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    • How Big Data Hurts Workers
      • Employee Surveillance
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      • Weaken Worker Bargaining Power
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    • Users Lose Economic Value of Personal Data
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    • Big Data Drives Market Power of Dominant Platforms
      • Network Effects
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    • How Big Data Drives Economic Inequality
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Home /Background /How Big Data Hurts Workers

How Big Data Hurts Workers

The most direct fear many people have is that employers and potential employers will access information on data platforms and use it in ways that deny them jobs or services.   Horror stories already abound:

  • A teacher was fired for complaining about getting sick from illnesses caught from her students after jokingly referring to her kids a as “germ bags” on Facebook.[i]
  • A judge allowed Wal-Mart to subpoena materials from Facebook, Myspace and Meetu.com to challenge an employee claim of work-related injury causing him head and neck pain.[ii]

In fact, a survey found that one in ten young people have been rejected for a job because of their social media profile.[iii]  Many schools report using Google, Facebook, YouTube and other sites to check out student sin determining scholarships.[iv]  For many companies, their job monitoring potential and current employees is assisted by companies like Spokeo, a search technology that compiles information about millions of identifiable individuals from other social networks and hundreds of other online and offline sources, including real estate listings and marketing surveys.  The company has featured banners inviting “HR Recruiters – Click Here Now!” to get information about potential hires.[v]

  • Read more about How Big Data Hurts Workers

News Clips

  • Tara Siegel Bernard. Giving Out Private Data for Discount in Insurance, New York Times, 04/08/2015.
  • Cory Doctorow. Technology should be used to create social mobility – not to spy on citizens, The Guardian, 03/10/2015.
  • Teddy Nykiel . Banks Mine Big Data to Get to Know You Better, and Better, NerdWallet, 03/06/2015.
  • Farhad Manjoo. Uber’s Business Model Could Change Your Work, New York Times, 01/28/2015.
  • Natasha Singer. Whether Working or Job Seeking, the Algorithm Is Watching, New York Times, 12/28/2014.
  • John Brockman. The Local-Global Flip, or, "The Lanier Effect", Edge, 08/29/2011.
  • Ylan Q. Mui. Little-known firms tracking data used in credit scores, Washington Post, 07/16/2011.

Related Opinion

  • Frank Pasquale. The Dark Market for Personal Data, New York Times, 10/16/2014.
  • Cathy O'Neil. The dark matter of big data, Mathbabe, 06/25/2014.
  • Employment Assessments Are Designed to Reveal an Impairment, Employment Testing: Failing to Make the Grade Blog, 07/20/2013.
  • Employment Tests Discriminate Against LGBTs, Employment Testing: Failing to Make the Grade Blog, 07/20/2013.

Related Model Policies

  • NYC: Stop Discriminatory Employment Credit Checks - Intro 261 , 03/16/2015.

Related Policy Reports

  • Alex Rosenblat, Kate Wikelius, Danah Boyd, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, and Corrine Yu. Data & Civil Rights: Employment Primer, Data & Society/OTI/Leadership Conference, 10/30/2014.
  • Comment: Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion? , U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Center for Digital Democracy, 10/29/2014.
  • Civil Rights, Big Data, and Our Algorithmic Future, Robinson & Yu, 10/03/2014.
  • Knowing the Score: New Data, Underwriting, and Marketing in the Consumer Credit Marketplace, Robinson & Yu, 10/01/2014.
  • Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability, U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 05/01/2014.
  • Protecting Consumer Privacy and Welfare in the Era of “E-Scores,” Real-time BigData “Lead-Generation” Practices and other Scoring/Profile Applications, Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. PIRG, 03/18/2014.
  • Civil Rights Principles for the Era of Big Data, Multiple organizations, 02/27/2014.
  • Amy Traub. Discredited: How Employment Credit Checks Keep Qualified Workers Out Of A Job, Demos, 02/01/2013.

Related Academic Analysis

  • Solon Barocas and Andrew D. Selbst. Big Data's Disparate Impact, Working Paper, 02/13/2015.
  • Nathan Newman. Search, Antitrust and the Economics of the Control of User Data, Yale Law Journal on Regulation, 06/01/2014.
  • Nathan Newman. The Costs of Lost Privacy: Consumer Harm and Rising Economic Inequality in the Age of Google, William Mitchell Law Review, 03/01/2014.
  • Ed Mierzwinski & Jeff Chester. Selling Consumers Not Lists: The New World of Digital Decision-Making and the Role of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Suffolk Law Review, 12/01/2013.
  • Latanya Sweeney. Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery, Working Paper, 01/28/2013.

Subtopics

  • Employee Surveillance
  • Hiring Discrimination
  • Weaken Worker Bargaining Power

Media Reports

  • Giving Out Private Data for Discount in Insurance
  • Banks Mine Big Data to Get to Know You Better, and Better
  • Technology should be used to create social mobility – not to spy on citizens
  • Uber’s Business Model Could Change Your Work
  • Little-known firms tracking data used in credit scores
  • Whether Working or Job Seeking, the Algorithm Is Watching
  • The Local-Global Flip, or, "The Lanier Effect"

Opinion

  • The Dark Market for Personal Data
  • The dark matter of big data
  • Employment Tests Discriminate Against LGBTs
  • Employment Assessments Are Designed to Reveal an Impairment

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