Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Disappearing Phone Booths: Privacy in the Digital Age

Erica Newland. "Disappearing Phone Booths: Privacy in the Digital Age." Center for Democracy and Technology, May 2012

From the speech: “I‘m going to discuss what we are fighting for when we talk about protecting privacy in a digital age: that is, how new technologies are rapidly eroding privacy protections and privacy assurances that we have long taken for granted.

I will then explain why the confluence of at least four circumstances – (1) digital ubiquity, (2) the increasing number of parties that take part in our daily transactions, (3) the commodification and monetization of data, (4) and woefully out-of-date privacy laws – creates something of a perfect storm, leaving us as a nation poorly equipped, in our present state, to preserve any measure of a right to privacy. That is to say, I will be arguing that technology and policy both play powerful roles in framing what is possible and how we live our lives, and that changes in technology must be accompanied by changes to policy.

Then, I will address the question that I get asked every time I talk about privacy: Why do we care? What‘s the harm?

And finally, I‘ll close with a few thoughts about where I think some of the most vexing challenges to privacy will arise over the next decade.” Read more