{"id":5086,"date":"2026-04-07T13:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/?page_id=5086"},"modified":"2026-04-09T20:54:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:54:43","slug":"life-after-data-the-conference-on-de-datafication","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/education\/life-after-data-the-conference-on-de-datafication\/","title":{"rendered":"Life After Data: the conference on de-datafication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This day and a half long event at Georgetown Law Center on October 6-7, 2026, will be a space for provocations on the theme of \u201cde-datafication.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The conference will be open to the public, and presentations will be recorded but not live-streamed. The program will consist of a combination of shorter lightning talks and longer papers by invited speakers, interspersed with workshop sessions during which all participants will discuss the conference presentations. Travel and accommodation costs for invited speakers will be covered by the Privacy Center.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We welcome submissions from researchers, teachers, artists and writers in every discipline, as well as from those working in industry, government, media and civil society. The conference is intended to be international in scope, and while our travel funds are limited, we hope to include speakers from outside the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Submission Guidelines<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The term \u201cDatafication\u201d refers to the quantification of human life through digital information, which is rendered as a new form of economic value. *<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The conference theme of \u201cde-datafication\u201d is meant to be open ended, but the prompt is:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Imagine a future in which digital data is no longer the currency mediating all of our social, economic and political systems, structures and practices. How might we get there from here?\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The purpose of the conference is to provoke and inspire, not to offer final solutions. Creativity in the form and substance of contributions is encouraged. Arguments should be rigorous, but need not have an academic character.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contributions could include case studies, theoretical\/philosophical reflections, specific technical proposals, radical hypotheticals, myth-busting, lessons from not-yet datafied communities and contexts, political or economic analyses, and legal strategies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some examples of the kinds of questions your submission might address:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are some legal or policy strategies for strictly limiting the amounts of data that corporations can create, have, use or sell?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What would it take to build a movement to abandon the current internet and start anew?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What\u2019s something good that currently requires the production and storage of digital data, that could be rebuilt without it? How?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are the consequences, in terms of global or local political economies, of the transition to data as a form of value?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What aspects of our current political situation are obscured or concealed by conflating all communication with information exchange, and how does datafication contribute to that obfuscation?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If we do not reduce data dependencies voluntarily through democratic means, what are some other ways digital infrastructure might collapse?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are some lessons to be learned from non-datafied, or less datafied, communities of the present or past?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make the positive economic case for radical reduction of data dependencies (in general, or in a particular context).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Describe an innovation, or set of innovations, that would support the de-datafication of a particular sector, industry, profession, or community. <\/span><\/li>\n<li>Outline one or more aspects of the risk environment that is created when a small number of large corporations control the infrastructures upon which people depend in their daily lives.<\/li>\n<li>Tell a story about how you de-datafied, or worked with others to de-datafy, a particular aspect of your life or work.<\/li>\n<li>Present your vision for data without datafication.<\/li>\n<li>How do we stop thinking of ourselves as data?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abstracts should be 250-500 words long.\u00a0 Final versions of lightning talks should be between 4 and 7 minutes long. Final versions of longer papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLScD5miuKXz9ml-YpAm4oD_-F--spn1THfOq0tbZp2P59oJVHQ\/viewform?usp=publish-editor\">Submit your abstract here<\/a>. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2026 and we aim to notify by the end of July.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*Cukier, Kenneth; Mayer-Sch\u00f6nberger, Viktor (2013). &#8220;The Rise of Big Data.&#8221; Foreign Affairs. 92(35); Mejias, Ulisses (2019. \u201cDatafication.\u201d Internet Policy Review 8(4).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This day and a half long event at Georgetown Law Center on October 6-7, 2026, will be a space for provocations on the theme of \u201cde-datafication.\u201d\u00a0 The conference will be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15769,"featured_media":0,"parent":40,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-5086","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5086"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5106,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5086\/revisions\/5106"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/privacy-technology-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}