ERIC Number: EJ1465234
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1743-9884
EISSN: EISSN-1743-9892
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Infrastructural Dependency in the Datafied Welfare State: The Case of Google Chromebooks
Lucas Cone1; Signe Sophus Lai1
Learning, Media and Technology, v50 n1 p44-60 2025
In January 2024, the Danish Data Protection Agency issued a landmark ruling, challenging the integration of Chromebook laptops in Danish public schools under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This article presents a study of the Chromebook case to explore the entanglement of commercial tech infrastructures and welfare state principles. Drawing on studies of rentiership and educational privatization, we analyze five types of lock-in at stake in the Chromebook case. In different ways, these lock-ins are suggestive of an infrastructural dependency in the datafied welfare state which, we argue, points to a pervasive democratic deficit in the digitalization of public domains, whose consequences reach far beyond the lack of privacy regulation and data control stipulated in the Chromebook ruling.
Descriptors: Laptop Computers, Computer Uses in Education, Foreign Countries, Public Schools, Elementary Schools, Court Litigation, Politics of Education, Federal Legislation, Government School Relationship, Industry, Computers
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Information Analyses
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Denmark
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark