Danielle (Davis) Canty is an attorney, technology policy leader, and public educator whose work examines how emerging technologies reshape power, opportunity, and the human experience. She is Senior Advisor and Director of Technology Policy Programs at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, where she sets strategic direction for the organization’s technology policy portfolio and leads research and public engagement on artificial intelligence, privacy, algorithmic fairness, broadband, and other emerging technology issues affecting Black communities.
Across her career, Canty has worked at the intersection of technology policy and civil rights, engaging policymakers, federal agencies, and national organizations while translating complex legal and technological questions for the communities most affected by technological change. As a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, Canty’s research asks: **What happens when our most sacred human experiences become data?** Her work introduces **Sacred Data**, a term she has coined to describe prayers, confessions, devotional reflections, moral struggles, grief, lament, and other forms of sacred or spiritually significant human expression once they become extractable, analyzable, and reproducible within AI systems.
As people turn to artificial intelligence to pray, confess, grieve, seek spiritual guidance, and wrestle with questions of meaning, Canty’s research examines the legal, ethical, theological, and governance questions that emerge when AI systems enter spaces traditionally understood as deeply personal or sacred. Christian communities within Black America serve as the entry point for this research because they sit at a powerful intersection of faith, technology, culture, and history. Through the fellowship, Canty will develop a governance framework for Sacred Data and public-facing resources designed to make the research accessible to the communities at the center of the inquiry. Her public scholarship will include *When the Algorithm Preaches*, an investigative documentary exploring how AI is entering Christian spaces and reshaping questions of spiritual practice, authority, and community.
Canty brings to this research a career spanning law, technology policy, civil rights, and public-interest advocacy. Before joining the Joint Center, she served as Assistant General Counsel at the Universal Service Administrative Company, where she provided legal counsel related to federal broadband affordability programs, and held technology and telecommunications policy roles at the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, National Urban League Washington Bureau, and National Council of Negro Women. She also served as a Tech and Public Policy Visiting Fellow at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where her work explored free expression, misinformation, artificial intelligence, and Black voter engagement. Canty is also committed to making technology policy understandable beyond traditional legal and policy institutions. She is the creator and host of *The Miseducation of Technology®*, a platform that translates complex questions about technology, law, and power for broader audiences. Her research, writing, public commentary, and speaking have explored artificial intelligence, privacy, digital equity, algorithmic discrimination, online speech, and the consequences of emerging technologies for Black communities.
Canty was named an AI Policy Influencer on the Brookings Institution’s inaugural (Un)Hidden Figures list and is a 2026 Public Voices Fellow. She was a member of the inaugural cohort of Harvard Law School’s executive education program, AI and the Law: Navigating the New Legal Landscape. She earned her J.D. from Barry University School of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the *Southern Journal of Policy and Justice* and Senior Editor of the *Barry Law Review*, and earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science, cum laude, from Florida Atlantic University. She can be found on Spotify, YouTube, and online.