CLARA TRAYNOR (I want to make your ads)

Nov 2014

Event: Fringe Event at Dublin’s Web Summit

 

Do you have a right to privacy?

 

I recently attended a fringe event of Dublin’s Web summit. Held in Andrews Lane hipster hangout, Hanger. Agility presented this event called the Cube.

 

In order to attend the event, you were asked to add, what I presume was the creator of the event, Ian York as a friend on Facebook and to provide your email address to him. When your friend request was confirmed you were sent an invitation via Facebook. The event page welcomed you to ‘an exclusive club, hosted by I_Am_You (Ian York) that will grant free access to a chosen few during the Web Summit. Attendees were invited to step into The Cube to participate in and experience a conversation about privacy from some of the leading thinkers to be confirmed across the coming days.’

 

The event proposed to pose such questions as:
Who is watching you online? 
Why? 
Do you mind? 
Should you care?

 

The Speakers

 

Speakers were announced a few hours before the event via Facebook. These included Mike Janke, founder and CEO of Silent Circle. Silent Circle is responsible for the Blackphone – a smartphone developed to deter snooping governments, industry rivals and hackers. Similar in design to the iPhone, the device sells for a little over $600. Its core purpose is to provide people with the ability to communicate securely. 

 

James Ball was the second speaker announced. James is a British investigative journalist and special projects editor for the Guardian US. He has worked on several data-driven cases including the NSA files received from Edward Snowden.

 

Stewart Baker was the final speaker announced. Baker is the Former General Counsel of the NSA. He was the first Assistant Secretary at the United States Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush.

 

The Event

 

We arrived at the gloomy venue of DIY tables, large filament bulbs, tiny potted table plants and tall tin high chairs. Once the place started to fill out we were brought behind a large black curtain at the back of the venue. It revealed a dimly lit stage looking down on a square seating arrangement made up of stacked palates and more tin chairs.

 

Irish Times journalist, Una Mullally was the interviewer and presenter of the event. Mike Sanke was the first to talk giving us an introduction about his companies creation of the first privacy phone and discussed how privacy is a constitutional right. He talked about the lack of trust between countries in a broad sense, how North American companies don’t trust Russia. He claims that privacy is not black and white. His hopes for the future is to live in a world where you can control how much privacy you give.

 

He discusses Apple in his defining moment of the evasion of privacy for him.  ‘Google aren’t guilt free’ either stating that when using Google Play you give away 37 pieces of data. The volumes of data that companies are acquiring is only increasing. This shows us the growing important of privacy discussions and awareness. He gives a fruitful array of examples of how people give up their data on a daily basis, sometimes unknowingly. Any phones bought through American broadband and Telecommunications Company, Verizon users are giving up data. Preloaded apps on phones like Samsung that you often cant delete unless you are quite tech savvy have allowed companies to access data on its users. He asserts his feelings again, that you should be able to have the right to say ‘I don’t want to share this’. There needs to be a two-way conversation between companies and its users in terms of privacy and data exchange.

 

Baker intervenes by saying that citizens cannot be wire tapped without a court order. James Ball gives a cynical grunt. This is followed by a discussion about whether companies and the government are preying upon, and sometimes lying to uninformed citizens. This is followed by attention to the lack of security researchers.

 

Janke is amused about how much information people email to each without questioning its security of communication stating that there is no such thing as a secure email and the model has remanded unchanged for 40 years. Privacy should be a global discussion and that America cannot push its version on what privacy is on everyone else.

Janke turns our attention to the Skype scandal in Mexico.

 

He urges us to trust no one, no government not even him and his company when it comes to privacy. This is why his company is completely open source and gives other people the opportunity to figure things out that they might not have.

He points out the wonderful things Google have done for its users, however that usage comes with a price. The price is paid with your data. When using Google maps you are giving up your geotags. He brings forward the point that Google’s revenue is 97% advertisements.

 

He explains however that the technology his company creates is not for everyone, that stock and trade cannot happen over their technology. The motives behind Facebook’s drones are not selfless. They are altruistic. He poses the question: How many people would pay 5 dollars a year and not give up their data? It is small sum in order to have the novelty of not being Google’s and Facebook’s product. Privacy policies should be a personal thing. People should be given the ability to decide for themselves. The technology should be developed that give people this control.

 

Ball ponders about the definition of consent, share and what we value in terms of privacy. Have we made informed decisions about what we share? Is it ok to share data if the identity of the users data remains anonymous? He asks anyone with an iPhone in the audience to partake in an experiment. By going into certain settings on their phones it can reveal every place its user has been to and ultimately decipher patterns such as your home and work locations. Ball expresses his detest for Silicon Valley’s urgue to invite its users to trust them. He claims that they are worse than the NSA.

 

The power of data has not been utilized yet to its potential. Ball states that collecting data is easy, it is knowing how to use the data that is a little trickier.  So far, all it is used for is ‘rubbish online adverts’.

 

Stewart recalls the crypto war as his first realisation of the privacy evasion. He stresses that privacy needs to be negotiated over time and that privacy has changed due to 9/11, that priority rose to make it easier to access what people were a risk. However, governments have fallen behind again and are going to be restricted in the information they can get due to the Snowden case. He feels that privacy and data exchange is a necessity to access and screen people entering the country.

 

So, what does privacy mean to you?...