In the Interest(s) of Many: Governing Data in Crises

Assistant professor Kristoffer Albris has contributed to the journal Politics and Governance with the article ‘In the Interest(s) of Many: Governing Data in Crises’. The article is co-written with Nathan Clark from Vrije University Amsterdam.

The use of digital technologies, social media platforms, and (big) data analytics is reshaping crisis management in the 21st century. In turn, the sharing, collecting, and monitoring of personal and potentially sensitive data during crises has become a central matter of interest and concern, which governments, emergency management and humanitarian professionals and researchers are increasingly addressing.

The article asks if these rapidly advancing challenges can be governed in the same ways that data is governed in periods of normalcy. By applying a political realist perspective, the authors argue that governing data in crises is challenged by state interests and by the complexity of other actors with interests of their own.

The article focuses on three key issues: 1) vital interests of the data subject vis-à-vis the right to privacy; 2) the possibilities and limits of an international or global policy on data protection vis-à-vis the interests of states; and 3) the complexity of actors involved in the protection of data. In doing so, the authors highlight a number of recent cases in which the problems of governing data in crises have become visible.

Read the article (open access): In the Interest(s) of Many: Governing Data in Crises