Data Weaponization and the Future of Privacy
The Facebook scandal is embarrassing for the company and will tarnish its reputation at least temporarily, but this is not the end. In fact, it’s just the very beginning.
Last week we witnessed a historical information weaponization surrounding Facebook and the 2016 election. If you didn’t see anything, you can check out the long form here, and the micro brief here.
Basically what happened is that Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to mine data about hundreds of thousands of people through an application they created. However, despite what the news may be saying, there was no breach. This data was legally mined once the terms and services were agreed to. And under this legal agreement, the company used their mining capabilities to weaponize data into the hands of interested political parties. This behavior played a huge role in previous elections, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom.
While this was a shock to many, it really shouldn’t be. Data has been and regularly is mined and weaponized every day. We call this advertising. And it’s done by hundreds of thousands of organizations around the world. Ever signed into anything with Facebook? Ever played Farmville, Candy Crush, or any of the other games on Facebook? They all more than likely have similar access to this information.
The thing is, most people don’t believe this access has any effect on their lives until something dramatic happens like what we’re seeing right now with Facebook. They don’t think the access is effecting their lives. They don’t think there’s any reason to be concerned. But as everyone in the tech field knows, it’s not about the ads, it’s about the data. And despite recent controversy, this is almost always legal.
Moving forward, the weaponization of data is only going to get worse unless we decide to put a stop to it. If you’re interested in learning how you can see exactly what data companies like Facebook and Google own from your digital footprint, you can check out this thread on Twitter by Dylan Curran. Until the general population is aware and capable of protecting themselves, the people will have to rely on corporations to maintain a level of moral responsibility or hope that regulators will protect them from corporate ills. However, at the pace that regulation moves it’s risky to solely rely on law makers to protect us but we can look to the EU for how we might move into the future. In order to make this a revolution we need to start getting everyone on board. This week’s links are a good start.
BOOK
The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation
Artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities are growing at an unprecedented rate. These technologies have many widely beneficial applications, ranging from machine translation to medical image analysis. Countless more such applications are being developed and can be expected over the long term. Less attention has historically been paid to the ways in which artificial intelligence can be used maliciously. This report surveys the landscape of potential security threats from malicious uses of artificial intelligence technologies, and proposes ways to better forecast, prevent, and mitigate these threats. The team involved — which spans several universities and research organizations — analyzes, but does not conclusively resolve, the question of what the long-term equilibrium between attackers and defenders will be. They focus instead on what sorts of attacks we are likely to see soon if adequate defenses are not developed.
In response to the changing threat landscape we make four high-level recommendations:
1. Policymakers should collaborate closely with technical researchers to investigate, prevent, and mitigate potential malicious uses of AI.
2. Researchers and engineers in artificial intelligence should take the dual-use nature of their work seriously, allowing misuserelated considerations to influence research priorities and norms, and proactively reaching out to relevant actors when harmful applications are foreseeable.
3. Best practices should be identified in research areas with more mature methods for addressing dual-use concerns, such as computer security, and imported where applicable to the case of AI.
4. Actively seek to expand the range of stakeholders and domain experts involved in discussions of these challenges.
OFFICIAL REPORT
Three Years of The Right to be Forgotten
The “Right to be Forgotten” is a privacy ruling that enables Europeans to delist certain URLs appearing in search results related to their name.
In order to illuminate the effect this ruling has on information access, we conduct a retrospective measurement study of 2.4 million URLs that were requested for delisting from Google Search over the last three and a half years. We analyze the countries and anonymized parties generating the largest volume of requests; the news, government, social media, and directory sites most frequently targeted for delisting; and the prevalence of extraterritorial requests. Our results dramatically increase transparency around the Right to be Forgotten and reveal the complexity of weighing personal privacy against public interest when resolving multi-party privacy conflicts that occur across the Internet.
This report, done by Google employees, will help you better understand the value behind the right to be forgotten.
