My Digital FootPrint

I have explored privacy and identity in a previous post , taken from the perspective of the individual.  This post is from the perspective of the state/ nation/ law. I commented on Michael Becker's LinkedIn post about his list of words and definitions for the identity/ privacy space . I commented that everyone remains fixated on making their particular solution work to a problem the user has not got which is " #privacy. " Whilst every language and country has an ideal notion of privacy, the wide variety of cultures means there is no unified “concept of privacy”, even if privacy is explicitly named or defined in their specific language law or culture. I asked #chatGPT, the “AI” bot from Google, the question, “ how would a capitalist and socialist view privacy? ”  “Capitalists would see privacy as an important aspect of individual liberty and autonomy and they view privacy as a property right that can be traded or sold, and they may support policies that allow companies

The heated debate about privacy and rights has raged for years. More recently we have added verbs in front of the word privacy to open up a more nuanced reasoning that there is not one privacy. I remain thoughtful about data privacy and personal privacy as they end up with the same outcome which is that you are tracked and tracked in a digital world, even though the process flow to get to the same outcome is fundamentally different.

Image source:  linking quantum and relativity We love the idea of a single unified theory of everything. One eloquent and beautiful equation which describes everything. It can unfold and from it, all that is, can and will be explained.  It would provide a rationale to the unexplained and a purpose for the unreasonable. Such an equation would have logic, it can be translated into an algorithm, which we can code and run. From this exiliar we can solve all questions of humanity and our future will be predictable. It raises lots of questions. If we found the equation surely we would dissolve the need for a soul, our belief would be worthless, hope would be irrelevant, faith pointless and luck would be a calculation. Chaos and humanity will give way to order and authority — the Matrix was real. Ignoring if possible or if that is what we want, physics helpfully starts to highlight one of many problems of any unified theory. Relativity ( big stuff) has one set of equations and behaviours

Consent is complex , however it has to be solved - so what would a user experience look like? Given that we have to convey an awful lot of messages in a very small space, in a short about of time and be sure we have done our best efforts to make the user aware of what they are agreeing to. Given that under the ideals of data portability/ sharing the user should be able to choose, any system cannot favour or stop the user from doing anything, but we should enable the user to make an informed decision.  This is not a solution, but presented as a conceptual framework of what we need to achieve.  sets out the red, amber, green or some other colour base format. The colour itself would be calculated from answering a set of questions, and the answers to those questions will be key to informing the user about what the company can and will do with their data if the users agrees. A company cannot pick their colour, it is be calculated and provable based on a standard me

Key message : decisions regarding the right type of initial explicit and informed “consent” sort from customers is currently a delegated authority from the board. This article argues that there is an imperative to bring back “consent” decisions to the board; at least for a while. The board needs to debate “consent” in light of ideas such as “privacy by design”, ethical AI, brand values, privacy policy, cookie policy and culture; given that consistency across these critical business areas are increasingly core differentiators. - - As a context, much of the classic(al) thinking and definition(s) of consent are here on wikipedia . There is excellent technical work on consent from Kantara for both the user interface and back office processes based on new consent thinking. MEF is publishing really helpful thinking on UI/UX. In the idea of implementing “privacy by design”, I published this blog exploring the concept of Approval vs Forgiveness as the method of gaining consent when consid

Image: https://cdn-grid.fotosearch.com/CSP/CSP462/opt-out-vs-in-marketing-consent-agree-clip-art__k60530152.jpg Key message : the simple decision about seeking the right “consent” is currently an unseen delegated authority. There is a need to bring back consent decisions to the board. At the board we need to debate consent in light of the ideals such as “privacy by design” and brand position; given that consistency across a business is now more important than a single commercial decision. - o - As a context, much of the classic(al) thinking and definition(s) of consent are here on wikipedia . There is excellent technical work on consent from Kantara for both the user interface and back office processes based on new consent thinking. In the idea of implementing “privacy by design”, I published this blog exploring the concept of Approval vs Forgiveness as the method of gaining consent when considering, specifically, innovation. We explored that the purity of a positio

Woody Hartzog (Stanford)  ( personal site )  "Control is the wrong goal for privacy by design, perhaps the wrong goal for data protection in general." But isn't control a central tenet of good privacy? It sure is. But it shouldn't be, the author of "Privacy’s Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies" .  While everyone emphasizes "control" of personal data as core to privacy, too much zeal for control dilutes efforts to design information tech correctly. This idealized idea of control is impossible. Control is illusory. It's a shell game.   It's mediated and engineered to produce a particular control. Design is everything. Hear Hartzog's further thoughts in this engaging presentation from Europe's largest privacy thought-leadership event.