Most of us assume that our medical data is protected under U.S. law — but, as sociologist Mary Ebeling illustrates, that’s wrong. Even when we don’t collect it ourselves with fitness trackers and health apps, our most sensitive health information is gathered from across the web, and package and sold as data commodities by brokers like the credit bureaus Equifax and Experian. Ebeling discusses the afterlives of our medical data, as well as the lack of medical data privacy in a post-Roe world. (Encore presentation.)
Resources:
Mary F.E. Ebeling, Afterlives of Data: Life and Debt under Capitalist Surveillance UC Press, 2022