Introduction
Advancing data justice research and practice is a collaboration between the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), The Alan Turing Institute, 12 policy pilot partners, and participants and communities across the globe. The project aims to widen the lens of current thinking around data justice and to provide actionable resources that will help policymakers, practitioners, and impacted communities gain a broader understanding of what equitable, freedom-promoting, and rights-sustaining data collection, governance, and use should look like in increasingly dynamic and global data innovation ecosystems.
Project aims
This project aims to fill a gap in data justice research and practice and provide resources that help policymakers, practitioners, and impacted communities gain a broader understanding of data governance. It is our hope that our resources are open and accessible to anyone interesting in learning more about data justice and how to promote it within their context. The research aims to offer practical guidance and conceptual framings for illuminating how historically rooted conditions of power asymmetry, inequality, discrimination, and exploitation are drawn into processes of data protection, extraction, and use. This includes considerations of equity and data justice informed by affected communities that encompass questions of access to, and visibility and representation in, data used in the development of AI and machine learning (AI/ML) systems. To achieve this, the research proposes six pillars of data justice power, equity, access, identity, participation, and knowledge. These provide a framing on how stakeholders can understand and engage in critical reflection of their data practices.
The project outputs include (a) an assessment of the current state of research in this area and the identification of gaps to create a forward-looking research agenda and (b) Data Justice in Practice Guides for three target audiences: policymakers, developers, and communities impacted by AI/ML systems. The guidance includes practical questions to consider in the practice, use, and experience of AI/ML systems, with particular emphasis on realising the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
This research includes valuable contributions of many individuals and civil society organisations through consultations and an online participatory platform decidim. The 12 policy pilot partners from around the world made significant contributions, through their own research reports informed by a series of interviews and workshops, and by providing iterative feedback on our research throughout the project.
The research from this project is a core component of the Global Partnership on AI’s (GPAI) Data Governance Framework.
As scholars, advocates, and individuals, we are committed to social justice and to revealing the systemic bases of intersectional discrimination in our research practices and life choices. Some members of our team relate to marginalised stakeholders from both a position of kinship and one of solidarity, navigating their own lived experiences and confronting intersectional discrimination. Others reflexively acknowledge their inheritance of legacies of unquestioned privilege along with the limited mindsets that derive therefrom. From such a critical self-acknowledgement of privilege and difference, comes a deep sense of responsibility—namely, the responsibility to marshal the advantages of carrying out research in power centres of the Global North and at well-funded research institutions to serve the interests of those on our planet who are all too often marginalised, de-prioritised, and exploited in the global data innovation ecosystem. We recognise how critically important diversity, equity, and inclusion are to carrying out substantively objective and reflexive research.
Recent updates
Research Outputs
'Mobilising for Data Justice', the third and final episode of the three-part ‘Advancing Data Justice’ documentary series was released in October 2023.
A series of short video infographics were created to discuss the concepts developed within the ADJRP project and its output guides.
Data Justice in Practice: A Guide for Policymakers
Data Justice in Practice: A Guide for Impacted Communities
Data Justice in Practice: A Guide for Developers
Advancing Data Justice: Research and Practice - An Integrated Literature Review
Advancing Data Justice: Research and Practice - Data Justice Stories: A Repository of Case Studies
The Research Team
- Produced a three-part documentary series on advancing data justice with collaborators at Fable Studios and EngageMedia.
- Formed a global partnership with 12 policy pilot partners. Each partner was tasked with interviewing 10 individuals on the topic of data justice and organising a workshop. Each partner produced a report summarising and collating these research findings, which can be found here.
- Worked with an incredible advisory board consisting of experts across the globe who assisted with framing our research and provided valuable insights.
- Hosted a virtual event entitled New Agendas for Data Justice on April 7, 2022, which allowed for the 12 Policy Pilot Partners to share insights from their research in a panel format. The project team also hosted Q&A sessions for anyone to ask members of the research team questions about the research.
- Produced 6 main research outputs all published in 2022. These included an integrated literature review of data justice, an annotated bibliography and table of organisations conducting data justice or data justice adjacent work, and a repository of data justice stories. The team also produced three guides titled ‘Data Justice in Practice’ intended for policymakers, impacted communities, and developers. The guides can all be found on the GPAI data justice homepage.
- Launched our participatory platform in autumn 2021 where we sought feedback to inform the first of our three outputs through the form of a survey and proposals. Response on this platform has contributed significantly to the overall quality of our research.
- Presented a series of papers at the Royal Anthropological Institute’s virtual conference on Anthropology, AI and the Future of Human Society in 2022. Papers from the conference are slated to be published in a special journal issue soon.
Find out more
- Watch the Advancing Data Justice documentary series
- View the Advancing data justice research and practice project website
- Learn more about the Global Partnership on AI’s Data Governance Working Group and read our research outputs
Collaborators
Collaborating Organisations
International Centre of Expertise in Montréal on Artificial Intelligence (CEIMIA)
GPAI Data Governance Working Group
Policy Pilot Partners
AfroLeadership, Cameroon
CIPESA, Eastern and Southern Africa
CIPIT, Kenya
WOUGNET, Uganda
Gob_Lab UAI, Chile
ITS Rio, Brazil
Internet Bolivia, Bolivia
Digital Empowerment Foundation, India
Digital Natives Academy, Aotearoa
Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan
Open Data China, China
EngageMedia, Asia-Pacific