Slavery in a digital age

Silvija Seres: Hello and welcome to Lørn. My name is Silvija Seres and our topic today is “tech for good”. My guest is Catharina Drejer. A lovely Dutch sociologist working on slavery in the digital age and an expert on the use of block chain for humanitarian purposes. Welcome. 

Catharina Drejer: Thank you.

Silvija: Catharina, you and I met maybe a couple of years ago now and you wanted to pick my brains on Block chain. 

Catharina: Yeah. 

Silvija: And the tech for good and I said well I don't know anything, at least about the combination. But we talked about the use of block chain for potential social change. And I thought your angle into using it was incredibly interesting. You know a lot about slavery through your education and your research. And I'm really curious on basically what you have learned throughout your work with your book, on what actually block chain can do for providing people with identity, but also with what shall I say, safety in different ways. Before we talk about block chain and identity and tech for good, I'm hoping you can tell us a little bit about yourself. Who you are and what drives you?

Catharina: So my name is Catharina Drejer. I am Dutch and moved to Norway for love. My husband is Norwegian, so we moved here about four years ago and I started working for the think tank Skaperkraft which is a small think tank that really wants to bring new ideas to society and influence politics with new ideas and creativity. I was very free to start working on what I kind of burn for what I'm passionate about and that is the issue of slavery. I'm a social worker and I've studied at the University of Nottingham, specifically on the issue of slavery, and also how to liberate people. And I've noticed in the past years as technology has become an interesting topic there and it became more and more relevant. So I decided to write a book about these two, like this nexus of technology and slavery, to kind of explore what is going on in that field. How is technology used for good but also how is it used to enslave people? And that's something that unfortunately happens today.  

Silvija: So you're also about to give birth. 

Catharina: Yeah. Also it's my last day today. So…

Silvija: Your second gift. 

Catharina: Yes 

Silvija: very nice. 

Catharina: Yeah.

Silvija: So, slavery is something that most of us kind of think is over and done with for good. 

Catharina: Yeah 

Silvija: but not so. You tell me 

Catharina: Not so. So in the world it is estimated today that there is more than 40 million slaves.

And with slaves I mean people that are forced to work against their will. They have no way out of their circumstances. Often, it's people. Just some examples. But a lot of people think of women that are forced in prostitution. But there is a big group, which is even a bigger group than those people that are forced to work against their will. And then you can think of the mines in Congo, for example, where people are held in debt that they have to pay off but they are never able to because they are exploited. Or it's people in the fishing industry that are stuck on boats that have no way out. So there are many examples of people doing work against their will. And so slavery is prevalent I think in every country 

Silvija: Even in the developed part of the world.

Catharina: Definitely. Asia and Africa are big areas where slavery is very prevalent and it's very hidden. It's a hidden crime because it often happens underground to say so, it's hard to find also 

Silvija: So why is it so difficult to stop?

Catharina: I think because it's often a structure of slavery that is in a country so it's not as easy as to free one person and they're out of slavery and they will not go back. But it's often the structures within the country that make it so difficult to change because there is often no alternative. People have no choice because they need to work to be provided with food and basic needs. But if they don't have it there is no other work opportunities. So I think that one of the keys is livelihood and probably what would help them to be free and that's often not available.

Silvija: So in my, basically simple way of trying to think about this, I’m thinking you know if people had provable identities and were able to pay taxes then you could see that, you know, if you assume that all the grown-ups at least can somehow prove, you know, their activities through some sort of taxation system you would at least know that OK they're fine.

Catharina: Yeah.

Silvija: At least as the system can prove. But the problem is that too many people do not have any sort of identity.

Catharina: Exactly. So there are big groups of people. I think it's over four million people that have no form of identity. They have no form of paperwork on their birth or on their education also, but especially on their on their birth. So they are they have no way to identify who they are. And that makes them very vulnerable and because these people also need to eat and work 

Silvija: And get healthcare.

Catharina: Exactly and that's something that's just not available for them so that's why they're vulnerable for people who want to exploit them. And that's where technology comes in and can provide some solutions. At least they're being explored these solutions.

Silvija: Right. So before we go into technology you wrote a book about this you work out with Skaperkraft which is a think tank.

Catharina: Yes a think tank 

Silvija: focusing on…?

Catharina: we have different subjects that we focus on. My particular subject is migration and integration which kind of has slavery included.

