Everyone is suddenly worried about my data.

[kyteflyer]

I'd suggest the google and facebook apologists take the time to watch a UK show called "The Secrets of Silicon Valley" It was shown in 2 parts over here on our ABC, and I suppose it might have made it to youtube and other locations. I had already left facebook and am trying (and failing) to divest myself of google (nobody else has made a google earth). anyway, I found it quite scary overall, especially where they discuss influencing people on facebook with regard to the election which brought Trump to power. And I know that China exerts political influence here in Australia through many many channels. I'm staying out of FB this time round. Google I can live with, albeit somewhat unwillingly... facebook scares me.

 

[Lightmancer]

Sue, I left Facebook and Apple more than a decade ago, ditto Flickr when Yahoo moved in, because I disagreed not with what they did but the clumsy and opaque way they did it. I use Whatsapp and Instagram in full knowledge of their ownership. Google? I do not "apologise" for them at all. Their behaviours are simply more transparent and therefore less of a concern to me than, say, Apple.

Consider for a moment my background. Thirty years of working for some of the biggest SIs and ISVs on the planet, ten years in CX... I not only know how the majors behave, I know what they do, how and why, and have long advised milti-billion pound enterprises how to better engage with their customers and staff using the same tools and techniques.

Today I run my own digital health company, specialising in elder care. Those with the need for our services do not pay for the product. We monetise from those who wish to access and thereby make money from that customer base. That makes us no different from all the other companies that do the same - just smaller.

Fact is, ss I keep saying, if you do not pay for the product you are the product. You accept that, or you stop using the service. Like Brian, where I have an issue is third-party deemed acceptance, as well as shadow-profiling by the likes of Facebook and others.

GDPR stops nothing. It makes it harder, but the majors are already seeking loopholes to exploit - and will find them. This will never end. Since the first advertising executive dragged himself out of the primordial ooze (not a long journey, admittedly...) there have been targeted adverts. Read "Murder Must Advertise" By Dorothy L. Sayers and see how little has really changed. There is nothing new about sentiment and propensity analysis, segmentation, persona mapping, journey mapping, nudge... Technology just makes it faster and easier to get to an end result using more data points.

Back in the 1950s my mother worked in Winchester Crown Court. One of her tasks each day was to skim all the daily newspapers to see if there was any reference or relevance to ongoing cases. She developed a deep snd abiding distrust of single-source media and brought me up to understand that the "red tops" reported the "news" differently from the "broadsheets". Neither was right or wrong, but each spun the facts to suit themselves (The Daily Mail is in its own parallel dimension - don't ever go there...)

Ultimately, you pays your money (or not) and you take your choice. The crime is not what is offered, it is blind acceptance and failure to spread your own "portfolio" of information, service and product suppliers across a broad spectrum.

 

[kyteflyer]

No need to take my remarks personally, Bill. I agree with much of what you have said.

 

[Lightmancer]

Sue, I take nothing personally! Just trying to give some context.

 

[kyteflyer]

Sure. Lets drop it now.

 

[drd1135]

well we're all doomed anyways.

That's the spirit!

 

[Amin]

Would the person calling you want the conversation monitored?

I don't know. I assume that all of my phone and internet communications are being monitored in some fashion, and I am not bothered by that. For those who want to be sure that their communications are entirely unmonitored, I feel it's on them to make sure that they take the necessary precautions, whatever those may be.

Many European democracies stored and collected information on their citizens, financial information, gossip, political activity, religion...
When democracies fell, all that information was used for originally unintended purposes.

I share much of that information in public and remain optimistic about how my public and private data are used by the government, Facebook, Google, etc. I agree that there is some risk to that, but there is also risk to stepping out of my home in the morning.

 

[Amin]

Basically, you've just lost your autonomy as a human being.

I am not persuaded by your argument, Bart. Throughout history, we've all been influenced by other humans in various ways. I don't believe that such influences, alone or in combination, will ever be absolute.

hard to believe Verizon's answer to all concerns is to simply tell people accept the terms that everything they do is being monitored or quit using their services.

It is wrong for a company to obfuscate what they are doing. However, if they are clear about what they are doing and no one is forced to use their services, I don't see anything wrong with a "take it or leave it" approach. That said, it's less clear cut when we are talking about a vital service with no local competition as can be the case for some telecoms in some areas.

Basically, I think that Article 7 + Recital 43 is very unfair to site owners/publishers.

Consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does not allow separate consent to be given to different personal data processing operations despite it being appropriate in the individual case, or if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance.

I think that if the site owner / publisher is 100% honest and transparent about their use of personal data, they should be allowed to say that a person is not allowed to use their services unless they agree to the specified use of personal data.

