UBCO’s Dr. Wendy Wong poses with award-winning Canadian writer Margaret Atwood at the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy award ceremony last week. Photo credit: Canadian Writer’s Trust.
UBC Okanagan’s Dr. Wendy Wong’s book about protecting your personal data just received a significant “like” by winning the 2024 Balsillie Prize for public policy.
We, The Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, was published late last year and explores how technology companies play a pivotal role in governing our lives by leveraging the countless amount of personal data generated in our everyday online interactions.
The book describes how prevalent the collection of personal data is. For example, a simple thumbs up on a social media post can open many digital tracking calculations that send personal data anywhere, including the dark web. And the potential benefits that advancing technology and AI once provided have changed society—not always for the better.
“I was thinking about these AI systems and I realized that social science is being relatively silent, especially political science,” she says. “But in the face of these rapidly developing technologies—that promised so much for humanity—there is real detriment to society. We weren’t thinking about some of the social, political and cultural changes that were about to happen; the way we treat each other in society and the way we treat ourselves. All of that as we know now, has come to the fore. And we think about each other very differently.”
The Balsillie Prize was established in 2021 and recognizes the best non-fiction book that advances public issues relevant to Canadians. Dr. Wong’s book was selected by a jury, including Toronto author and physician Samantha Nutt, out of a pool of 58 books.
We, The Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age was also shortlisted this spring for the Lionel Gelber Prize—an international award for the best non-fiction book in international affairs written in English. The prize, issued by the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, was founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber and seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues.
Dr. Wong, a Political Science Professor in UBCO’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences remains humble about the recognition, describing it as a pure honour to be in the company of the other nominated writers Gregor Craigie, M.G. Vassanji and Christopher Pollen.
“You never write a book thinking it’s going to be recognized by an international jury as a contender for a major award. It took a day for me to let it sink in,” adds Dr. Wong. “It is truly a wonderful affirmation of how centrally we need to discuss human rights when we consider AI and data about human beings.”
