From Privacy to Social Legibility

This paper draws upon James Scott’s Seeing Like a State (1998) to argue that privacy law currently suffers from (at least) three defects: focus on the legibility of individuals is too narrow, collection and subsequent use data comes late, rights harms ignores need create new social structures can empower more local forms collective decision-making. What this outlines in broad brushstrokes enfold concerns within broader governance framework concerned with fair just terms legibility.