A Dutch residential care center recently started a pilot to prevent seniors suffering from dementia from leaving their premises. Facial recognition software will recognize those people and prevent certain doors from opening. Dutch radio station BNR interviewed the IT provider’s operational director, who stated that every senior who isn't allowed to leave but does, is one too many.

Bodily integrity is important to everyone, including to seniors suffering from dementia. The care center, responsible for the health and well-being of its residents, will often face a dilemma: when and to what extent is an invasion of residents’ privacy and bodily integrity justified?

Our bodies are increasingly ‘datafied’ – not just from a healthcare point of view. We believe people should be able to decide for themselves what data is generated from and about their bodies and how it is used. Everyone has the right to decide what happens with their body. That is why ‘bodily integrity’ is one of the four programs Bits of Freedom will be working on over the next three years.

We will push back against the far-reaching datafication of our bodies, especially when that data is used to develop products that don't benefit us. Think facial recognition search engines, deep fakes or ‘smart’ cameras used to classify people going about their business in public spaces. We'll name and shame the companies providing these technologies, and by mobilizing a broad movement against the exploitation of our bodies, make the use of their products unacceptable.

Additionally, we'll be focusing on health data. Health tracking apps collect and generate vast amounts of sensitive data and women specifically are made vulnerable as a result of this. For instance when sensitive information about a (possible) pregnancy is shared with third parties such as insurance companies. We aim to protect the health data of people with wombs from the profiling advertising industry as well as from nosy governments. We'll investigate commonly used apps that trade this data and take them to court in order to put a stop to these practices. In parallel, we aim to mobilize consumers to put pressure on apps collecting and creating health data.

Do you work in healthcare yourself, or in an industry where your body is or could be subjected to above-average datafication? Reach out to us. Curious about the rest of our multi-annual strategy? You can read about our plans hereRead our multi-year strategy.

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