J1 SAY 02 Gregor Žavcer Personal Data, Privacy and Ethics

nice - nice to see is such a big attendance at such an early hour I will do my best to keep a coherent presentation kind of early also a lot of familiar faces people I respect dick please so I guess the stage fright is a little bit bigger because of that even so what I'm going to talk today about is personal data privacy and ethics in a decentralized world and we will it's the intent of this presentation is actually not to provide any answers hopefully the result of this talk will be that you have more questions so yeah let's start first a little bit of a context my name is Gregor I'm one of the cofounders of data fund project data fund is a protocol that guards personal data and provide safe storage and enables data exchange personal data exchange so information is shared on a need-to-know basis and at the same time we try to incentivize the sharing of anonymous data during the talk I will try to maybe also draw some parallels about the challenges that we face so it's also considering the time frame we will just glance or some topics cause actually personal data privacy and ethics are topics that could deserve it each of these topic could deserve its own conference so what is personal data first just a quick definition personal data we see as any kind of data that can reveal individuals identity and here we also need to take into account that sometimes we have anonymous data streams but when those anonymous data streams are come mind they can lead to identity revelation and in that sense they also become again a personal data and why why is personal data important it's because we live in a data-driven society and this data-driven society is fueled by personal data personal data actually is responsible for break Siddhant Trump among others we wouldn't think about it on the first thought but when we look at the behind at what happened in backstage how how people were targeted with ads and messages that are designed to elicit emotional responses and it's within the let's say personal data community it's quite clear that those were the factors that move the move the needle so so we have this is an example of one one type of research these researchers specifically who did this actually made a public complaint that his research was abused by a company called Cambridge analytic and Cambridge analytical's biggest clients in 2016 were yes breaks it and Trump and in this sense hyper targeted ads do change our beliefs and attitudes and what is most important without our awareness and this is this is one of the keys I think that we need to we need to recognize in today's time that there is a lot of activities happening that we are actually not aware of because they're already so sophisticated so in that sense our online actions without us noticing reveal our personality profiles and at the same time what we need to consider is that our offline actions are actually influenced by online activities and the person who knows your personality can actually devise device systems they can devise activities that influence you without you being aware and here what we need to think about is actually in the sense also some research indicates that 50% almost 50% of our daily decisions are decisions that we're not aware of and this ranges from simple things like that we don't think which should we put on first to to complex things like relationships sometimes we react in relationships and then later we ask ourselves why did we do that this is all basically the works of the brain and it has to be like this cuz this is actually what gives us human a competitive advantage against other species but is the brain does not distinguish between bad and good habits and our personality model Lincoln insights it's becoming a big business it's actually you can go online you can do demos you can try out already like a couple of years ago IBM needed around 200 tweets to break down your personality in more than 40 traits so your personality profile is out there and you can also then imagine what does this mean you are I B M and other companies are offering this to the enterprise sector you call customer support and you know with that customer support it just makes click and it's like wow they're so cool guys I'm going to buy more so this is one aspect we're not going to touch on a couple of them and the other very important aspect is that physical and virtual worlds have merged and simple a simple example would be how we can see today that I don't know a lot of people go to a concert not to listen to music but to make a photo and to collect likes so it's again the virtual is influencing the physical and vice-versa and in this context personal data is becoming the digital extension of us the digital self therefore a shared photo is actually a lot more than a photo its experts look from colors to composition to time when it was posted to the content it's like a photo really tells more than thousand words and now let's think about an Instagram stream let's let's think about all the other social media streams all the likes how much it emerged a reveal and it week and then if we combine this with personality modeling it becomes a little bit worrisome another thing is we create these data streams and we see a trend just a question how many of you have heard of the social credit system in China well that's why I like this crowd so usually usually I'm the only one knowing this and yeah in in summary what's happening there is social credit score system in China is kind of like a credit score just reduces a lot more data sources drawing from social media our online behavior in general and so forth and it's not just used for deciding if a person is entitled to alone or not it's what at the moment the system is being tested and there are only rewards so if you if your behavior is aligned with the guidelines and directives of the Communist Party in China then your score goes up if it's not it goes down and it's going to be mandatory in 2020 and in 2020 China is also going to introduce punishments so what does this mean if your credit score is low parents won't be able to send kids to the schools to the schools they want you will have more the Chinese people will have more difficulties to get visa to travel some of them won't be able to book better flights and so forth and it gets even crazier it's like if your friends have a low social score then you get punished also and now let's let's let's let this sink in you know so in that sense it's not meant in a positive way but it's a it's actually a breakthrough it's a until now usually the authorities the government's the Kings and so forth had like really obvious means of repression and controlling the society you know it's like this guy he's not cool he's a traitor we should him okay it's like very obvious and not really pleasant for people to see here what we have is your data streams are creating a gamified experience of coercion and people actually like it that's that's that's also the crazy thing so maybe at today China tomorrow the world and in this sense in this sense we a data fund we deeply believe that in the digital age freedom actually starts with owning your data and moreover like I said before it's about the digital extension of ourselves so a little bit food for thought is the new spirit actually the data so therefore I think it's quite obvious and also considering the