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CNN Money<\/em> recently<\/a> dubbed the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Studio REV domestic worker app<\/a> one of \u201c5 apps to help change the world\u201d \u2013 calling apps \u201cthe newest tactic for tech-savvy activists.\u201d The domestic worker app is part of an education project that began after New York passed the first domestic worker bill of rights in the United States in 2010, and it\u2019s an exciting development to be sure. From providing information to answering common questions and collecting important data, it is certainly a useful tool for workers, organizers and researchers.<\/p>\n But where does the app and information and communications technology (ICT) like it fit within the broader \u2013 and global \u2013 effort to empower domestic workers and ensure the legal and cultural changes necessary to ensure this essential work is valued? Do tech-savvy tactics really have the potential to \u201cchange the world,\u201d particularly when it comes to domestic work?<\/p>\n Numerous historical accounts, ethnographies and analyses of domestic workers worldwide have well documented that domestic workers are often made invisible<\/em> through laws and state policies, through economic pressures that reduce them to exports, through the denial of their identities \u2013 both cultural or ethnic and human \u2013 and through employer control of their bodies. They are similarly isolated<\/em> through legal barriers and the denial of full citizenship, but also through physical separation within communities, countries, and on a global scale. They often experience extreme social exclusion due to race, class, and employer-based control of information, mobility, and nearly every aspect of their lives.<\/p>\n On both of these fronts \u2013 invisibility and isolation \u2013 ICT seems to have great potential to expose the private sphere of domestic work, helping workers to identify each other and be made visible to governments, NGOs, the public and more. Imagine something as seemingly simple yet powerful as a crowdsourced map that tracks the presence of domestic workers and serves as a way for them to say \u201cHere I am!\u201d to other workers and\/or their embassies. ICT could help to identify and track human rights and labor violations. Here again, a map of good and bad employers would be a powerful resource that could lead to legal action and increased accountability.<\/p>\n ICT also has the potential to reduce the isolation of domestic workers by breaking down barriers between them, their fellow workers, their families and their host countries through the creation of virtual networks. Collectives are often seen as a way to improve labor conditions, but why must spaces where people can meet and exchange views exist physically? Through ICT, people can connect and share experiences, find commonality and coordinate no matter where they are.<\/p>\n