Proponents of precision medicine envision that digital phenotyping can enable more individualized strategies to manage current and future health conditions. We problematize the interpretation of digital phenotypes as straightforward representations of individuals through examples of what we call data inheritance. Rather than being a digital copy of a presumed original, digital phenotypes are shaped by larger data collectives that precede and continuously change how the individual is represented. We contend that looking beyond the individual is crucial for understanding the factors that can ‘bend’ digital mirrors in specific directions. Since algorithms used for digital profiling are based on historical data, their predictions often inherit and increase the values and perspectives of past data practices. Moreover, the data legacies we leave behind today may return as so-called ‘data phantoms’ that conflict with the interests of the individual and contest who and what the ‘original’ is.

精准医学的支持者设想，数字表型分析可以采用更加个性化的策略来管理当前和未来的健康状况。我们通过我们称之为数据继承的例子将数字表型的解释问题化为个体的直接表示. 数字表型不是假定原件的数字副本，而是由更大的数据集合形成，这些集合先于并不断改变个人的表现方式。我们认为，超越个人对于理解可以在特定方向“弯曲”数字镜子的因素至关重要。由于用于数字分析的算法基于历史数据，因此它们的预测通常会继承并增加过去数据实践的价值和观点。此外，我们今天留下的数据遗产可能会以所谓的“数据幻影”的形式回归，它与个人利益相冲突，并争夺“原始”是谁和什么。