Every moment of every day, we are using technologies that require we exchange personally identifiable information just to be able to use them. Have we lost the power of control for our personal data? Can we get it back?
We discuss this highly complex societal and technological problem with author Dr. Carissa Véliz, using her book, Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data, as the backdrop for the conversation.
We hope it makes you think about the relationship between technology, data, privacy, control, and power.
About The Book
The moment you check your phone in the morning you are giving away your data. Before you’ve even switched off your alarm, a whole host of organisations have been alerted to when you woke up, where you slept, and with whom. As you check the weather, scroll through your ‘suggested friends’ on Facebook, you continually compromise your privacy.
Without your permission, or even your awareness, tech companies are harvesting your information, your location, your likes, your habits, and sharing it amongst themselves. They're not just selling your data. They’re selling the power to influence you. Even when you’ve explicitly asked them not to. And it's not just you. It's all your contacts too.
Digital technology is stealing our personal data and with it our power to make free choices. To reclaim that power and democracy, we must protect our privacy.
What can we do? So much is at stake. Our phones, our TVs, even our washing machines are spies in our own homes. We need new regulation. We need to pressure policy-makers for red lines on the data economy. And we need to stop sharing and to adopt privacy-friendly alternatives to Google, Facebook and other online platforms.
Short, terrifying, practical: Privacy is Power highlights the implications of our laid-back attitude to data and sets out how we can take back control.
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Guest
Dr Carissa Véliz
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/carissa-véliz-a5781555/
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/CarissaVeliz
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Resources
Book | Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data: https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control/dp/1787634043
Why you might want to think twice about surrendering online privacy for the sake of convenience: https://theconversation.com/why-you-might-want-to-think-twice-about-surrendering-online-privacy-for-the-sake-of-convenience-71021
Watch the live (or on-demand) panel for Data Privacy Week 2022 on ITSPmagazine: https://youtu.be/0CSIX7JJF9E
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This Episode’s Sponsors
Bugcrowd 👉 https://itspm.ag/itspbgcweb
BlackCloak 👉 https://itspm.ag/itspbcweb
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