Data protection & AI: How can we control our creations?

Can blockchain re-define data ownership? Do you need a bigger virtual wallet? What do CEOs do?

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Data protection & AI: How can we control our creations? 🤖 Adam Corey, VP of Marketing at Tealium, discusses the opportunities for machine learning and how the benefits are only possible if "data and processes are in optimal shape" and are compliant with privacy laws:

After all, machine learning will only ever be as good as the data and programming powering the technology.

Last week, the government announced new laws to grant people more control over how others use their personal data. 🛡 Alongside matching many GDPR measures, the new Data Protection Bill will include two new criminal offences (with unlimited fines):

Re-identifying people from anonymous data: Data is often kept anonymous to respect people’s privacy, but by piecing many of these bits together, it might be possible to identify an individual’s browsing habits or credit card transactions.
Changing data: Organisations could also face criminal charges if they are found tampering with data that has been requested by an individual.

-- Conversely, Lukasz Olejnik, cyber security and privacy researcher at Princeton, warned that this bill will inadvertently criminalise uncovering personal data abuses and may reduce research 😬 :

I worry that if re-identification is simply banned, there might be no incentive for sane security and privacy engineering designs. It’s a paradox, but re-identification ban might end up leading into overall weaker systems.

Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, published part two of her General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) myth-busting series (part one here). ⚔ This week, Denham addresses how consent is not the 'silver bullet' for GDPR compliance. Denham emphasises the importance of companies starting to prepare now, rather than "waiting for us to publish our final guidance on consent". 📚

Can blockchain re-define data ownership? 👀 Ben Dickson discusses the growing movement towards decentralised platforms:

The centralised architecture has dominated internet services for the past decades. Under this model, you have to entrust our digital information to brokers such as Facebook and Google. These companies store our data, guarantee its security and integrity, and leverage it to improve their services. But they also use it for other business purposes, often without your consent and giving you little choice. If the broker decides to close down your account, or if their servers fail, all your data goes with it.

KEY TAKEAWAY - the technologies that support the "creation, storage and distribution" of digital information need to "reflect that value and safeguard the rights and interest of its true owners". ✅

Quoting The Economist, Demian Brener estimates the value of digital information is currently $2.5 trillion 💰💰💰 -- as the tech giants have built their businesses by gathering, managing and selling users data:

via The Economist

Are you going to need a bigger virtual wallet? Tyler Cowen examines the explosion of the cryptocurrency market (for example, how Filecoin raised over $200 million in 60 minutes) and why "there's reason to doubt a consolidation is coming". 💸 Cowen interestingly points out that, due to these alt coins, the "actual practice of money is outracing anything found in economic theory or in the law". 🤔

Looking forward - Ramon Recuero, writing for Y Combinator, predicts:

The web took decades to mature. It went through periods of high speculation and subsequent crashes. It’s important to remember that even during those periods, great companies like Amazon or Google were founded. It is only reasonable to expect the Blockchain ecosystem to follow a similar timeline. Cryptocurrencies and Tokens raised a record $1.27 billion in the first half of 2017 through Initial Coin Offerings. Most of them won’t survive but a chosen few will, laying down the foundation of a new age.

Miscellaneous

✅ What CEOs do: It's "better to double down on your strengths rather than trying to be something that you’re not".

💭 Part six of Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo.

😎 Microsoft was ordered to let third parties scrape LinkedIn data.

🤖 Uber agreed to 20 years of privacy audits.

⛓ Biohackers encoded malware in a strand of DNA.

💜 Neat write-up on reverse engineering IoT devices.

🚗 How far can you drive out of the city in one hour? Data viz: