Who decides how much privacy we have?
The concept of privacy, that part of our lives we choose to withhold from the rest of society, has evolved rapidly over recent years. At one extreme, people like Vint Cerf argue it is a historical anomaly that will be harder and harder for us to hold onto, while at the other are those who seek to protect it from business models based on its exploitation.
Last month, the Trump administration published a proposal that will probably shape future legislation, advocating users be given more control over how their data is used by technology companies. These ideas should be seen in the context of a president who uses social networks to bombard voters with micro-segmented advertising and who benefits from a company that supposedly offers its users every option to decide how much privacy they want, but which, despite repeated problems in this regard, ensures that only a few actually use or change those options. Facebook, which seems intent on demonstrating that it can access and exploit its users’ personal data with impunity, is the paradigm for where privacy is heading: a few days ago I discussed its video conferencing plans, Facebook Portal, and the company’s promises not to use it to capture data; now the company says that although Facebook Portal will not display advertising, the data it captures about usage patterns may be used to segment advertising on other Facebook-owned businesses.
Meanwhile, Google has appointed a new head of privacy and has outlined its yardsticks for possible federal regulation of the subject, focused on empowering users to decide on privacy levels. It’s a thorny problem: intuitively one might assume that given the choice, people would opt for maximum privacy, but in reality most of seem not to care or are happy to allow our usage patterns to be analyzed so as to improve the value proposition of the products and services we use.
At the same time, the European Union, which has created more problems than it solves by inventing artificial and nonexistent rights that can’t be applied, at least has protecting users’ rights embodied in the development of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which could be an interesting step if it has the appropriate sanctioning power to correct abuses by companies.
In other parts of the world, such as China, it seems the battle is already lost: a surveillance state where the authorities have access to all data, private or otherwise, despite some timid attempts by companies to resist and where most people have no expectation of privacy and are not unduly worried about it. That said, it’s not clear whether any of the western democracies are interested in preserving the privacy of their citizens as a fundamental right or which, in reality, secretly or not so secretly envy Beijing’s control.
Who decides how much privacy we have? Leaving it to the companies who make their living from it doesn’t seem like a good idea; but can our governments, interested to varying degrees in controlling us, be trusted either? If we, as voters are to protect our privacy, we need to be informed and to work to raise awareness throughout civil society. Few people seem concerned about using the privacy options of the products that they use, operate on the basis that they have nothing to hide and nothing to fear, which suggests we are a long way from resolving the issue. That said, there is mounting anger at intrusive advertising on the internet, which is important, and could lead more of us to take an active stance to protect our privacy, although such measures are still largely the preserve of the tech savvy.
Companies? Governments? Users? Who and how should set the agenda about the future evolution of a such a tricky concept as privacy?
(En español, aquí)
