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Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data
a book by Carissa Véliz
(our site's book review)
The Amazon blurb says that An Economist Book of the Year
Every minute of every day, our data is harvested and exploited… It is time to pull the plug on the surveillance economy.
Governments and hundreds of corporations are spying on you, and everyone you know. They're not just selling your data. They're selling the power to influence you and decide for you. Even when you've explicitly asked them not to.
Reclaiming privacy is the only way we can regain control of our lives and our societies. These governments and corporations have too much power, and their power stems from us—from our data. Privacy is as collective as it is personal, and it's time to take back control.
Privacy Is Power tells you how to do exactly that. It calls for the end of the data economy and proposes concrete measures to bring that end about, offering practical solutions, both for policymakers and ordinary citizens.
Invisibility isn't just for superheroes—privacy is a power you deserve and need in the age of Big Brother and Big Data, but invisibility is a CHOICE that takes work and planning; see The Art of Invisibility: The World's Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data, a book by Kevin Mitnick that will help us in reclaiming our privacy and our power
Invisibility isn't just for superheroes—privacy is a power you deserve and need in the age of Big Brother and Big Data, but invisibility is a CHOICE that takes work and planning and The Art of Invisibility by Kevin Mitnick
Privacy Is Power is "A forceful call for us to tame the data economy by reclaiming our privacy ... and our power.", Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet
In this bold, original, and engaging book, Carissa Véliz makes a compelling case for the revolutionary goal of reclaiming privacy from the grip of a destructive data economy. While many have lamented the ills of surveillance capitalism, Véliz's courageous manifesto paves a clear path for regaining power--taking back our ill-gotten information from tech companies and data brokers and reinvigorating democracy in the process., Evan Selinger, Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy
How much does it matter that every day we unwittingly hand over more and more of our personal data to internet giants? In this smart, stylishly written, and alarming volume Carissa Veliz argues that it matters a great deal and that we don't have to put up with it. Essential reading for those of us who click 'agree' ten times a day., Jonathan Wolff, author of An Introduction to Moral Philosophy
Fly #353242252 reporting: Citizen #312,756,972 doesn't seem to be hiding a thing—my conclusion is that she's clean; but just to be sure I think I'll hang around a bit longer!
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it," Scott McNealy once said to reporters. This book is a thoughtful response to the claim of Sun Microsystem's co-founder. It shows that we still have privacy to lose and why we should protect privacy for ourselves and for others. Engagingly written, clear and admirably brief, Véliz shows how we ended up with societies built around the buying and selling of personal data; why this is bad personally and politically; and what we can do to change things. A fantastic little book., Anabelle Lever, author of On Privacy
Privacy Is Power is a great read for anyone who desires to begin enhancing their privacy in a time when we are all trading it away for "free" services. (Did you really think Google and Facebook and YouTube were without cost to you?) Most of the information in this book is not new to hackers but it is to the guy on the street. Mitnick's prose is engaging, and he tells a good story while he lets you know that Big Brother is always watching you.
Mitnick's prose is engaging, and he tells a good story while he lets you know that Big Brother is always watching you; In a world where your smart TV can spy on you and your cellphone can reveal your location to any party with the ability to download tracking software, the odds are that your data is compromised
"Privacy Is Power is directed at a wide and general audience: anyone with an interest in democracy, privacy, or big tech will find this book interesting and very readable. Véliz does not expound a theory of privacy as such, but her argument is that information is power and big technology companies hold too much personal information about us. There are insufficient limits to the amount of personal information that companies can collect and what they can do with it. Véliz believes that the battle for one's privacy is a struggle for power, and that personal data is toxic—two important themes of her book. The Art of Invisibility by Kevin Mitnick is a great companion book with Privacy Is Power.
Orwell's thought police is brought to mind when we see how the data police have taken it upon themselves to spy on us and sell what they have learned to dozens of nosy entities, all without asking permission
"She states that ‘privacy matters because the lack of it gives others power over you.’ There is a significant information imbalance between digital platforms like Google and Facebook, and the users of those platforms. While Véliz uses Google and Facebook as examples of big tech’s unquenchable thirst for personal data, she also highlights the risk of governments having too much information about us and becoming authoritarian in nature. China is a prime example with its social credit system influencing every aspect of its citizens’ lives." (Source: Carissa Véliz, Privacy Is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data, Louise Wilsdon)
By 2008, the idea of communications privacy in the United States had literally become a joke—our government watches your every move
Experts will benefit from some pretty innovative ideas:
Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI, as well as a Tutorial Fellow at Hertford College, at the University of Oxford. Véliz has published articles in the Guardian, The New York Times, New Statesman, and the Independent. Her academic work has been published in The Harvard Business Review, Nature Electronics, Nature Energy, and The American Journal of Bioethics, among other journals. She is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics.
Edward Snowden, heroic whistleblower, the Internet’s conscience, Edward Snowden has demonstrated the type of courage and wisdom we all need to aspire to, Edward Snowden has demonstrated the type of courage and wisdom missing in today's world
In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. See Permanent Record.
Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online—a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic, like Privacy Is Power.
"In Privacy Is Power, Carissa Véliz provides an insightful account of the relationship between privacy and power and sets out steps you can take to protect your privacy in an age of big data. Véliz argues persuasively that a largely unregulated tech industry is detrimental to free and democratic societies.