HIGHLY CREDIBLE SOURCE
Google Transparency Report
In a May 2014 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Court found that individuals have the right to ask search engines like Google to remove certain results for queries on the basis of a person’s name. The search engine must comply if the links in question are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive,” taking into account public-interest factors including the individual’s role in public life. Pages are only delisted from results in response to queries that relate to an individual’s name. We delist URLs from all of Google’s European search results — results for users in France, Germany, Spain, etc. — and use geolocation signals to restrict access to the URL from the country of the requester. The charts in this interactive data gallery show the total number of requests received and the total number of URLs requested to be delisted since May 29, 2014.
Upcoming Events
As mentioned in previous emails, I’m going to mostly be focused on burying myself heads down over the next couple of months until I leave for Germany so I can finish writing and hand it off to Ellen, but here are the events I have coming up that I’d love to see you at! If you’re in town and have some time open on your calendar.
Internationally I’m also working on events in other parts of Germany, the UK, Denmark, and Colombia. Locally, in the United States, I’m working on more in Denver/Boulder as well as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Chicago, and more.
If you know of someone or some event that would be interested in having me, or you want to set something up yourself, let me know!
4.3 — Design Hour in Boulder, Colorado
Design Hour is a group of creatives based in Boulder, Colorado that converge monthly to discuss the latest in design across UI/UX, print, product, industrial, and XR — among others. I’ll be speaking with the group about automation, ethics, and impact both within automation in general, and more specifically as it’s implemented within conversations.
RSVP link coming soon!
4.19 — Newscamp in Augsburg, Germany
Switching up gears for this one, instead of covering the field of AI as an overarching topic of discussion, I’ll be taking a deep dive into the topic of the Attention Economy and Automation. How is Automation effecting our news, how it is it harming democracies across the globe? What implications does this have for humanity, at large?
We’re seeing some of the largest, most “developed” nations implode on each other — the UK with Brexit, the US with Trump, France with Macron and Le Pen, Brazil with Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro. And more. Why are these countries so separated? What part does the Internet play in this? How do we move forward.
I’m incredibly passionate about this topic and can’t wait to talk with the global leaders at NewsCamp!
4.26 — Lecture at Hochschule Augsburg
New technologies and the algorithms that reside within them have become the governing bodies of the world. These systems shape the way millions, if not billions of people around the globe behave, think, and operate as a global society.
The talk will help students understand what exactly is happening and how they can leverage the knowledge to prepare themselves for the future of work.
Private Event
4.26 — Meetup with Stammtisch in Munich, Germany
New technologies and the algorithms that reside within them have become the governing bodies of the world. These systems shape the way millions, if not billions of people around the globe behave, think, and operate as a global society. This being said, the people creating these systems have become the modern government representatives to their user base of constituents.
What we will talk about is the power that resides within these systems, why regulation is an important part of the future of this industry, how it will effect business, and where it may be headed in the future. This talk will help everyone understand the role they play and the responsibilities that come with it.
Private Event
4.27 — Munich Tech Meetup at Team23 in Munich, Germany
New technologies and the algorithms that reside within them have become the governing bodies of the world. These systems shape the way millions, if not billions of people around the globe behave, think, and operate as a global society. This being said, the people creating these systems have become the modern government representatives to their user base of constituents.
What we will talk about is the power that resides within these systems, why regulation is an important part of the future of this industry, how it will effect business, and where it may be headed in the future. This talk will help everyone understand the role they play and the responsibilities that come with it.
RSVP coming soon!
5.4 — TrustWorks in Copenhagen, Denmark
New technologies and the algorithms that reside within them have become the governing bodies of the world. These systems shape the way millions, if not billions of people around the globe behave, think, and operate as a global society. This being said, the people creating these systems have become the modern government representatives to their user base of constituents.
What we will talk about is the power that resides within these systems, why regulation is an important part of the future of this industry, how it will effect business, and where it may be headed in the future. This talk will help everyone understand the role they play and the responsibilities that come with it.
Private Event
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