Abstract

At present, the politics of digital tools are predominantly discussed in terms of the data they collect, analyze, and circulate. Through my analysis of electronic ankle monitors’ visual characteristics, I widen the scope of investigation to consider how the visuality of digital tools’ form factor – the size and shape of computing hardware – also contributes to their politics. I discuss five major impacts the visuality of electronic ankle monitors’ physical form has upon their wearers’ lives: (1) lack of differentiation in the aesthetics of monitors across different types of wearers (spanning from criminal justice to immigration detention) leads wearers to be considered “dangerous criminals,” by default; (2) monitors limit wearers’ ability to “pass” in society; (3) monitors expand the set of surveillors beyond government officials to also include the public; (4) monitors compromise wearers’ privacy; (5) monitors associate wearers with older practices of visually marking people normative society has labeled dangerous. Based on this analysis, I argue two points. First, that the visuality of electronic ankle monitors’ form factor expands the harms wearers experience beyond those engendered by the device’s primary use as a remote geo-temporal tracking tool used by government organizations. Second, the case study of electronic ankle monitors evidences the need to develop laws and policies that seek to regulate the visual properties of digital tools as well as the data they generate.

摘要

当前，主要根据数字工具的收集，分析和传播数据来讨论其政治意义。通过对电子脚踝监视器的视觉特性的分析，我扩大了研究范围，以考虑数字工具的外形（计算硬件的大小和形状）的可视性如何也对其政治产生了影响。我讨论了电子脚踝监测仪的物理形态对穿戴者生活的视觉影响，这五个主要方面是：（1）不同类型的穿戴者在监测仪美学上缺乏差异（从刑事司法到移民拘留）导致穿戴者成为默认情况下被视为“危险罪犯”；（2）监控器限制了佩戴者在社会中“通过”的能力；（3）监督者将监视人员的范围扩展到政府官员以外，还包括公众；（4）监控器损害穿戴者的隐私；（5）监控佩戴者与视觉标记人的较旧做法，规范社会已将其标记为危险。基于此分析，我提出两点。首先，电子脚踝监护仪外形的可视性将穿戴者的危害扩大到设备首次用作政府组织远程地理时间跟踪工具所带来的危害。其次，电子脚踝监护仪的案例研究表明，有必要制定法律和政策来监管 我提出两点。首先，电子脚踝监护仪外形的可视性将穿戴者的危害扩大到设备首次用作政府组织远程地理时间跟踪工具所带来的危害。其次，电子脚踝监护仪的案例研究表明，有必要制定法律和政策来监管 我提出两点。首先，电子脚踝监护仪外形的可视性将穿戴者的危害扩大到设备首次用作政府组织远程地理时间跟踪工具所带来的危害。其次，电子脚踝监护仪的案例研究表明，有必要制定法律和政策来监管数字工具的视觉属性以及它们生成的数据。