As we go about our day-to-day lives, digital information about who we are is gathered from all angles via biometric scans, passport applications, and, of course, social media. This data can never fully capture our complex, fluid identities over decades of our lives. Yet, this data populates numerous databases we may not even be aware of that can make life-or-death decisions such as who is allowed access to welfare benefits or who is granted food parcels as they pass war-torn borders. Machine Readable Me considers how and why data that is gathered about us is increasingly limiting what we can and can't do in our lives and, crucially, what the alternatives are.

Identification tech gathers data on who we are, our behaviours, our likes and dislikes and much more, through profiling and biometics, amongst other methods. Corporations use these methods to try and make our identities legible to machines. But self-determination to change our identity is a core part of being human. Machine Readable Me asks how does being forced into artificial categories affect how we understand who we are? And what are the alternatives?