Silvija: And you wrote a book. 

Catharina: Yes. 

Silvija: And it's called slavery in the digital age.

Catharina: Yeah. It's called Slave Tech. Like hashtag slaves, like it's slavery in a digital age.

Silvija: So what were the most important findings and also the biggest surprises?

Catharina: I think the most important findings were that technology has been with us forever and I think like today technology is a little bit hyped where it's a lot about the new tools and the new solutions. But if you look at just the word technology it can be anything. So, I guess that it comes already to the definition of technology and that it is.

Silvija: The first knife and the first wheel 

Catharina: Exactly. So yeah. So we kind of go back to how slavery has been linked to technology in the first stages of humanity basically. And we tried to take that then to this digital age where we are now and there's of course a big difference there in how technology is used, but you still see the same principle and that's that technology can be used for good or bad. Like Professor Kransberg has said once in his paper and I think that's just something that we find as a timeless truth. That it's not necessarily the technology that decides, it's the person that uses it that decides if it's good or bad.

Silvija: There is this age-old debate actually on or about determinism in technology and, you know, the ethics of technology and is it good, is it bad, does it have a purpose and you know it's impossible to talk about it in principle. But in general technology always created to solve a particular problem, but then that kind of application area migrates into so many other areas. And it's no good or bad depending on who uses it or what… 

Catharina: Exactly. 

Silvija: And so you were saying that technology, digital technology, can be used both to free people from slavery but it can also be used to enslave people.

Catharina: Yeah. 

Silvija: How so?

Catharina: So just to take a simple example, but we have looked at quite some different applications like WhatsApp or Snapchat. And I found, I got in contact with a girl who was enslaved through putting out a snapchat story. She wants to be picked up somewhere and she put out a snapchat story and there was this guy that picked her up and she knew him a little bit. So, it was not a total stranger but anyways, he didn't bring her to school, but he brought her to this type of house where she was on the verge of being trafficked. And I think that's just a very actual example of how this simple technology that we use daily probably is a very big, can be a big dangerous to as well and be used by criminals in addition to today we see a lot of livestream being used for child exploitation online. And this can fall under human trafficking 

Silvija: As in child pornography?

Catharina: They call it now child exploitation. Really a child or online child exploitation which is then that, you know, people in Norway would order children in other countries to do things sexually and they would record those videos or imagery and then sent that.

Silvija: Can I ask you a technically a probably basic question that I haven't really thought about. Why are these things so difficult to find and prove and stop? I know about the dark web, but why are the bad guys better at using the dark web than the good guys?

Catharina: I think resource is probably a big issue there. So, if you look at all the data that's collected through Child Online exploitation there is like so many videos so many pictures so for a police force to go through all these images to find evidence for example, in addition to if it's not recorded because it live stream is often life. So there is no recording. So when you close the conversation there is no evidence 

Silvija: is there no payment to prove after this?

Catharina: There must be. But that's like almost a different track right. We have to trace the financial tracks of somebody which they probably do in those kinds of etterforskning, but it's interesting that those big sets of data are very difficult to kind of find your proof then in, or your evidence. And that's also where technology then offers quite a lot of solutions to our big organizations here in Sweden and in the United States that really try to develop tools to help law enforcement to do those things so that they are not having to look at all the imagery themselves, but that the computer using like in hash technology can kind of find easier ways to do 

Silvija: if there ever was a good need for artificial intelligence, this must be one of those areas.

Catharina: Absolutely and yeah, it's a big area of interest and a lot of development is taking place there right now to help those children.

Silvija: But I mean you know, in order to identify the children but also to identify the patterns and finding people who actually are the ones ordering these kinds of things. 

Catharina: Yeah 

Silvija: and I know that the world of finance is very heavily regulated in terms of you know anti money laundering kinds of areas financial crime. And this must be one of the first areas we should stop.

Catharina: Yeah, definitely and there you see that slavery is a very complex problem because it touches on a lot of different things. So to combine that all and look at the issue kind of holistically is very important. Also when developing new technologies.

Silvija: so you mentioned block chain and how did you look at Block chain? You mentioned digital I.D. 

Catharina: Yeah 

Silvija: you said also tracing basically media channels or supply chains. You said before we started I think birth registration that has to do with I.D.

