If past data records primarily served to make workers visible and subject, then in today's platform economy, data increasingly serves to implicitly discipline and maintain power. Whether it be the paper registers of the 19th century or today's databases and algorithmic dashboards, those who own the data are always in a position of power. Who records, who controls, and who interprets the data means who has the power to discipline (Zuboff, 2019).

Under the system established by the 1901 Factory Act, data recorders were employers or factory managers, while those being recorded were young labourers and workers. In this power structure, workers can not decide how they were recorded or whether the records were accurate (Kirby, 2017).

In the contemporary era, despite significant changes in the methods of information recording, this power structure has not fundamentally changed. The power to record data is now primarily held by platform operators or third-party data companies (Andrejevic, 2011; Crain, 2018), and has become even more covert and complex due to advancements in technological means (Pasquale, 2015).

This phenomenon is particularly evident on gig economy platforms, such as Uber, where the platform evaluates workers based on the following key metrics (Choudary, 2018):

While striving to extract as much data as possible, platforms often provide workers with very limited feedback on their data. Take Deliveroo as an example. The platform requires delivery drivers to confirm orders within a very short time, but the delivery destination is not displayed until the driver arrives at the restaurant to pick up the order. If the driver refuses to deliver at this stage, the refusal will be recorded and will affect the credit score of drivers (Choudary, 2018).

In summary, these platforms ostensibly grant workers freedom and flexibility, but in reality, they use digital means to establish new control mechanisms. This imbalance in data control forces workers to unknowingly comply with the rules set by the platforms, forming a new system of discipline.