Category: Privacy

Privacy Metaphors

We are living through a privacy tipping point.  Technology is dramatically changing what is possible in terms of surveillance, monitoring, persistence, analysis.  We are cracking open the lid of Pandora’s Box. We still don’t really know what’s in the box....

/ 20 January 2014

Reconciling Open Data and Privacy

Digital rights advocates have a hard time these days because the ability to manifest things online and the growth of online data have brought two “rights” into conflict.  On one hand transparency and accountability advocates argue that getting government data...

/ 16 August 2013

The Open Data Cart and Twin Horses of Accountability and Innovation

Let me start by saying that the ideals of the Open Data movement: transparency; accountability; and, citizen innovation, are ones that I hold near to my heart.  Further, I admire and respect many of the leaders of the Open Data...

/ 19 June 2013

Prism – A Wake-up Call for South Africa?

Richard Poplak wrote a great article earlier today in the Daily Maverick about how the balance between what we can know about government versus what they can know about us has gotten “completely out of whack”.  And while I agreed with...

/ 12 June 2013

35 Reasons to Worry About Privacy in Africa

Over the last five years there has been a steady trend for African governments to implement mandatory SIM card registration policies.  This means that you can’t buy a SIM card for a mobile phone without producing an ID document and...

/ 17 September 2012