The COVID-19 pandemic confronts society with a dilemma between (in)visibility, security, and care. While invisibility might be sought by unregistered and undocumented people, being counted and thus visible during a pandemic is a precondition of existence and care. This article asks whether and how unregistered populations like undocumented migrants should be included in statistics and other “counting” exercises devised to track virus diffusion and its impact. In particular, the paper explores how such inclusion can be just, given that for unregistered people visibility is often associated with surveillance. It also reflects on how policymaking can act upon the relationship between data, visibility, and populations in pragmatic terms. Conversing with science and technology studies and critical data studies, the paper frames the dilemma between (in)visibility and care as an issue of sociotechnical nature and identifies four criteria linked to the sociotechnical characteristics of the data infrastructure enabling visibility. It surveys “counting” initiatives targeting unregistered and undocumented populations undertaken by European countries in the aftermath of the pandemic, and illustrates the medical, economic, and social consequences of invisibility. On the basis of our analysis, we outline four scenarios that articulate the visibility/invisibility binary in novel, nuanced terms, and identify in the “de facto inclusion” scenario the best option for both migrants and the surrounding communities. Finally, we offer policy recommendations to avoid surveillance and overreach and promote instead a more just “de facto” civil inclusion of undocumented populations.

Datafied societies need informed public debate about the implications of data science technologies. At present, internet users are often unaware of the potential consequences of disclosing personal data online and few citizens have the knowledge to participate in such debates. This paper argues that critical big data literacy efforts are one way to address this lack of knowledge. It draws on findings from a small qualitative investigation and discusses the effectiveness of online critical big data literacy tools. Through pre and post use testing, the short- and longer-term influence of these tools on people’s privacy attitudes and behavior was investigated. The study’s findings suggested that the tools tested had a predominantly positive initial effect, leading to improved critical big data literacy among most participants, which resulted in more privacy-sensitive attitudes and internet usage. When analyzing the tools’ longer-term influence, results were more mixed, with evidence suggesting for some that literacy effects of the tools were short-lived, while for others they led to more persistent and growing literacy. The findings confirm previous research noting the complexity of privacy attitudes and also find that resignation toward privacy is multi-faceted. Overall, this study reaffirms the importance of critical big data literacy and produces new findings about the value of interactive data literacy tools. These tools have been under-researched to date. This research shows that these tools could provide a relevant means to work toward empowering internet users, promoting a critical internet usage and, ideally, enabling more citizens to engage in public debates about changing data systems.