School of Information Sciences

Chan authors new book connecting eugenics and Big Tech

Anita Say Chan
Anita Say Chan, Professor

Associate Professor Anita Say Chan has authored a new book that identifies how the eugenics movement foreshadows the predatory data tactics used in today's tech industry. Her book, Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future, was released this month by the University of California Press and featured in the news outlets San Francisco Chronicle and Mother Jones.

Over a century ago, the eugenics movement sought to eliminate "undesirable" traits in society through selective breeding (sterilization). It was biased against marginalized groups such as immigrants, people with disabilities, and the poor. Chan defines "predatory data" as "the habitual use of data and research methods that exploits the vulnerable and abuses power through datafication and prediction operations." In her book, she reveals how Big Tech uses these predatory data collection methods to target minoritized populations with the goal of generating profit.

Predatory Data book cover

"Predatory Data addresses sites and temporalities beyond the data-driven products and architectures of Western innovation centers that have too often been protagonized as explanatory agents, as if the most pressing questions of the contemporary were ones of how to sustain unparalleled economic growth and technological revolution, and not ones of collective pluriversal living," Chan writes. 

Her book shares lessons that society can learn from today's global justice-based data initiatives and from the data collaborations of earlier feminists, immigrants, and other minorities who refused eugenic models.

Chan is an associate professor in the iSchool and also holds an appointment in the Department of Media and Cinema Studies in the College of Media. She directs the Community Data Clinic at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and iSchool and co-leads the Just Infrastructures Initiative with faculty in the Grainger College of Engineering. She has served as a Fiddler Innovation Faculty Fellow at the NCSA, Provost Fellow for International Affairs and Global Strategies at the University of Illinois, and Faculty Affiliate at the Data & Society Research Institute in New York City. Chan received her PhD from MIT in the history and anthropology of science and technology studies.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

iSchool researchers to present at ASSETS 2025

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the 27th International Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) ACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2025), which will be held in Denver, Colorado, October 26–29, 2025. This conference allows researchers to present their scholarship on design, evaluation, use, and education related to computing for people with disabilities and older adults.

Chan to give an invited talk on "Predatory Data"

Professor Anita Say Chan will give an invited lecture at the American University of Beirut (AUB) on October 23. The talk, part of the "Confronted with America" series hosted by the Center for American Studies and Research, will be moderated by Jihad Touma, founding director of AUB's School of Computing and Data Sciences.

Anita Say Chan

iSchool researchers present at ILA 2025

School faculty, staff, and students will present their research at the 2025 Illinois Library Association (ILA) Annual Conference, which will be held on October 14–16 in Rosemont. The theme of this year's conference is "You Belong Here."

Craig named Illinois Library Luminary

Anne Craig, iSchool adjunct lecturer and senior director of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), has been inducted as an Illinois Library Luminary. The Illinois Library Luminary program, an initiative of the Illinois Library Association (ILA), recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to Illinois libraries.

Anne Craig

iSchool researchers present at CSCW 2025

Several faculty, students, and recent grads will present their research at the 28th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2025), which will be held October 18–22 in Bergen, Norway. The online portion of the conference will be held on October 10. 

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Fax: (217) 244-3302

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top