ITforChange have published a major report on the global platform economy, its social implications and strategies of regulating it. Platform Society: Development in the Intelligence Economy explores the new modes of production through platformization, with a focus on the consequences of data collection by platforms and the increasing political and economy role of intelligence generated through platforms. Rather than focusing on the most prominent US-based platforms, it investigates a wide range of different platforms acoss the globe, exploring a diverse platform ecology.

The report is an outcome of the collaborative 2-year research project Policy Frameworks for Digital Platforms – Moving from Openness to Inclusion which unpacked the platformization phenomenon, focusing on the necessary institutional-legal arrangements for a future economy that furthers development justice.

The Data Justice Lab contributed to this project and the report through its research on Data Policies: Regulatory Approaches for Data-Driven Platforms in the UK and EU. With this project we investigated existing policy frameworks for data collection, analysis, and sharing, and current policy trends, and we explored what a citizen-oriented policy environment would entail. You can find our research report here.