Welfare Recipients’ Rights Under Digital Surveillance (PART I)

In this episode, Associate Editor Ashvini Kartik-Narayan explores history of digital surveillance in public benefits programs and how it has set the stage for data grabs under the Trump administration. Millions of Americans receiving SNAP and Social Security will have their personally identifiable information subject to data disclosures under the guise of “reducing fraud and waste” in welfare programs. Ashvini examines the ways that low-income communities of color have long been subject to surveillance, the legal strategies used to resist surveillance in the past, and how those strategies must evolve to meet the current threat of artificial intelligence.