Practical Data Privacy

Chapter 11. Go Forth and Engineer Privacy!

You’ve learned so much in this book thus far! I hope you are inspired to do data science differently. You’ve learned a variety of new skills, theories, and technologies that can help you steer your team and the entire industry in new directions. To wrap up, I’d like to discuss the impact that data has on the world and how you can make choices that affect not only your daily work but also the lives of others.

I’m going to walk through several alarming phenomena that machine learning and its related data analysis and collection have created or expedited in the world. Then I’ll go through ways communities are fighting back and using techniques you’ve learned in this book to have more control of their life and work.

Surveillance Capitalism and Data Science

You may have heard the term surveillance capitalism before; perhaps you’ve even read the book by Shoshana Zuboff of the same title.

Surveillance capitalism describes an economic system where personal data is used as a form of capital. The phrase “If it’s free, you are the product” exactly explains what surveillance capitalism is and how it functions. The idea of collecting data by providing free or discounted services is not new, but the ability to turn that data into massive value is fairly recent. Advances in data collection, analysis, and machine learning open new possibilities where data brings value to a company and therefore has become a form of capital.

But why should you care? ...