Dark Data Project

The discipline of UX is grounded in the art of ethnography: we watch users interact with objects and interfaces, and we analyze the footprints they leave in our analytics. The success of UX is defined by our understanding of user intentionality. This popular model of the willful user and the ever-observant designer only focuses on the visible peak of the iceberg, however. Our data-rich world is increasingly populated by individuals whose needs we can’t infer because their data exists without their informed participation. These “non-users,” whether they be refugees seeking asylum or consumers with problematic credit scores, can exist in perpetual limbo without awareness of, or agency over, their identity data. The “non-user experience” is often one which is fraught with poor design, inadequate protection and inappropriate sharing protocols.

Governments, humanitarian organizations and private contractors are capturing, storing and sharing an ever increasing volume of identity data, much of it pertaining to individuals such as refugees, whistleblowers and other vulnerable people who may never interact directly with the databases where their data is stored. This talk by the Dark Data Project provides a better understanding of the tiered reality of identity protection, outlining appropriate strategies suitable to the needs of vulnerable people in a wide variety of contexts.