I had the privilege to host and moderate the digital privacy panel at Henley Club with Ivan Chua. Joining us on the panel were four privacy-conscious researchers, experts, and consultants: Dr Vanessa Teague, Ellen Broad, Gabor Szathmari, and Prof Dali Kaafar.
Many threads of digital privacy were had. I took away some key points as below:
- We need to be transparent about how we anonymise, encrypt & handle data. Publish the method ahead for critique.
- Data is a messy—'thing'—that everyone talks about, but has different meanings. For example, open access versus closed, specific access
- Consumers should be able to request from companies what they have on them. For that to be useful, data need to be in small digest forms
- Being transparent in data sharing / analysis practices also helps others to learn by example. You can also learn from public inspections.
- Ethical practice is a fluid thing. Everyone has a different reaction to the same way their data is shared.
- Pay attention to context: you can infer items about someone with small info, even when they haven't given you anything new about them.
- Differential privacy: the maths to maximise accuracy of data while minimising the chance of its records being re-identified.
Got tips on digital privacy? Feel free to reach out.