audience here I don't think I need to make a big case why privacy matters for me it was important to highlight more usually a lot of times there's a talk I don't have anything to hide what does NSA want from me and so forth and yet this is not maybe for for people everyday people this is not the main concern in this sense I really like the quote from Edward Snowden also says that people who usually say I don't care about privacy because I don't have anything to hide it's kind of the same as saying I don't care about freedom of speech because I don't have anything to say and again I hope that the previous examples showed that it's not in essence it's not about hiding something that would be illegal it's just being prudent and safeguarding things that shouldn't be exposing you to malicious actors it's like we take care of our private keys we lock the doors of our homes but we actually leave our minds wide open and in this sense in this sense it's privacy's actually not just a technological challenge we see great progress in cryptography with new tools in projects that are being presented here but it but it's also it's a social challenge this is this is one thing that we noticed also during our work when we started the project we were like yeah privacy everybody is going to be up for privacy and things like that and no people just don't care they don't care because because it's on one side it's it really doesn't hurt us if we are it really doesn't hurt us if our data gets leaked it's bits copied and so on and it's also very abstract abstract team and if I come back to the point where I said like the physical and the virtual worlds have merged so at the same time when we when we look at personal data and how it's been treated and managed it's like really big discrepancy of what's going on so if I if I give like a metaphor you know like trying to let's illustrate some online behavior in the physical world imagine you're on a romantic date you speak you're like engaged in a conversation it goes well there comes like this one guy and with Facebook written on the t-shirt and without asking sits next to you and says like hey guys just keep continuing with your date do not mind me I will make some so I know later better what to sell to you well you know if that would happen in the real world it would be like whoa hey dude chill so there was a I also discussed this recently with a friend and his argument was that maybe it's just this human element that makes it awkward maybe if there would be a legs on the table the cup would still have like a nice romantic dinner and everything and yes it's true it's true but at the same time I think we need to look at it as more an illustration how also technology can sometimes hide important things how technology can make us less aware that personal data made matters and it's actually that guy who would be writing down notes wouldn't take so many notes as Alexa so in this sense what we strive a data fund is to encourage that people start thinking about minimized sharing of personal data share underneath no bases engage in a meaningful exchange while at the same time we shouldn't really be closed also in this paranoia we should be proactive and think about how anonymous data can create big datasets that improve the quality of life that make research faster that enable things we couldn't imagine before now in the sense about privacy there's also one good news in Europe it's an upcoming law called gdpr I'm not really going to talk much about law this this is not definitely not my domain but the important thing is individuals will need to give consents for any use of data companies or organizations in general risk of getting really high fines if they don't respect this and this and at the same time individuals will be able to demand export or deletion of their data the the law comes in effect in about three months and the importance for us here is that it changes the dynamic it's like if you look if you look at this personal data stream or life cycle it's kind of from a game theoretic perspective it's introducing the punishment and this is changing some simulations and this is important for us so in this sense I would just move to the last section here comes the ethics in play and what I mean with this it's there are a lot of questions we could have now here for example a debate we could start with privacy yes or no and there would be arguments good arguments why there shouldn't be privacy we could we could we could basically both sides can have good points and ethics in this sense it's some it's something that fosters discussion and in essence it's about inventing good and bad so at its simplest ethics is a system of moral principles it it effects people's decisions and how we lead our lives in moreover what is important and I think this is important for us is data found for a wider ecosystem of developers and blockchain community in general ethics can provide a moral map what is meant by this it's like usually ethical discussions are the ones that are really passionate because the moral the moral dilemmas you know when we look at pro-life discussions or against and so so forth and when it's so heated discussions when we see them and when emotions come in play cognitive biases get stronger it's like it's the rationality gets a little bit sidelined and in that that moment a set of guidelines ethical guidelines can step in and say look this is your checklist this is a reality check more or it's a struct structured approach so in this sense ethics can also pinpoint where the disagreement is and this this you can see also in everyday life you know when I read the discussion goes sour it starts so promising there's so much good talk then we just it just degrades this is because then you know some people come with totally something that's out of the scope and then the others start arguing we're not talking about that and stuff like that so here come again ethics frameworks in in place what we need to do what we need to be aware is ethics doesn't really give right answers it's it's about discussion and that's why I also said at the beginning that today Adam I hope I facilitate more questions than answers and sometimes it can also give several answers for us in the blockchain space it's also important cause because it's like how many of you have written a business plan in the past so a couple and yeah it's it's kind of a tedious job you know it's like I haven't actually really meant somebody who would come to me with an excitement amen I'm working on a business plan but what the business plan forces you is to think about aspects that you would neglect else and the same is the same is with ethics it makes us think the uncomfortable things and in this sense it also helps us to maybe recognize what our possible unintended side effects and again I don't think I need to stress how important that is if you build unstoppable applications so in that sense ethics is an essence of social consensus so if we talk a lot about consensus on the tech level I do think that with the dawn of new applications that include the social layer we also need to define what's actually the social consensus what's the world we want to build some issues that and this is by no means like a complete list it just again to foster discussion so some issues that we see specifically with ethics and blockchain is incentives how do incentives drive behavior we also see a lot of times in a sense in a sense it's like you know today the world is getting tokenized and maybe it would help it would help if some of the projects would step back and actually think about are we merging two things that should be merged or not matchmaking app that is incentivized with the tokens can quickly turn turning basically into a pimp I mean it's a very thin line so I'm incentive ice to really connect it with many other people and there are like a lot of other problems for us it was the question in essence creating a personal data marketplace if you just go down the basic route you know you have the buy side you have the sell side you match is this really the way we want to go and having such a market does this expose an individual does this long term create more damage to the individual than that and these are these are important questions to think about then another questions is like persistence of data we are often asked like do you save data on blockchain no we're not going to save data on blockchain we're going to save it in a really awesome system called swarm that Victor is presenting a little bit later so then we are at the dawn of merging blockchain and AI hey I already has its own issues with with ethics so it's already big field and this just increases the complexity then again it's like if I deploy a smart contract and that smart contract turns out to even it was meant to don't be evil that it becomes evil who's responsible for that so it's a lot of open questions and because of that as data fund we've been facing this and talking about it as a team but we feel and we are very happy that there's already a lot of project that feel the same that this is something that needs a wider discussion because why it's like you know if you do your own ethics it's without talking without hearing other other people's views without having the right diversity what we're doing is just them incorporating our own biases into our internal ethics chapter that actually just strengthens our own echo chamber and we might think like oh we're doing a good job but our reality might be totally displaced and moreover it's a this discussion should actually not just happen within the blockchain space because also you know when you speak with the normies you also become aware that blockchain space is an echo chamber of its own so we should involve other other parties as well and for this reason we are now in the process of announcing and creating it's working named ethics and blockchain initiative it's open for all teams that are concerned about these questions and we are going to also be in the talks with outside third-party experts ethics experts to to engage with the blockchain community and expect more news about this coming out later this month and if anybody is interested wants to talk more please do look us up we'll be here for the whole weekend week and we also have a boot and data fund and just come there and let's talk more and let's invent something good thank you [Applause] any questions well I I think it's it's a process in essence it's a process also nobody I believe nobody can now provide like a hundred percent bullet proof solution and that's why I also spoke before about the awareness it's that part is happening it's it started to happen a lot more a faster with the revelations from Snowden every security breach the cases of identity theft the discussion now in United States about interfering in the elections all these events help with with a bigger awareness at the same time at the same time this awareness also brings in awareness how already today our personal data is being used how it's being monetized and actually everybody's earning money on your data except you so this element of let's say grid also in a kind of control setting I think it's also going to be helpful sorry I didn't hear that there's a there's a TV series The Oval have you seen it the Orval the audible show yes yes have you seen the episode that basically gives us a blink on what happens when China implements that social rating system no you should read where they get up-and-down vote it must be one of the latest episodes I will check it out when I saw that China thing it was like didn't they watch The Oval in China it's good point that this is this is actually a really good point cause things now are not happening in an obvious way it's like also through TV shows you know we're getting more used it's like just just think about like a simple case I don't know how many years it's now like 7 or 10 years when Google introduced find my friends feature there was like this whole outrage for our privacy is being compromised and basically they removed it and a couple of years later they renamed it and today it's kind of a good utility and I think not not necessarily saying that this is good or bad it's just important that we are aware of these things thank you for the talk record talked about ethics being a form of social consensus um and in the continent in the context of blockchain I was just wondering given that there are sort of a lot of different schools of thought around ethics or whether that's utilitarianism or people who are maybe religious and have sort of a rule-based view on ethics how do you if the blockchain is going to bake the ethics into the protocol in some fixed fashion how do you kind of represent the fluidity that humans approach ethics with thank you very good question is maybe first personally I'm not an advocate that we include ethics on the blockchain on the protocol level so this is also it's a very good discussion when we look at before when I mentioned okay we have the in blockchain we have the consensus on the technical level and if ethics is the consensus on the social level so maybe this is actually a question of product design it's a question of teams to think about what do their incentives do it's a question of user experience in our case just you know it's like we want to enable individuals to store their data but should we make it easy to share their eg data or is there DNA should there be also some UX safeguards because at the same time I deeply believe you know it's like the the protocol itself need to be neutral and again if Attucks is a part if you look at it as a social consensus then something's within one network might not necessarily be hold true for for the other but if we have like a set of guidelines it's also easier for the community to have a look like and to evaluate it for themselves to say it would be akin to maybe a summary of a political program and where you decide which party you're going to vote for on Elections so ethics yes definitely it's a fluid process it's may be some things that we agree on today will change in the future and so yeah we have very good ethics by design yeah I agree here here was a remark about ethics by design and yes this is this is a very important point cause what we also see often is and I've been for example just yesterday before this talk here I was checking like ethics charters from various big time organizations that we engage every day and it's more or less just fluffy talk you know so it's not point of ethics just to bolt it on once you have it done and find somebody who would agree with you on all the points it's about from the beginning before you write your first line of code to have this awareness why you do certain things I guess that's it thank you [Applause]