For example, if I were to say that someone has to consent to allow ad personalization tracking cookies in order to use my photography forums and to explain in clear language what that means, that would not allowed under GDPR. It is considered to be forced consent. But I am not forcing anyone to use my site! Basically they are telling me that I cannot specify how I want to be paid for services rendered.

That's just an example. I wouldn't choose that route even if GDPR did allow it. But I feel that I should have the freedom to do so.

 

[Brian]

I'm a big believer in vote with your wallet. I do not like paying a company for 10 years for a service to have them suddenly declare that it was "free" and they could change the TOS in such a drastic fashion.

 

[MortyCapp]

I share much of that information in public and remain optimistic about how my public and private data are used by the government, Facebook, Google, etc. I agree that there is some risk to that, but there is also risk to stepping out of my home in the morning.

You are kidding right?
When I was 19yo in the '80s I applied for the Police Inspector exam (that position and structure no longer exist in that country).
Before I was allowed to sit the exam I was summoned to the office of one inspector.
He pulled up a file containing pictures of me as a student in peaceful demonstrations, copies of my flight tickets to the USA as an exchange student, copies of my bank statements, various other pieces of information regarding my sports and hobbies.
He proceeded to try to convince me that my profile did not match the culture of the Police and I should not bother.
That was SOFT pressure.
Think of all the people in the '30s '40s in Europe that suddenly were deemed not to fit the profiles of ideal citizens set by the new governments and were arrested, jailed...

 

[Amin]

You are kidding right?

I am not kidding. Think of all the people throughout history who were not arrested or jailed for sharing information about themselves. I am far more likely to be killed because I choose to drive to work today than I am to be jailed because I email someone a political opinion that Google does an automated scan of.

 

[MortyCapp]

I am not kidding. Think of all the people throughout history who were not arrested or jailed for sharing information about themselves. I am far more likely to be killed because I choose to drive to work today than I am to be jailed because I email someone a political opinion that Google does an automated scan of.

It is a fascinating topic indeed.
I don't think I can agree with you but that's OK with me.

Isn't one of the reasons why in some countries people are more likely to die of a car crash that their human rights are protected?
And as technology changes, they have to be enshrined in the new environment.
This is one of the reason behind the GDPR.

I was not thinking of emailing but more of being born in the wrong country, having the wrong religion, being disabled.
In addition, what history teaches us is that TODAY's situation is by no means a guarantee that TOMORROW your rights will not be infringed.
Poets, journalists, teachers, educated professionals no doubt believed that their lives were not at risk in 1932.
By 1945 many (the numbers are difficult to obtain, and I am excluding religious persecution or assassination of disabled people) were not alive to admit the error of their thinking.
Imagine a racially driven government or dictator takes over the country you live in and decides that only certain people deserve to live.
Having access to the data would make it easy for them to implement their policies (again, Europe 1940s).
They could start by segregating people on race, then on political opinion, religious beliefs.
Humanity has been there, is doing that.

Taking your point that you are more than likely to be killed in a road accident, we can take it further and state that we all are 100% certain of dying, so the manner in which we die does not matter.

 

[Brian]

Some companies look up the Internet posts of job candidates, Twitter, Facebook, etc. If Email Service providers offered profiles based on monitored Email content, some companies might pay to have it. If profiles are used to tailor Ads, they could easily be used to build a profile that could be used for other purposes. It would not be hard to do.

I've used the Internet since 1980, Email for almost as long. I wrote my own SMTP stack in RISC assembly language. I could probably get a job with these service providers. My code would run faster than anything they can come up with. But as I read all this, I think how much fun it would be to pass the list of 10,000 most commonly used words through their sniffers. Just append it to all my Emails. Will have to use them in context.

 

[MortyCapp]

Some companies look up the Internet posts of job candidates, Twitter, Facebook, etc. If Email Service providers offered profiles based on monitored Email content, some companies might pay to have it. If profiles are used to tailor Ads, they could easily be used to build a profile that could be used for other purposes. It would not be hard to do.

I've used the Internet since 1980, Email for almost as long. I wrote my own SMTP stack in RISC assembly language. I could probably get a job with these service providers. My code would run faster than anything they can come up with. But as I read all this, I think how much fun it would be to pass the list of 10,000 most commonly used words through their sniffers. Just append it to all my Emails. Will have to use them in context.

Some of the cases you describe are already a reality. Profiling of candidates based on their internet behaviour happens all the time.

 

[Lightmancer]

Some companies look up the Internet posts of job candidates, Twitter, Facebook, etc....

I would go as far as to say "most".

Meet Kroll. They are utilised by a large number of corporates for a number of purposes including background checking on new employees. I am just citing them as an example. There are many others, I simply have personal experience of them.

The logic is simple. A hiring mistake can cost a company millions...

