The unsettling revelations about how data firm Cambridge Analytica surreptitiously exploited the personal information of Facebook users is yet another demoralising reminder of how much data has been amassed about us, and of how little control we have over it.
Unfortunately, the General Data Protection Regulation privacy laws that are coming into force across Europe — with more demanding consent, transparency and accountability requirements, backed by huge fines — may improve practices, but they will not change the governing paradigm: the law labels those who gather our data as “controllers”. We are merely “subjects”.
But if the past 20 years have taught us anything, it is that when business and legislators have been too slow to adapt to public demand — for goods and services that we did not even know we needed, such as Amazon, Uber and bitcoin — computer scientists have stepped in to fill the void.