The transition to the post-Snowden era continues to raise the same concerns that his revelations brought to the fore. Citizens' privacy in the digital environment is a nostalgic memory, as nothing guarantees that the extensive electronic surveillance of citizens has… passed. At the same time, the practice of Internet companies requesting access to more and more personal data, especially in smartphone applications, highlights the problem with greater intensity.
On June 2 (10:00 am), at Technopolis (Gazi), the postgraduate program "Qualitative Journalism and New Technologies" co-organizes with the General Secretariat of Information the Conference "Personal Data, Propaganda and Freedom of the Press", attempting to highlight the need for a new digital Alphabet, a framework for protecting the privacy of the Citizen, as well as the conditions necessary for the flourishing of independent information.
Among the prominent speakers, in the “Personal Data” section, will be Professor George Mitakidis, Chairman of the “Digital Enlightenment Forum” Organization and participant in the creation of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), a cornerstone for the development of the Internet. As he says, “when Edward Snowden’s revelations were made public, those involved in the issue, in Brussels and elsewhere, said, wait, we knew it. And it’s true. And they even said that the reactions that followed were hypocritical.
Many times, however, in political life, when something comes to the fore, things change. This is what the Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, said, it was an awakening. Then we saw a chain of reactions in various countries, Germany, Brazil, we had a new situation, a new awareness and this creates the possibilities to do something, inspired by the Enlightenment, to put certain situations on the map. Hence Tim Berners-Lee's recent announcement about the need for a Magna Carta of the Internet. After all, the first official edition of the Rights of Man was in that ideological and temporal framework.
Another message of the Enlightenment was the empowerment of the individual, his emancipation. To be able to make his own decisions, to have a level of knowledge and not to become a slave. Eisenhower, in his farewell speech, spoke of the threat from the military-industrial complex. Now, we are in danger of becoming slaves of the banking-technological complex. If you take the so-called GAFA (Google – Apple – Facebook – Amazon) and examine collectively the control they have over us and on the other hand the financial and banking establishment, we have a new form, worse than the one that Eisenhower had warned about. It is a given that we are defenseless against them.
The difficult question is what choices we really have as Europeans, as Greeks, as individuals. When, for example, the director of Google comes out and says something like “this is the price for having free services”, we understand that nothing is free. We pay a lot for this service. Don’t they make a profit with our personal data? How much do they make and what do they give us? We have to weigh the real data so that the right choices can be made.”.
For his part, the head of the “Qualitative Journalism and New Technologies” program, Marios Nottas, focuses on the issue of passive acceptance of the terms of use of various digital applications: “Those who think they are installing “safe” programs on their computers should think again. The concept is simply non-existent. And what’s worse: We ourselves consent. The legal departments of those who develop software, for reasonable but also abusive reasons, take care of two things: a) That we “agree” to the usually illegible, long-winded and foreign-language terms as a condition for using the program, and b) that we even…preemptively agree to terms that they will formulate in the future.
The global situation that prevails in 2014 is reminiscent of an immense digital banana, and - apparently - "no one is sweating". Of course, there are worse things. The 'dark' processes that are hidden behind the "innocent" data that the software in question collects about the user and his habits, as well as the "innocent" network of partners of the "manufacturing" company, which gains access to this same data. And we are not talking about its current (unknown to us) partners, but even the ..future ones.
Let us hope that both universities and the responsible bodies, especially the competent Independent Authority, and even more so active citizens, will mobilize for a safer and fairer digital future, or as we will discuss on Monday at Technopolis, there will be a common understanding on the necessity of a new Digital Magna Carta. A Charter, that is, that will redefine Digital Citizenship, our new coexistence in social groups whose lives are determined (fortunately or unfortunately) by New Technologies.”.
The conference starts at 10:00 AM on Monday, June 2 and will be broadcast online by kathimerini.gr. More information can be found on the website www.pressfreedomday.com.
Source: kathimerini.gr
