Machine Readable Me: The Hidden Ways Tech Shapes Our Identities

Part of 404ink’s Inkling Series

Identification technologies - passports, ID cards, ancestry reports - put us in boxes, determine where we can go and where we can’t, and change how we relate to those around us. From nationally-run systems, to social media platforms, DNA testing and counter-terrorism registers, we are all part of databases that seek to identify us, and impose a framework upon us for assessing others. Machine Readable Me is a tour of the many ways in which identification technologies are impacting our lives in ways we see and ways we don’t.