- Volume 3 (2017), Issue 4
- Vol. 3 (2017), No. 4
- >
- Pages 441 - 451
- pp. 441 - 451
When Automated Profiling Threatens Our Freedom:
A Neo-Republican Perspective
In this article, I use the political theory of neo-republicanism to assess when and how profiling practices curtail the freedom of individuals. Neo-republican principles applied to today’s practices permit to establish that domination exists 1) via intimidation and invigilation when profiling enables or enhances capacities to monitor persons, 2) via automated manipulation of a person’s choices, 3) via active interference with the scope of action of persons who are identified with the help of automated profiling, 4) via automated adjustments to a person’s informational or material environment, and 5) in cases of the personalisation of a person’s environment, when the person has no control over the way this personalisation happens. Applying neo-republican requirements to automated profiling provides simple means of making explicit what aspects of a given practice are problematic. The approach constitutes a straightforward benchmark that can be used to establish instances of best-practice or to develop complementary norms where existing privacy and data protection laws do not fully protect the subjects of automated profiling.