The Swiss Digital Initiative together with digitalswitzerland has launched a series with thought leaders on digital ethics and chose me as their first interview partner.
One of the questions was: „What can individuals do when they are faced with organisations that misuse their data?“
My answer:
„In an ideal world goods and services available to us should be safe, transparent and easy to understand by default. Supermarkets for example are highly regulated. Everything you buy there is safe for you to consume within moderation. That’s not the case today in the tech industry. Some products are harmful to their users and the makers are fully aware of this.
Default settings are rarely in the best interest of the people. Of course users can change the default settings, but how often do you really read cookie banners and change your settings accordingly? Convenience wins almost all of the time. Consumers shouldn’t be asked to do so much research before using a product.
Don’t get me wrong, education is great. But if the choice is either in-depth research or exploitation, we have a problem. If we keep this up, privacy will become a privilege of the wealthy“
Read the full interview here. Interested to know more? Get in touch.