Karen Levy (Cornell University) – “Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance”

Sponsored by the Program on Law and Political Economy, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and the Center for Labor and a Just Economy.

We invite you to join us for a special lunchtime presentation. Professor Karen Levy of Cornell University will discuss her award-winning new book, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance (Princeton University Press, 2022). Lunch will be provided.

In Data Driven, Karen Levy takes readers inside a world few ever see, painting a bracing portrait of one of the last great American frontiers. Federal regulations now require truckers to buy and install digital monitors that capture data about their locations and behaviors. Intended to address the pervasive problem of trucker fatigue by regulating the number of hours driven each day, these devices support additional surveillance by trucking firms and other companies. Traveling from industry trade shows to law offices and truck-stop bars, Levy reveals how these invasive technologies are reconfiguring industry relationships and providing new tools for managerial and legal control—and how truckers are challenging and resisting them. Data Driven contributes to an emerging conversation about how technology affects our work, institutions, and personal lives, and helps to guide our thinking about how to protect public interests and safeguard human dignity in the digital age.