The Case for Ending Data Economy

[Music]

[Applause]

in the data economy that funds much of

the internet

everything you do gets translated into

data and sold on to the highest bidder

thousands of corporations and

governments around the world know who

you are

what you do where you live they know who

your family is who your friends are

they know what you eat how much you

weigh how much you drink

how do you drive they know who you sleep

next to

whether you’re having an affair they

know about your sexual

practices your political tendencies your

diseases

they know what you hope for what you

fear what you desire what tempts you

where you hurt and all these incredibly

sensitive data gets compiled

and sold to almost anyone who wants to

buy it and it turns out there’s

a lot of people who want to buy it and

most of them don’t have your best

interest at heart

it’s a perverse system and we need to

stop it

it might sound radical this idea to end

the data economy

given how used to it we’ve become but

what’s really radical

what’s extreme is to have a business

model that depends on the systematic and

mass violation

of the right to privacy that’s what’s

radical

and it needs to stop privacy matters

because the lack of it gives others

power over you

the more other people know about you the

more they can

influence your behavior try to interfere

with your life predict what you’re going

to do next

and try to stop it you and i

are not being treated as equal citizens

we are being treated on the basis of our

data

how much you pay for the same service

how long you wait when you call customer

service

and the kind of publicity you have

access to all depends on your data

if you are a man you probably get ads

for higher paying jobs

than women and this is undermining

equality

it’s undermining equality of opportunity

and it’s undermining the trust

and the fabric of society potentially

hundreds of algorithms

are making decisions about you right now

and you have no idea about it

you don’t have access to that data and

you have no way to correct data that

might be inaccurate about you

you might be denied a loan a job

an apartment and all this on the basis

of data

that is inaccessible to you

it’s unfair and it’s dangerous one of

the most common misconceptions about

privacy is that it’s something

individual

something of a personal preference but

in fact privacy is first and foremost a

collective endeavor

and a political concern having so much

data

getting collected and stored

indefinitely is a ticking bomb

it’s just a matter of time before things

go sour

just like we knew for decades that a

pandemic was coming

we know that a massive cyber attack is

coming it’s just a measure of time

before it’s successful

and if a foreign country could get their

hands on that personal data

we would be extremely vulnerable to them

we should learn

from the lessons of history one of the

examples that shows

just how dangerous personal data is and

just how dangerous our system is

comes from the second world war one of

the first things that the nazis did when

they invaded a city

was go to the registry because that’s

where the data was held

and they needed to get to the data to

find jews there’s a study that compares

the country

in europe that had the most data on its

citizens which was the netherlands

against a country in europe that had the

least data on its citizens which was

france

in the netherlands the government had

implemented a system that wanted to

follow people

from cradle to grave in france they had

made a conscious decision for privacy

reasons

not to collect certain kinds of data for

instance related to religious

affiliation

the difference is stark in the

netherlands the nazis found and killed

about 73 percent of the jewish

population

in france 25 the difference

is in the hundreds of thousands of

people

and there are a few stories that

illustrate particularly well

the importance of not collecting certain

kinds of data in france

the general contoir of the army a man

called renegarchme

volunteered an offer to the nazis that

he would do a census and collect

all that data that they wanted and

needed

he was one of the few people who had

punch card machines ibm holidays

machines and that could do that

months went by and he didn’t give the

data to the nazis

so the nazis started raiding people

but they were very inefficient even more

months went by

and the data was nowhere to be seen in

fact rene camille had never planned to

give that data to the nazis

he never collected it in the first place

and by that

one act of one person deciding not to

collect sensitive information

he saved hundreds of thousands of people

in contrast

in amsterdam there was an attempt to

save people that was

not very successful a resistance cell

in 1943 decided to try to destroy

the records in the registry they went in

they sedated the guards

they set fire to the files and they had

a deal with the fire department

that they would arrive late and that

they would use more water than needed to

destroy as many records as possible

unfortunately they were quite

unsuccessful they only managed to

destroy about 15

of records and the nazis found and

killed 70 000 jews in amsterdam

the dutch had made two mistakes first

they collected a lot more data than was

needed

and second they didn’t have an easy way

to delete data in the event of an

emergency

we are making both of those mistakes at

a grand scale never seen before

even though some positive steps have

been taken and we have new legislation

to deal with privacy for instance in

europe the gdpr

it’s not enough it’s not enough because

every day we see new privacy scandals

because too much personal data is being

collected and because

the most of the burden is shouldered by

individuals

it shouldn’t be up to us to say no all

the time to data collection the default

matters and the default should be

no personal data collection in order to

protect justice and fairness and

equality and democracy

we need to regulate tech we need to make

sure

that the algorithms that are judging us

have passed

randomized controlled trials and are

trustworthy

we need to make sure that we know what

algorithms are judging us and on the

basis of what data

we need to be in control generations

before

us have all managed to regulate the big

industries of their time

from railways to cars to airplanes to

food

to drugs there’s no reason why we won’t

be able to regulate tech

it’s our time it’s a task of our

generation

for the power that our governments wield

to be legitimate it has to stem

from our consent not from our data there

is a very close link between

surveillance

and authoritarianism and we need to

start moving away

from bold data collection if we want to

protect our democracies

in the digital age whoever has the data

will have the power

if we give too much of our personal data

to companies it shouldn’t surprise us

that we have to endure some kind of

plutocracy in which the rich

write the rules of the game if we give

too much of our personal data to

governments

we risk sliding into authoritarianism

for democracy to be strong

the bulk of the power needs to be with

the people and that means that the

citizenry has to have control

of personal data at the end of the day

we need governments to regulate data

but there’s much you can do to help that

to happen

choose privacy friendly products instead

of using google

use doc.go instead of using whatsapp use

signal

instead of using gmail use protonmail

there are always alternatives

and you’d be surprised how much it

matters what you choose

companies are listening and we need to

teach them we care about privacy that we

are not consenting to data collection

and that if they’re smart enough they

will have a business model that doesn’t

depend on exploiting personal data

and that harnesses the power of privacy

as a competitive advantage

governments are also listening contact

your political representatives

tell them that you’re worried about

privacy ask them what they’re doing

about it

at the end of the day big tech depends

on us

they are nothing without our data they

depend on our collaboration and our

cooperation

do not accept a system that violates

your rights

we shouldn’t get used to it and it’s too

dangerous for national security

refuse the unacceptable