How tech companies deceive you into giving up your data and privacy | Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad

133,461 views ・ 2018-11-21

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:13
Do you remember when you were a child,
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you probably had a favorite toy that was a constant companion,
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like Christopher Robin had Winnie the Pooh,
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and your imagination fueled endless adventures?
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What could be more innocent than that?
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Well, let me introduce you to my friend Cayla.
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Cayla was voted toy of the year in countries around the world.
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She connects to the internet and uses speech recognition technology
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to answer your child's questions,
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respond just like a friend.
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But the power doesn't lie with your child's imagination.
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It actually lies with the company harvesting masses of personal information
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while your family is innocently chatting away in the safety of their home,
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a dangerously false sense of security.
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This case sounded alarm bells for me,
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as it is my job to protect consumers' rights in my country.
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And with billions of devices such as cars,
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energy meters and even vacuum cleaners expected to come online by 2020,
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we thought this was a case worth investigating further.
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Because what was Cayla doing
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with all the interesting things she was learning?
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Did she have another friend she was loyal to and shared her information with?
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Yes, you guessed right. She did.
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In order to play with Cayla,
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you need to download an app to access all her features.
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Parents must consent to the terms being changed without notice.
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The recordings of the child, her friends and family,
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can be used for targeted advertising.
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And all this information can be shared with unnamed third parties.
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Enough? Not quite.
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Anyone with a smartphone can connect to Cayla
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within a certain distance.
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When we confronted the company that made and programmed Cayla,
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they issued a series of statements
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that one had to be an IT expert in order to breach the security.
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Shall we fact-check that statement and live hack Cayla together?
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Here she is.
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Cayla is equipped with a Bluetooth device
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which can transmit up to 60 feet,
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a bit less if there's a wall between.
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That means I, or any stranger, can connect to the doll
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while being outside the room where Cayla and her friends are.
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And to illustrate this,
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I'm going to turn Cayla on now.
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Let's see, one, two, three.
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There. She's on. And I asked a colleague
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to stand outside with his smartphone,
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and he's connected,
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and to make this a bit creepier ...
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(Laughter)
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let's see what kids could hear Cayla say in the safety of their room.
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Man: Hi. My name is Cayla. What is yours?
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Finn Myrstad: Uh, Finn.
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Man: Is your mom close by?
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FM: Uh, no, she's in the store.
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Man: Ah. Do you want to come out and play with me?
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FM: That's a great idea.
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Man: Ah, great.
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FM: I'm going to turn Cayla off now.
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(Laughter)
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We needed no password
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or to circumvent any other type of security to do this.
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We published a report in 20 countries around the world,
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exposing this significant security flaw
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and many other problematic issues.
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So what happened?
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Cayla was banned in Germany,
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taken off the shelves by Amazon and Wal-Mart,
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and she's now peacefully resting
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at the German Spy Museum in Berlin.
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(Laughter)
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However, Cayla was also for sale in stores around the world
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for more than a year after we published our report.
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What we uncovered is that there are few rules to protect us
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and the ones we have are not being properly enforced.
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We need to get the security and privacy of these devices right
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before they enter the market,
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because what is the point of locking a house with a key
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if anyone can enter it through a connected device?
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You may well think, "This will not happen to me.
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I will just stay away from these flawed devices."
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But that won't keep you safe,
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because simply by connecting to the internet,
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you are put in an impossible take-it-or-leave-it position.
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Let me show you.
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Like most of you, I have dozens of apps on my phone,
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and used properly, they can make our lives easier,
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more convenient and maybe even healthier.
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But have we been lulled into a false sense of security?
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It starts simply by ticking a box.
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Yes, we say,
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I've read the terms.
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But have you really read the terms?
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Are you sure they didn't look too long
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and your phone was running out of battery,
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and the last time you tried they were impossible to understand,
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and you needed to use the service now?
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And now, the power imbalance is established,
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because we have agreed to our personal information
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being gathered and used on a scale we could never imagine.
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This is why my colleagues and I decided to take a deeper look at this.
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We set out to read the terms
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of popular apps on an average phone.
