DC Grand Challenge First-Year Seminar: Democracy & Data

Catalog description

From gerrymandering to online political ads, data is being used in ways that raise urgent questions about the integrity of democratic elections. But the relationship between democracy and data goes far beyond elections. In a world of constant surveillance, in which vast amounts of data are gathered from our phones, our computers, and from other facets of our lives - and in which new breakthroughs in machine learning and data analytics make such data dramatically more powerful - what does it mean for average citizens to have control over their own lives? What does democracy mean?