The Privacy Mission

INTRODUCTION

The subject of data ethics and how the digital world impacts our privacy and basic rights has never been more urgent. This is no longer an academic or niche geek issue as it had been since the inception of the internet and the World Wide Web. Digital and data ethics are issues that affect all our lives, particularly as we have been forced to live increasingly online due to the Covid‐19 pandemic.

We all have to start thinking about who controls the manufacture of and access to the hardware (including how it's manufactured and where the raw materials come from), who runs the software, who can spy on us, who can hack us and who can data farm us. These are issues that we, at the very least, need to be aware of in modern society. We need to ask what threats we need to protect ourselves from democratically, socially and personally. While there is certainly an element of individual responsibility, it is also essential to turn the lens onto business and governments. How can corporations protect us rather than prey on us, and how can so doing help their bottom line?

In this book, I aim to explore both the overarching concepts and principles about why this is important, and offer practical solutions for companies, policymakers and individuals to empower them to push back against these known threats, as well as to future‐proof themselves going forward.

Technology is developing and expanding exponentially. The rate of change is unprecedented and it is only accelerating. What ...