 

[tonyturley]

The logic is simple. A hiring mistake can cost a company millions...

That is true, and I have heard of instances where an HR employee sits a candidate down at a computer and asks them to log into their favorite social media account so the hiring official can have a sniff. Were I said candidate, I would decline and walk out immediately. To me, that falls under the same thought that law enforcement has used sometimes in this country: "if you have nothing to hide, you won't object to me searching your car."

 

[Brian]

That is true, and I have heard of instances where an HR employee sits a candidate down at a computer and asks them to log into their favorite social media account so the hiring official can have a sniff. Were I said candidate, I would decline and walk out immediately. To me, that falls under the same thought that law enforcement has used sometimes in this country: "if you have nothing to hide, you won't object to me searching your car."

I'd log onto here and talk to them about Leica cameras and Sonnar lenses. Of course I worked with Digital Imagers in the early 1980s and have been in an Optics Division since 1979.

 

[bartjeej]

I am not persuaded by your argument, Bart. Throughout history, we've all been influenced by other humans in various ways. I don't believe that such influences, alone or in combination, will ever be absolute.

The difference to the past, here, being that
1 the amount of knowledge that is available about you far, far outdoes anything the Stasi knew about East Germans

2 the day that computers will outsmart (not just out-compute, but actually outsmart) even the smartest human beings is close. As a doctor, you must be aware of the attempts at automated diagnostics - in a few years' time, no human being can link several vague symptoms to specific causes like a computer can (not even Dr House). This trend is occurring everywhere. In the slightly longer term, the jobs most at risk are not manual labor, but anything involving a thinking or analytical mind. Bookkeepers are almost unnecessary already; the number of accountants, lawyers, and doctors necessary to keep society running will plummet. Same for programmers, by the way; in a few years' time, AI will write better code than humans; it just needs 1 creative person to tell it what the final product should look like. And perhaps a few more years down the line, AI combined with Google's and Facebook's data on people will invent new products which are commercially most interesting, write the code itself, and allow the cash to roll in for whomever is the lucky bastard that owns that AI. Plumbers, however, will be safe for the next few decades, as will policemen and nurses. Drivers (private, but also taxi, truck, bus etc) are already very close the point of being replaced by safer, less accident-prone, never getting lost autonomous cars.

In this world, having an algorithm understand you better than you do yourself, and influence your thoughts to make you change your opinion from A to B, really won't be that difficult.

It is wrong for a company to obfuscate what they are doing. However, if they are clear about what they are doing and no one is forced to use their services, I don't see anything wrong with a "take it or leave it" approach. That said, it's less clear cut when we are talking about a vital service with no local competition as can be the case for some telecoms in some areas.

Basically, I think that Article 7 + Recital 43 is very unfair to site owners/publishers.



I think that if the site owner / publisher is 100% honest and transparent about their use of personal data, they should be allowed to say that a person is not allowed to use their services unless they agree to the specified use of personal data.

For example, if I were to say that someone has to consent to allow ad personalization tracking cookies in order to use my photography forums and to explain in clear language what that means, that would not allowed under GDPR. It is considered to be forced consent. But I am not forcing anyone to use my site! Basically they are telling me that I cannot specify how I want to be paid for services rendered.

That's just an example. I wouldn't choose that route even if GDPR did allow it. But I feel that I should have the freedom to do so.

I agree with you there - that goes too far. The internet has no real public space, and if I choose to enter your private space (server) it is fair that I should follow your rules.

My argument is not that GDPR is perfectly executed, it's just that data protection is so, so much more important than people think. The advance of AI can't be stopped, and it will turn society on its head. The question is whether we give it the data about ourselves that AI needs to not just change our jobs, but also our opinions and autonomy.

 

[Amin]

Taking your point that you are more than likely to be killed in a road accident, we can take it further and state that we all are 100% certain of dying, so the manner in which we die does not matter.

What I am saying is that there are risks and worst case scenarios to many of the things we do. It's about whether the benefits outweigh the risks in any particular case. I get enough enjoyment, services, etc, in return for sacrificing my privacy that I will take my chances with the various doomsday possibilities.

Some people make a parallel argument that we should not share pics of our kids online. Another case where I feel that for me the risks are outweighed by the benefits.

 

[MortyCapp]

What I am saying is that there are risks and worst case scenarios to many of the things we do. It's about whether the benefits outweigh the risks in any particular case. I get enough enjoyment, services, etc, in return for sacrificing my privacy that I will take my chances with the various doomsday possibilities.

Some people make a parallel argument that we should not share pics of our kids online. Another case where I feel that for me the risks are outweighed by the benefits.

Then I don't understand the logic of opposing the GDPR.
What the GDPR does is give individuals control of the risks associated with their data.