Beyond Privacy Theatre, Or Why Our Laws Mean We Can’t Have Nice Things
Over the past year or so, I've been struggling to articulate exactly why the practice of data protection has frequently felt like a defeatist slog. A few days ago, I read an amazing piece by Zvi Mowshowitz, and it helped to define a form for all the thoug
I’ve been experiencing a lot of frustration (exasperation? nihilism?) when it comes to the practice of privacy and data protection as of late.
Laws are changing rapidly, making it nearly impossible to keep up. Each new law tries to be just a bit more clever than the others before it – and all of these laws are increasingly more focused on symbolic gestures rather than meaningful action. That leaves practitioners and companies swimming uphill against a vast river of “privacy compliance” busywork that does little to actually protect data, individual rights, or anything else. And of course, everyone is collectively freaking out about AI and its privacy implications. Myself included.
To borrow a phrase from Bruce Schneier, it’s not really about privacy or data protection anymore – we’re now all performing “privacy theater”.
The Thing and the Symbolic Representation of the Thing
I recently stumbled across a thought-provoking article, penned in 2015 by Zvi Mowshowitz on his excellent blog ‘D…
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