Threats of the data-flood.
An accountability perspective in
the era of ubiquitous computing.1
charles jeurgens
Overview
In this essay, I argue that ubiquitous computing and the closely related increase
in data requires a fundamental reorientation of the recordkeeping community.
I explore the effects of data-driven phenomena like big data and smart applications
on records and recordkeeping practices from the perspective of its contribution to
informational accountability and transparency. I contend that a traditional view of
appraisal of recorded data is no longer sufficient to contribute to accountability and
transparency. Instead, the focus should be shifted to understanding and managing
the assemblages between data and the processing mechanisms (for instance
algorithms) in situated practices.
Introduction
In the mid 1970s, the Italian writer Italo Calvino masterfully depicts the ritual of
emptying the trash. In his tale, La poubelle agréée he demonstrates the struggle
between retaining and discarding. The way people treat their waste reflects the
essence of being human, or as Calvino states: "[a]las the unhappy retentive (or the
miser) who, fearing to lose something of his own, is unable to separate himself from
anything, hoards his faeces and ends up identifying with his own detritus and losing
himself in it' (Calvino, 1993, p. 58). Calvino's main character is in a persistent
quandary about how to distinguish between the essential and the residue, the
meaningful and the meaningless, the relevant and the extraneous. But the
perception of what is waste and what is valuable has changed fundamentally in the
last few decades. One of the largest European sanitation companies now advertises
with the slogan 'waste doesn't exist', since everything can be recycled and reused in
the circular economy. This changing perspective bears strong resemblance with one
of the core functions the recordkeeping profession is traditionally engaged with:
managing abundance by identifying records to be curated and preserved and what
There would indeed be no archive desire without the radical finitude, without the
possibility of forgetfulness which does not limit itself to repression.
Jacques Derrida
1 I would like to thank Geert-Jan van Bussel, Annet Dekker and Eric Ketelaar for their comments on an
earlier version of this article.
197