In October 2020, the Knight First Amendment Institute convened a virtual symposium, titled “Data and Democracy,” to investigate how technological advances relating to the collection, analysis, and manipulation of data are affecting democratic processes, and how the law must adapt to ensure the conditions for self-government. The symposium was organized by the Institute’s 2019-2020 Senior Visiting Research Scholar, Yale Law Professor Amy Kapczynski, and co-sponsored by the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale Law School.

The essays in this series were originally presented and discussed at this two-day event. Written by scholars and experts in law, computer science, information studies, political science, and other disciplines, the essays focus on three areas that are both central to democratic governance and directly affected by advancing technologies and ever-increasing data collection: 1) public opinion formation and access to information; 2) the formation and exercise of public power; and 3) the political economy of data. 

You can find more about the symposium, including the program, list of speakers, and videos of each panel here. And you can listen to the Data and Democracy podcast, featuring interviews with participants here.