Catharina: Yeah. So, for my masters I tried to, I saw so many headlines of like block chain saving the world and block chain going to fight slavery and end slavery and human trafficking. I got a bit intrigued so I decided to write my thesis on that particular subject and I tried to really look into what is really out there already and what has proof of work I guess. And I guess that's one of the conclusions that there is not yet so many projects that have proof of work but there is many great initiatives that are trying to really contribute to this field. And they do that through supply chain management, trying to locate the products from the raw commodity to the consumer, but also to help people to get registered and to get access to an identity which will help them at the borders or yeah.

Silvija: Telenor mentioned that they are doing a project like that for the United Nations I think

Catharina:  I think so yeah. They are working on a big project. I don't know the details of it but they're really working on a project for a birth registration using a block chain technology. Yeah. So there are definitely some great initiatives here in Norway that are trying to do something on this issue.

Silvija: You also say that… So one thing is finding tools that are used to either enslave people or set people free. But the thing is that these new digital tools can also give people a voice. 

Catharina: Yep. 

Silvija: What are the good examples you've seen of that?

Catharina: I think one great example is this journalist that uses only his mobile phone.

I think his organization is called Hashtag Our Stories and he wants to kind of democratize the world through mobile technology. So just a mobile phone. And in this particular case he's using Snapchat to give survivors of slavery or sexual assault in India, in Nigeria a voice. So he uses Snapchat filters for them to speak out to their community about what has happened. And he says that it's often journalists that will interview somebody and think, you know, they're kind of the leader in that conversation where it would be so important if the survivor is able to lead the conversation and tell what they want to tell instead of having these questions answered. So, he's using these filters, a very simple free way of access in a way to have them speak to their own communities about what's happened because often they are topics that are very dangerous to discuss. But very important of course to raise these issues. So that's like one example I thought it was quite brilliant and very easy it was not like a new technology or something like cool that was newly developed, but it was just something that a lot of people have access to.

Silvija: So one of the things that you discussed also in your book and previously with me are these unintentional consequences of technology. We technologists are very good to provide solutions to concrete problems. And then if the technologies used for other things well that's somebody else’s, in a way, domain and worry but not so we all should know more ethics. So, can you give us some examples where you were surprised by that?

Catharina: Definitely. So, there is definitely some people that have not a technology background for example that turn to technology to find solutions. And that's a great idea, I think. However, there should be some sort of collaborations there and training of people using technology. So, we found for example some applications that were used to collect data on human trafficking to get a bigger picture of what was happening and they tried to use technology in a good way to find the data. However it was data that should be collected by people who are just around the situation so you can just question about the safety of those people. In addition, you had to give information on the survivor which they would have to give consent for. And so, these apps kind of invited you into a situation that maybe somebody who doesn't know much about human trafficking shouldn't be in. So there were some of those questionable apps that could have big potential to be great but when they're not fully developed and just put out there to the public it could potentially also do harm. And I think that's where those collaborations are so important. And that really, yeah, they're working together and developing something that the longer consequences are thought of would be very necessary.

Silvija: Very interesting. So, do you have a quote you would like to leave to our listeners as a little present? Would you like me to read the one you sent to me?

Catharina: Yes you really can read it for me. But I definitely have a quote. 

Silvija: You say… This is by Kransberg 

Catharina: yeah.

Silvija: Many of our technology related problems arise because of the unforeseen consequences when apparently benign technologies are employed on a massive scale. Hence many technical applications that seemed a boom to mankind when first introduced became threats when their use became widespread.

Catharina: Yeah. It speaks for itself but just picture the Dark Web for example. The encryption which was developed for a great intelligence sector and has now been used widely for criminal use so it's important to think long term, I guess.

Silvija: Yeah. What should people remember if there is one thing they can take away from our conversation?

Catharina: I think that you know, good intentions won't make it really, and when you are trying to develop technology that's really going to be sustainable for people to use but also for the consequences later on. So I think if you combine good intentions with good research and good collaboration then you can get very far. So I guess the collaboration side of this conversation and how law enforcement use technology companies to work together is very essential in developing tech for good.

Silvija: Catharina Drejer, an advisor with Tankesmien Skaperkraft and the author of Slave Tech a snapshot of slavery in a digital age. Thank you so much for coming here to Lørn and for teaching us about slavery in the digital age and how technology can and should be used for good.

Catharina: Yes. Thank you. 

Silvija: Thank you for listening.