Why Privacy Matters - Neil Richards

Neil Richards

Category: Education

Tags: Education

A much-needed corrective on what privacy is, why it matters, and how we can protect in an age when so many believe that the concept is dead. Everywhere we look, companies and governments are spying on usseeking information about us and everyone we know. Ad networks monitor our web-surfing to send us more relevant ads. The NSA screens our communications for signs of radicalism. Schools track students emails to stop school shootings. Cameras guard every street corner and traffic light, and drones fly in our skies. Databases of human information are assembled for purposes of training artificial intelligence programs designed to predict everything from traffic patterns to the location of undocumented migrants. Were even tracking ourselves, using personal electronics like Apple watches, Fitbits, and other gadgets that have made the quantified self a realistic possibility. As Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg once put it, the Age of Privacy is over. But Zuckerberg and others who say privacy is dead