On 9 September 2026, during the 9th edition of INDL, held at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Teleperformance SE, one of the world’s largest providers of customer relationship management and outsourced digital services, was formally notified to undertake a comprehensive review of its vigilance plan, with the aim of strengthening the protection of the health, safety and integrity of its data workers. The formal legal action was initiated by T-FAPT, the CGT’s national federation representing workers in the postal and telecommunications sectors, together with the Data Labelers Association and The Oversight Lab Africa, two Kenyan organisations working to defend the rights and protection of data workers. The action follows several months of action-research conducted by the organisation Intérêt à Agir, coordinated by Luca D’Ambrosio and Baptiste Delmas, in partnership with DipLab. Their investigations have documented several serious concerns affecting Kenyan data workers, including the vulnerability of migrant workers, exposure to violent, disturbing and potentially traumatising content in the course of their work, and fear of retaliation, which can prevent workers from reporting abuses or effectively exercising their rights. Since 2017, the French Duty of Vigilance Law has required large French companies to establish and effectively implement a vigilance plan designed to identify and prevent serious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as risks to the health and safety of people, throughout their activities and relevant value chains. In the case of Teleperformance, the organisations bringing this action argue that the company’s current vigilance plan does not adequately identify or prevent the risks documented by the research conducted by DipLab and Intérêt à Agir among Kenyan data workers. The formal notice therefore calls on Teleperformance to strengthen its vigilance measures and address the risks identified across its global digital labour chain. The formal notice gives Teleperformance three months to comply with its obligations under the Duty of Vigilance Law.

On September 4, Antonio Casilli delivered the closing keynote at the Swiss Sociological Association Congress, which took place at the University of Fribourg and the Haute École de Travail Social de Fribourg, around the 2026 theme “Communities & Societies in Movement.” His keynote was titled “Qui produit l’intelligence artificielle ? La création d’une classe ouvrière des données” (“Who Produces Artificial Intelligence? The Emergence of a Data Working Class”). In his keynote, Casilli discussed the emergence of two social classes around data work. The first, which he describes as the “digital middle class,” consists of qualified data workers, such as data analysts, engineers, and machine learning researchers. The second category consists of a much larger, yet highly invisibilised, workforce of data workers. These workers perform tasks such as data annotation, content moderation, and rating or evaluating AI-generated responses. Many of these workers are concentrated in developing countries and occupy lower positions in the AI supply chain. Casilli argues that the apparent divide between these two groups is not as deep as it may seem. His central argument is that the supposed divide between qualified workers in the technology sector and supposedly unqualified data workers is more closely linked to differences in social and political positioning than to differences in skills or competencies. A second key argument concerns the consequences of this distinction for solidarity among workers across the AI supply chain. By framing some workers as “qualified” and others as “unqualified,” this division contributes to a broader separation between “digital middle class” in the Global North and data workers in the Global South. His keynote also highlighted the transnational conditions that could foster the emergence of global solidarity among workers across the AI data supply chain.

It is now less than a month to go until the start of the 9th annual conference of the International Network on Digital Labor (INDL-9, 9-11 September 2026): AI Supply Chains: Building an interdisciplinary research agenda for AI and labour. DiPLab, along with Yale University, ACM SIGGCAS, and the Geneva Graduate Institute, is truly delighted to be hosting such a vibrant international community of researchers, practitioners and activists at the International Labour Organization (ILO). DiPLab has allocated 10 small scholarships (EUR 400 each) to support travel, accommodation, and meal expenses of promising INDL-9 presenters. Scholarship will be awarded to recipients during the welcome address of the conference. Obtention is conditional on actual participation. After a careful selection process, the following ten applicants have been awarded a scholarship: * Kinchan Chakma * Prachi Sharma * Fitahiana Razafimahenina * Sonam Rai * Shikha Shalini * Amanda Biazzi * Prachi Tayade * Saadeddine Igamane * José Ángel Cerón Hernández * Fasica Gebrekidan We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the selection committee (Matheus Viana Braz, Stella Lopez, Marco Marrone, Myriam Raymond, and Iraklis Vogiatsis) for their time, care, and thoughtful consideration in a highly competitive selection process with a large number of outstanding applications.

Thomas Le Bonniec was invited to speak on the 23rd of June, to the “Fight for Us not for them” event, held in Brussels, by organizations opposing the deregulation push on digital rights and especially the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) His presentation drew on Cecilia Rikap’s theory of digital dependency to argue that four main flows of data and knowledge currently move from the EU to the US for AI training purposes. Le Bonniec and Rikap argues that the Digital Omnibus (a series of amendment to the RGPD aimed to weaken it’s regulatory constraint) is going to accelerate these flows, and backfire on any innovation and digital sovereignty goals that have been set by European Institutions. The LeakyLM project, directed by the IMDEA Networks Institute, revealed that there were hidden data transfers when using the interface of 4 of the most commonly used LLMs. An other projetc in wich Le Bonniec is currently working and whose results will be released after the summer, has studied the behiavour of one work platform for “AI training” and found no fewer than 16 trackers on it. These flows are actually feeding directly into the AI for military use sector, as the same clients of this platform are engaged with the US department of war. Through his presentation, Thomas Le Bonniec suggests a few answers to the question : So what is there to be done, as the digital omnibus will accelerate the demotion of the EU into a digital periphery from which data and knowledge are extracted? Specifically on his last slide, where he suggests recommendations to repel modifications on articles 4, 9, 12, 13, and 88, of the GDPR, and embedding into law at the very least the algorithmic justice principle. He also argues that consent should be the sole legal basis for using personal data for AI slide thomasDownload

For years, Julian Posada (Yale Assistant Professor and DiPLab research associate) has been one of the architects of the field of digital labor studies. From helping shepherd the transition from the European Network on Digital Labor (ENDL, 2017–2018) to the International Network on Digital Labor (INDL, 2019–present), to co-organizing three consecutive INDL conferences, he has been present at every stage of a research community finding its shape and its ambitions. Today, INDL has created several regional chapters, in Middle East and Africa, in Latin America, and now (thanks to Julian Posada) in North America, too. This foundation has its first public moment: a Symposium on Labor and Artificial Intelligence, hosted at Yale University on April 28 and 29, 2026. The event brings together scholars and practitioners to examine how workers are building, using, and pushing back against AI systems. The programme opens with a keynote by Julia Ticona and closes with a roundtable featuring organizers from across the platform economy. Researchers and doctoral students are especially encouraged to attend the doctoral colloquium on April 28 (1:00–5:30 PM, KT 401), where emerging scholars can workshop their research alongside peers ahead of the main symposium on April 29 (9:00 AM–5:00 PM, HQ 134).

On 9 April 2026, DiPLab co-founder Antonio A. Casilli spoke at the Dénumérisons ! symposium at the French Assemblée Nationale, at the invitation of MP Lisa Belluco. The question brought to the floor: behind the apparent “freedom” and “intelligence” of digital platforms lies a workforce whose rights are systematically violated. Click workers, data labelers, content moderators, and micro-task workers who keep AI systems running are exposed to violent content, subject to constant algorithmic evaluation, and denied basic labor protections. Any serious effort to regulate AI must begin by putting the human beings who build it back at the center, making their labor visible, their rights enforceable, and their dignity non-negotiable.