Musing: Personal data ownership, virtual employment, and digital symbiotes

This is a post grown from a marmite-ish predecessor. A reaction to the drive to turn our personal data into a market priced commodity. Paying to play with our personal data – […]

Oct 2020

Diana Initiative 2020 – Making space for security and data protection governance

I was lucky enough to get to talk at the Diana Initiative 2020 conference. One particularly bright side to complement all the compromises we have been making this year. I have wanted […]

Sep 2020

Bullies and Boiling Frogs – Thoughts from 2016

The below is something I wrote in late 2016 to get a bubbling sense of dread out of my far too busy head. Originally posted under a pseudonym elsewhere, then removed because […]

Sep 2020

Opinion: Paying to play with our personal data – is it ok?

We’ve migrated from ‘Hot or Not?’ to being held virtually hostage by many of the digital platforms we rely on today. In the midst of that a new processing paradigm has emerged. Myriad startups want to pay to play with your personal data. Can that tackle on-going privacy and human rights issues?

Oct 2019

Moving Day

A quick update for all those kind enough to follow the blog, either by email or on wordpress.com. On 22nd September we’re off to a new hosting location, primarily to have some flexibility to use more privacy respecting third parties for selected services. Absolutely nothing else is going to change. Heading to infospectives.co.uk will still […]

Sep 2019

In AI we will blindly trust…

...and the architects, designers, data scientists, and developers will think we are nuts. People will buy AI without asking enough questions...it's human and market nature.

Jun 2019

Weighty considerations

TL;DR I’ve lost a lot of weight, I plan to lose plenty more, and the whole thing is lousy with analogies for the day job. …about a whale ball worth In the last 16 weeks I’ve lost 28 kilos, a.k.a. 62 of your US pounds, or very nearly (for those who came of age in the … Continue reading Weighty considerations

May 2019

Opinion: Morrisons, vicarious liability, and privacy risk management reality

On the face of it organisations were just made liable for nefarious data doings of any nasty individual they might have had the misfortune to employ…or nice employees who just mess up. Even if organisations do nothing wrong and things happen in spite of ‘appropriate’ control, they might be vicariously liable. In this attempt to … Continue reading "Opinion:...

Nov 2018

Children’s Comissioner on concerning use of school children’s data

We welcome the Children’s Commissioner report “Who knows what about me?” which shows how children’s data is routinely collected online. The report points out that children are among the first to be ‘datafied’ from birth, including policy and practice in schools, and comments on the datafication of children in the education sector; school databases, classroom…read...

Nov 2018

Protected: Have we withdrawn permission to disagree?

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Oct 2018