Privacy Revisited - Protect and ProjectLIFT France 10
7th July 2010 MarseillesThis is the text of my talk, the presentation slides can be foundin a separate file on scribed.
Introduction
Privacy is not a configuration of settings, it has little to do withprivacy policies that you find on websites. It's my own policythat governs my behaviour. Privacy is certainly not dead, it isessential to my autonomy and identity.I'll be talking about the Mine! and VRM - a couple of projectsthat take the view that privacy starts from the individual user,not a platform or a web service. They are both based on theneed for users online to be the point of integration for their dataand its sharing. Privacy is 'protected' and 'projected' through a'user-driven' design as well as through UX/UI.As an individual interacting with others I am the best judge ofmy privacy requirements. When I talk to my friends I know whatto tell them and what not to share. If I mess up, I suffer theconsequences and learn not to gossip with those who betrayconfidences.Beyond my immediate social circles and when money orreputation is at stake, I need to understand the consequencesof sharing information so I can manage my privacy. But if myprivacy is not up to me to manage, there can be no demand forsuch knowledge to be available. As a result many people haveno idea about how their data is used and abused.The best privacy settings are in my head. At the moment, I
have little ability to ‘execute’ my privacy policy. Why assumethat such ability has to come from the legal world and why notstart building tools that help individuals manage their data andhelp them to determine their privacy behaviour themselves?*[
Privacy regression
Privacy is under threat because our autonomy online is underthreat.From technical perspective, the regression of privacy can beassociated with the rise of platforms - platforms own your data,your interactions and ultimately your ability to share or withholdthat data. That goes to the very heart of privacy.From commercial perspective, anything that helps othersinfluence your behaviour and decisions is of value - your datareflecting your preferences & choices is a perfect means ofdoing that. So getting access or ownership over that data isvaluable.From practical perspective, anything that make my life easier,convenient is preferred by the user, no matter how much thetool or application deprives the user of autonomy or hasundesirable long-term consequences. From potential loss ofdata and archives, to downtime and narrowing of functionalityand other limitation such as censorship. ]
Behaviour and ownership
There are two levels on which privacy needs to be considered:behavioural i.e. sharingownership, access or control of your data (meta-data, logs etc)a) what can YOU do with your datab) what can OTHERS do with your data
They are intrinsically linked and I'd argue you can't have thefirst without the second. I'd also argue that people tend to thinkof one or the other, depending whether they are coming fromthe client or the server side...Why does the second point matters as much, if not more, asthe first. Because privacy is not “the one secret I don’t wantrevealed” The problem is all the stuff that I create in my onlineexistence - the data dandruff of life, which is not secret in anyway but which aggregates to stuff that we don’t want anybodyto know. It also aggregates to predictive models about us thatwe would be very creeped out could exist at all.
So what is to be done?
There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over Facebook'sencroachment on users privacy. This goes for most platforms,web services and applications but Facebook is the posterwhipping boy for this one, to mix metaphors. And for goodreasons.And yet, their user base does not diminish. FB does somethinguseful for people and until better and freer and more privacyalternatives exist it will continue to grow.But privacy matters and unless we have autonomy, i.e. freedomto pursue it, it will be elusive.Privacy remains an issue with such web services and platforms- as long as I have to depend on a third party to protect myprivacy, it will be exposed by accident or incompetence, forceby authorities or abuse - marketing and advertising.*[
More than binary choice
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LIFT Privacy Talk
This is the text of my talk from LIFT France 10 in Marseilles on 7th July, from the session on Privacy Revisited - Protect and Project. The presentation slides can be found in a separate file on scribed.
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