
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
➢Understand ‘datafication’ and how is this relevant
to humanitarian/development aid

➢Appreciate key data systems used by

humanitarian/development actors, including
digital identity and remote management

➢ Understand what type of knowledge these tools

are generating, and what ethical dilemmas they
create or reinforce
WHAT IS DATAFICATION?

The technological trend that turns more

and more aspects of our lives and
societies into quantifiable data (Cukier
and Mayer-Schöenberger 2013).
Results from increase in number of
sensors in society as connectivity (e.g.
via access to smartphones and social
media) is on the rise.
With connectivity comes masses of data
about our everyday lives: from our
communications to our transactions and
movements.
THE ‘3 VS’ OF BIG DATA
1. Volume – sheer amount of information
2. Variety – on many subjects, seamlessly
gathered worldwide by digital devices
and software
3. Velocity – speed of its constant
generation
IMPLICATIONS
➢What are data supposed to do for
humanitarian/development aid?

➢What problems are they designed to

solve?

➢What problems do they reinforce or

create?
DATA(FICATION)
FOR DEVELOPMENT
The promise: data insights will inform
and improve services and policies,
and therefore economic development.

E.g. 1, mobile network data is used

to monitor and analyse people’s
spending and saving patterns or
urban mobility. Financial tools and
prices, or border openings/closures,
are adapted accordingly.

E.g. 2, social media monitoring - UN

Global Pulse compares Indonesian
Twitter data with official food price
rises. Government data is
complemented by (more accurate?)
tech platform data.
PREDICTING
HUMANITARIAN
CRISIS
See the predictive data model
catalogue:

https://centre.humdata.org/cat
alogue-for-predictive-models-
in-the-humanitarian-sector/
INFORMATIONAL
CAPITALISM
 ➢India’s Unique ID Authority –
since 2009, the world’s
largest biometric database.
➢Gateway to most state
services.
➢Tool for efficient, targeted
welfare provision, population
monitoring, and economic
inclusion (and exclusion).
➢Requires ID verification via
digital fingerprinting.
➢Data infrastructure provided
by Public Private
Partnerships.
➢‘Function creep’ of
commercial actors, who
ringfence and profit from
data, and often lack

EXAMPLE: INDIA’S accountability.

AADHAAR SYSTEM
 ‘Forget the stereotype
of the aid worker with
the clipboard, the
Syrian aid effort is
digital – registration
with biometric
verification, smartcard-
based aid, smart
device data collection,
mobile communications
and telemedicine.’
(Favell, 2015)
DATA IN/AS
HUMANITARIAN AID
REMOTE
MANAGEMENT

➢From direct/interpersonal to
distanced/digital engagement with
humanitarian aid recipients, e.g. data
dashboards, mobile money, chatbots, drone
deliveries.

➢Duffield argues that through data

monitoring, humanitarian assistance is
increasingly integrated with security
objectives, e.g. anticipating ‘risky’ refugees.

➢Rather than addressing root causes of

suffering, post-humanitarianism maintains
populations at subsistence levels through
digital remote management.

➢Even more relevant post COVID.

BIG DATA, BIG RISKS
➢Refugees are vulnerable to discrimination,
violence, and persecution if their personal data
falls into the wrong hands. The malevolent online
practices of state and non-state actors can reach
refugees extraterritorially, or back in their country
of origin.
➢The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
also show that, in host countries, ‘data leaks may
increase the risk that refugees will be targets for
discrimination and harassment’ due to ‘racist,
ethnic, and economic tensions that position them as
an unwelcome monetary and administrative
burden on the host state.’
https://openmigration.org/en/op-ed/the-role-of-
big-data-in-refugee-contexts/
 DIGITAL IDENTITY

➢Identity profiles ensure the right people

access aid, reducing fraud, corruption, and
diversion.
➢Rather than checking people’s papers,
agencies now rely on data systems (e.g., iris
scans, authenticate aid instead)
➢Data monitoring improves the effectiveness
and targeting of humanitarian services.
➢For example, UNHCR ProGres Database –
since 2004; 70 countries in use; 1.6million+
Syrian refugees on system
Image: iris recognition ATM at World Food Programme
food distribution centre.
 ➢Humanitarian organisations give refugees digital
IDs – data prove you are who you say you are,
granting access to aid.
➢These IDs are critiqued as exploitative
surveillance. Historically, they have involved
invasive tools like biometric iris scans.

EXAMPLE: ➢Organisations are developing digital identity

solutions that bring refugees more control and
ID FOR ownership over their own identity data.

REFUGEES ➢But do these new solutions meaningfully shift the

power of identity control towards refugees? No!
BLOCKCHAIN
➢the ‘decentralised’ database system
underlying cryptocurrencies
➢removes the requirement of data
verification by centralised parties (e.g.
banks, governments)
➢tamper-proof and secure
➢used to record ID data, but also trigger
automated ‘smart contracts’ (e.g. for supply
chain management)

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

 Unresolved tensions in how humanitarians are talking
about blockchain IDs:
(i) the neutrality of tech?
(ii) the capacities of refugees?
(iii) role of the nation state?
(iv) business model of digital identity?
EXAMPLE:
ID FOR [Blockchain IDs are] ‘simultaneously the potential
enabler of new modes of empowerment, autonomy
and data security for refugees and a means of
REFUGEES maintaining and extending bureaucratic and
commercial power’ (Cheesman, 2022, 134)
 Linnet Taylor 2017
➢we need ‘fairness in the way people are
made visible, represented and treated as a
result of their production of digital data’.
DATA JUSTICE ➢three pillars of data justice: the right to
invisibility, to non-discrimination, and to
disengagement.
 HUMANITARIAN DATA PROTECTION
➢Privacy International (the civil society
organisation) on the ‘metadata problem’:
humanitarian orgs have limited control over
where data ends up and for what purposes.

➢Serious safety implications of data

breaches for vulnerable and persecuted
groups. E.g. biometric data coopted by the
Taliban in Afghanistan; used against
Rohingyan refugees in Myanmar.

➢Is transparency of supply chains/donations

(e.g. on a blockchain) always a good thing?
Reprisals against agencies/contractors?
 ➢Datafication enhances the effectiveness and
pro-active planning of aid. At the same time, it
is not just about ‘neutral’ information gathering.
➢Links between datafication and securitization
– governments monitoring and controlling
‘risky’ populations
➢Connections between datafication and
SUMMARY commercialization – companies profit from
information
➢The turn to remote management erodes
direct, interpersonal aid
➢Datafication risks privacy breaches,
discrimination, denial of services, and other
social justice and safety concerns for
vulnerable groups
SEMINAR Datafication
DATA PARTNERSHIPS

How major humanitarian organisations

are working with data companies
 Research the following Qs:
1. Who are Palantir?
2. Why has the World Food Programme
partnered with them?
3. What are the risks of this partnership?

MICRO 4. How should aid organisations respond to these

risks?
RESEARCH
ACTIVITY 1
 Human Rights Watch found that the Taliban had
obtained access to sensitive data.

➢Find out how the Taliban did this, and what the
risks and implications have been.

MICRO
RESEARCH
ACTIVITY 2
DISCUSSION
Imagine you are a Ukrainian refugee.
Rather than receiving aid distributions physically (bags of rice,
medicines) from aid workers, you now receive digital tokens in a
mobile wallet.
You can only redeem the tokens in one shop.
1. What are the pros and cons of this remote management
system?
2. Should humanitarian aid retain a ‘human touch’?