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