Kelowna's Wendy H. Wong has won the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy for her book on how mass data collection affects democratic freedom.

The Writers' Trust of Canada presented Wong with the $60,000 award for "We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age" at a private dinner in Toronto on Tuesday evening.

Wong is a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus in Kelowna.

Jurors praised her book as an "eye-opening, gripping look at the ways in which humanity is being codified, monitored, and tracked at alarming speed and intensity — in largely unaccountable ways."

The Balsillie Prize, administered by the Writers' Trust and sponsored by the Balsillie Family Foundation, goes to a book of non-fiction that advances and influences public policy debates.

This year's shortlisted authors, who each receive $5,000, were Gregor Craigie for "Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis"; Christopher Pollon for "Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World’s Most Vulnerable Places" and M.G. Vassanji for "Nowhere, Exactly: On Identity and Belonging."

"We, the Data" was also a finalist for this year's Lionel Gelber Prize, administered by the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, which goes to the world's best book on international affairs.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2024.