A group of people check their phones
Robin Worrall for Unsplash

We want to reset the relationship between technology and democracy, to ensure that technology can only ever be a force for good.


Digital technologies have transformed our everyday lives. From social media platforms to content streaming, cloud computing to remote working, these tools are part of how we live our lives and connect with others.

Big tech companies control many of the digital technologies that we rely on, and they have unprecedented global reach and power.

And their power that is often opaque and unaccountable to governments and citizens around the world.

Big Tech businesses operate in an ecosystem that often falls outside of traditional regulation and who can quickly disrupt individuals and businesses that rely upon their technologies.

We see evidence emerge with each breaking headline about the potential harms to children, to democracies and to collective trust in one another.

“We believe it matters to understand shared challenges posed by power, technology, and democracy.”

The growing discourse around the Draft Online Safety Bill in the UK has demonstrated how as a society, we are still grappling to understand how digital technologies–and the organisations that deploy them- are changing our societies.

That’s where the research of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy comes in.  We are developing innovative ways of enhancing public understanding of digital technologies and their impact on societies.

At the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, we believe it matters to understand shared challenges posed by power, technology, and democracy. That the uncontrolled accumulation of power by private organisations poses major threats to both our democracy, and the planet.

Let’s take the issue of data centres.

The growing thirst for data requires an ever-expanding network of data centres.

Data centres require energy, resources and a physical location, increasing emissions.

Local communities are often left out of the decision-making process around data centres. Environmental concerns about the costs of energy to run and sustain these giant data hubs are brushed aside.

Here at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, we are radically rethinking society’s relationship with digital technology.

We are also increasing society’s capacity to critically interrogate tech platforms — including their business models, data protection and handling, political lobbying and exploitation of capabilities of the technology. We are doing this through the research that we do, and in connecting that research to journalists, advocates, and policymakers who are trying to make change.

We want to deliver positive changes to society’s relationship with digital technologies, to ensure that technology can only ever be a force for good.

Digital technology has transformed our world, and we want to reclaim it for civil society.

Find out more about our work on public understanding.