For many people, the deal with the big platforms is honest: I give my data in exchange for targeted advertising, which is innocuous, to obtain free services. Are they wrong?
Targeted advertising, as you say, is perhaps the most innocuous thing that happens to us, but this data will often be monetized to create profiles which, potentially, are used, for example, for drug insurance. We will be able to adapt the price that people will pay for their contribution. It will also be used to enrich the bank’s data when it makes a loan.
It can also be targeted information, so for political parties for example, for Trump or for Brexit: there has been a lot of targeting of people by trying to send them personalized information based on their profile, to try to encourage them to vote in a particular way.
But it is very difficult in 2024 to browse without allowing cookies, many sites work very poorly or not at all. What to do ?
It’s true, and it’s going to be one of the messages of my conference. There are things we must do to minimize the risks, but it is difficult to put all the weight on the citizen. We are traced in so many ways that there are changes that must come from the companies themselves, and therefore certainly changes to the law.
In Quebec, we were fortunate to have an update to the law on the protection of privacy in 2022, which is starting to be implemented in stages. I think we don’t necessarily see the effect yet, but we will see it little by little.
Sébastien Gambs, professor in the computer science department of the University of Quebec in Montreal
We have moved into frameworks where the Commission for Access to Information can issue fines which are of the order of 2 or 3% of turnover.
There is also the consideration of privacy by design, what is called privacy by design. It is still a significant change in mentality.
You often make the link between private life and fundamental rights. Does mishandling the former really affect the latter?
The right to privacy is important, not only for all the risks I mentioned before, but also because it is a necessary condition for many other human rights. If we are constantly monitored, for example, we will limit our right to freedom of expression. If I’m in a country where every thing I can say or do, where every action collects data to possibly be turned against me, clearly, unconsciously, I’m going to censor myself.
A tool of control, even in a country like Canada?
People feel like they have nothing to hide. But if we take the example of the United States, where the right to abortion was called into question in certain states very recently even though it was thought to be an acquired right, the police requested access to companies that manage period tracking apps with data to find out if the person left the state illegally to get an abortion.
We are in Canada, in a democratic country for the moment, but who can predict what it will be like in 10 or 20 years? No one would have predicted that Trump would come to power.
You talk about the possibility of taking advantage of the advantages of big data, without sacrificing the protection of privacy. How is it possible ?
I work a lot on data anonymization. For example, what we would like in mobility is to have an idea of the major movements of people in the morning to be able, for example, to set up bus routes which correspond to demand, but not to trace of the journey of Sébastien Gambs, in particular. If we also take the example of electricity in homes, Hydro-Québec wants to be able to roughly predict how people will adapt, in a zone or in a neighborhood, their electricity consumption in relation to climatic conditions.
Are people more aware of privacy?
I think people are more aware, but there are ripple effects, for example the revelations of Edward Snowden or the data leak at Desjardins which make people suddenly wake up. I’m quite optimistic that the new laws will improve things, but they won’t solve all the problems. We must not forget that the Internet and the technologies that collect data remain human constructions. It is not the laws of physics that tell us that we must collect data.
One final argument: even if our private lives are extremely defined, perhaps we want, a bit like for the environment, for the situation to be different for our children.
For brevity and readability, this interview has been edited.
For more information on Sébastien Gambs’ conference