Data Justice in Mexico's Multiveillant Society: How big data is reshaping the struggle for human rights and political freedoms

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On June 19th, 2017, the New York Times uncovered how the Mexican government was deploying proprietary spyware -(ostensibly) licensed to combat organised crime and terrorism- to conduct surveillance on human rights defenders, critical journalists and political opponents. This exposé was possible via the unique collaboration of 'Citizen Lab' in Canada, WikiLeaks Mexico, and a network of NGOs that tracked the software supplied by the Israeli NSO Group to Mexican intelligence agents. Inspired by this example of sousveillance-the dataveillance from below-we will examine and experiment with new forms of data justice: understood as the continuous effort to use the wealth of available data to promote personal and collective freedoms, taking into account the particular forms of oppression and inequality that shape our world. In the multiveillant society surveillance is run by the intelligence community, by corrupt federal/local authorities, as well as blurred power-crime connections to cartels and organised crime, but also by citizens and NGOs searching for justice and security. Thus, the multiveillant society must also be recognised as including the counter-surveillance innovations and the sites of resistance that have been activated by those targeted.Mexico draws constant critical attention for its high-levels of crime and weak rule-of-law: more than 160,000 deaths due to violence; some 30,000-people estimated to have been 'disappeared'; kidnappings estimated to run into tens of thousands of victims every year; and, one of the world's worst records for protection of journalists and human rights defenders. However, what has not yet received significant attention, or academic scrutiny is Mexico's emergence as a laboratory for new forms of surveillance (and its resistance). The Mexican scenario fosters a unique opportunity to understand contemporary dilemmas born from the interaction between big data, freedom (of speech, movement, and assembly), and authoritarian and criminal impulses (state and non-state).Our project will create a theory/methods package to engage with multiveillance and data justice, through ethnographic research, mobile apps, participatory action research and big-data workshops. Tailored to a politico-legal scenario where the absence of regulation, enforcement and security are the norm; a setting where configurations of data-governance challenge state-corporate efforts of mass dataveillance, we aim to create the first data justice open source tool. Through a deep ethnographic understanding of Mexico's multiveillant society we will make possible new collective forms of data-sharing, data-gathering and data-verification, that so far have only been available to well-funded organisations. In the face of this challenge we want to take advantage of connectedness and social media sharing. To begin with, we will share the data-practices of human rights defenders through an interactive digital handbook that will guide visitors to tools, infographics, apps and videos to stay digitally safe online, but also to engage with the logics and algorithms behind big data and to spot and recognise tactics of disinformation in social media. This we think will enhance personal data-justice. In the collective front we will develop The Govern-app that will tackle the challenges posed by large scale organisation, grass-root security and evidence gathering of human rights violations, in scenarios in which data sharing is permeated by distrust. T he govern-app would allow users to quickly decide what issues to tackle, what are the types of voting and decision making they need, and the types of access, encryption and authority each of the users involved in the creation of the shared digital platform in each scenario will enjoy.In short, we will co-produce new avenues to practice, to improve and to assert data justice in Mexico, and hopefully (through the impact of our research) in other scenarios around the world.