Ms Flavia Saxler

Broadly, I am interested in the relations between digital technologies, social life, human rights, and safety. I focus on tracking technologies for women and their impact on power relations through datafication.

My PhD research investigates how digital GPS-based technologies mediate safety for women in cities. Thereby, I focus on the ethical implications of tracking technologies. My overarching research question is: How do digital GPS-based safety tracking technologies mediate care for women in cities and how do they, in the process, experience safety in, by, and through them? I aim to expose the ethics of safety tracking technologies by understanding how they take care of women in public, and what this tells us about inequalities mediated by technologies.

Furthermore,  I volunteer as a research consultant for data and technology in the FemTech start-up ‘TheBlood’ that focuses on menstrual tracking. Here, I look into how technologies could impact menstruation by researching women’s experiences with menstruation as well as products and technologies used. The goal is a mini-lab to test menstrual blood and a smart application that stores and visualises data to generate knowledge. Vital signs based on biomarkers (i.e. iron, vitamin a + b, cortisol, estrogen, cholesterol, FSH, Hba1c, HSCRP, Creatinin, HDL, LDL) are used for that.

Finally, my PhD and my voluntary work focus on enhancing women’s well-being and safety by understanding the role and ethics of technology within and grappling with the ‘gender data gap’.