Get To Know 23-24 BKC Fellow: Lauren Emily Bridges

Lauren Bridges, a Ph.D. candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, researches the social and environmental impacts of digital infrastructures like data centers and warehouses. Drawing on critical data studies, her ethnographic methods examine issues of power, surveillance, and sustainability. Bridges has published widely on topics related to big data, surveillance capitalism, identity, and materiality, receiving recognition from top communication associations. With a background in creative writing and social policy, she aims to apply her critical research to tangible improvements in internet policy and governance. She is a 2023-2024 Berkman Klein Center Fellow. 

What kind of work do you do outside of BKC? 

I research, broadly, the social and environmental impacts of Big Data infrastructures. Specifically, I've been looking at the cloud and cloud computing for a number of years. In the past, I've looked at issues around networked home surveillance and how cloud computing affords connection to houses all over the country and all over the world—and for that information to then be collated and easily scanned and analyzed. I did a project on Amazon Ring related to that. My dissertation is a situated study of the local impacts of data center and warehouse development in two locations: Northern Virginia, where there is a dense concentration of data centers, and inland Southern California, in an area known as the Inland Empire, where there is a concentration of warehouses or fulfillment centers. That's a broad overview. 

Your official title at UPenn is a critical data studies researcher. What does that title entail? 

I'm concerned with questions of power in relation to social dynamics—who has the power to determine what is done with our data, where it's stored, how it is used? What does that mean for us? How does that affect our social relations? For me, the critical element of critical data studies is an attunement and attention to issues of power. I take various approaches when considering power dynamics in critical data studies. For example, I employ political economy approaches, thinking about ownership issues and historical development of technology over time. I also employ feminist techniques, considering issues of power dynamics and the history of gender, sexuality and race. I employ ethnographic research methods; I like to interview people and do field research based in specific sites. I go to meetings, community policy meetings. I interview all kinds of people in the community to understand the power dynamics and political dynamics in relation to development projects related to data centers or warehouses.  

You also seem interested in privacy, surveillance and corporate power. Could you expand on that? 

Part of what makes this business model lucrative is that it's fed by the data surveillance industry. You don't have this industrial computing model without the demand. But the need to process data drives cloud growth. That's driven by surveillance industries and technologies advancing faster than policy and law. There are questions around these technologies, not just obvious ones like home security cameras, but more subtle types like ad tech based on consumer behavior. The concept of identity resolution merges advertising and credit industries to link online and offline data into profiles and social credit scores. We fear this happening in other countries but it has a long history in the US, driven by the credit industry. These things go hand in hand for me. Critical data studies is not just studying material infrastructures and physical impacts, but also what drives the industry, the logics of surveillance capitalism that drive the industrial cloud. 

In your work, what drew you to BKC? 

The fact that it's housed in Harvard Law School and the policy focus at the intersection of internet policy and critical internet research is crucial to address important internet issues. As my work grapples with big questions, BKC interested me to sharpen my policy analysis and test my recommendations. I want to discuss and debate ideas with top experts. I want to find community and apply my research to the real world and make it interesting to policymakers. 

Do you have any specific goals while at BKC? 

My goal is to continue working on my book manuscript based on my dissertation. I'll work on a proposal and extra chapters. I'm also working on a collaborative book tracing global flows of digital waste throughout the tech supply chain, from mineral extraction to manufacturing waste to data center waste to e-waste processing, largely offshored to the Global South. We're examining policy challenges around regulating e-waste. So two book projects, among other things. 

Do you have an ultimate vision for improving cyberspace through these efforts? 

I don't know the answer, honestly. There are promising localized technologies with sustainable practices, like solar, recycled water, and mineral oil servers to reduce environmental footprints. These could reduce environmental and social impact by keeping infrastructures localized and sustainable not overburdening communities. But, I don't know if I have solutions to all the problems. 

Is there one thing you want everybody to keep in mind when it comes to your field, even someone who doesn't have as much background knowledge? 

Your data matters. It matters both for your own personal identity and protecting your information, ensuring you feel represented and are represented accurately and that you have equal opportunities. Our data can be used to discriminate against us. So your data matters in that personal way. It also matters materially. Everything online has a material footprint. All of cyberspace requires material input, computing power. Computers are made of metal, plastics, and require land, space, water, air. As we build this digital future, we have to grapple with that material impact on our personhood and the environment.