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And to show the world how unrealistic it is
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to expect consumers to actually read the terms,
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we printed them,
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more than 900 pages,
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and sat down in our office and read them out loud ourselves,
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streaming the experiment live on our websites.
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As you can see, it took quite a long time.
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It took us 31 hours, 49 minutes and 11 seconds
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to read the terms on an average phone.
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That is longer than a movie marathon of the "Harry Potter" movies
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and the "Godfather" movies combined.
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(Laughter)
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And reading is one thing.
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Understanding is another story.
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That would have taken us much, much longer.
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And this is a real problem,
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because companies have argued for 20 to 30 years
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against regulating the internet better,
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because users have consented to the terms and conditions.
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As we've shown with this experiment,
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achieving informed consent is close to impossible.
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Do you think it's fair to put the burden of responsibility on the consumer?
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I don't.
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I think we should demand less take-it-or-leave-it
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and more understandable terms before we agree to them.
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07:22
(Applause)
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Thank you.
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Now, I would like to tell you a story about love.
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Some of the world's most popular apps are dating apps,
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an industry now worth more than, or close to, three billion dollars a year.
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And of course, we're OK sharing our intimate details
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with our other half.
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But who else is snooping,
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saving and sharing our information
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while we are baring our souls?
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My team and I decided to investigate this.
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And in order to understand the issue from all angles
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and to truly do a thorough job,
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I realized I had to download
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one of the world's most popular dating apps myself.
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So I went home to my wife ...
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(Laughter)
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who I had just married.
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"Is it OK if I establish a profile on a very popular dating app
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for purely scientific purposes?"
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(Laughter)
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This is what we found.
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Hidden behind the main menu was a preticked box
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that gave the dating company access to all my personal pictures on Facebook,
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in my case more than 2,000 of them,
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and some were quite personal.
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And to make matters worse,
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when we read the terms and conditions,
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we discovered the following,
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and I'm going to need to take out my reading glasses for this one.
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And I'm going to read it for you, because this is complicated.
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All right.
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"By posting content" --
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and content refers to your pictures, chat
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and other interactions in the dating service --
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"as a part of the service,
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you automatically grant to the company,
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its affiliates, licensees and successors
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an irrevocable" -- which means you can't change your mind --
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"perpetual" -- which means forever --
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"nonexclusive, transferrable, sublicensable, fully paid-up,
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worldwide right and license to use, copy, store, perform,
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display, reproduce, record,
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play, adapt, modify and distribute the content,
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prepare derivative works of the content,
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or incorporate the content into other works
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and grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing in any media
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now known or hereafter created."
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That basically means that all your dating history
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and everything related to it can be used for any purpose for all time.
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Just imagine your children seeing your sassy dating photos
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in a birth control ad 20 years from now.
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But seriously, though --
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(Laughter)
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what might these commercial practices mean to you?
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For example, financial loss:
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based on your web browsing history,
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algorithms might decide whether you will get a mortgage or not.
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Subconscious manipulation:
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companies can analyze your emotions based on your photos and chats,
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targeting you with ads when you are at your most vulnerable.
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Discrimination:
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a fitness app can sell your data to a health insurance company,
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preventing you from getting coverage in the future.
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All of this is happening in the world today.
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But of course, not all uses of data are malign.
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Some are just flawed or need more work,
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and some are truly great.
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And there is some good news as well.
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The dating companies changed their policies globally
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after we filed a legal complaint.
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But organizations such as mine
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that fight for consumers' rights can't be everywhere.
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Nor can consumers fix this on their own,
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because if we know that something innocent we said
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will come back to haunt us,
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we will stop speaking.
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If we know that we are being watched and monitored,
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we will change our behavior.
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And if we can't control who has our data and how it is being used,
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we have lost the control of our lives.
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The stories I have told you today are not random examples.
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They are everywhere,
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and they are a sign that things need to change.
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And how can we achieve that change?
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Well, companies need to realize that by prioritizing privacy and security,
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they can build trust and loyalty to their users.
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Governments must create a safer internet
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by ensuring enforcement and up-to-date rules.
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And us, the citizens?
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We can use our voice
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to remind the world that technology can only truly benefit society
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if it respects basic rights.
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Thank you so much.
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(Applause)
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