Social sorting

Social sorting is understood as the breakdown and categorization of group- or person-related raw data into various categories and segments by data manipulators and data brokers. Social sorting involves the key task of separating one group from the other. These groups can be based on income, education, race, ethnicity, profiling, gender, occupation, social status, derived power (social and political) and geographic residence. Depending on the goals of the manipulator raw data is collected and then further evolves into meaningful data in order to be exploited for a specific purpose. For example, the formulation of profiling and predictive policing are all derivations of social sorting.

The concept is accredited to David Lyon, a sociologist who is best known for his work in surveillance studies. Contemporary times have allowed for the influx and constant growth of data collection especially in the countries of the global north. A prime example of social terming is surveillance. This practice was not always as sophisticated as today. Historically, simple tools such as labor-intensive watchers, book keeping and record keeping acted as the enablers of this form. Surveillance is now done by governments and various organizations. This technological tools that are equipped with surveillance are cameras, records of transactions done at banking machines and point of sale terminals, machine readable passports before boarding, cellular phone calls along with many other examples. This collection of raw data then enables trends to be found and the fostering of predictions.

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