Moderator: Derrick Harris, Senior Writer, Gigaom
Lauren Gelman, Founder, BlurryEdge Strategies
Alex Haro, Co-founder and President, Life360
Meghan Land, Staff Attorney, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Gilad Meiri, Co-founder and CEO, Neura
(missed first question)
Lauren: Recommends that companies invest in security. Understand the vulnerabilities of the data you hold.
Meghan: can’t have privacy without security.
Derrick: does the story change when we have devices like smart phones that know where we are all the time?
Alex: consumers tend to be lazy, but we have to take security seriously. People want their data to be secure. This is all new, people are afraid but focus on cool use cases.
Gilad: look at the downsides: at the end of the day, some bad people are doing bad things to our devices. The need for security in IoT age is huge.
Meghan: I don’t think consumers are lazy, they don’t know and learning opportunities not meaningful.
Lauren: Agree, learning. Many companies don’t want to use “privacy” in same sentence with their brand.
Derrick: Privacy – what types of risks are we talking about? It’s not same as security.
Lauren: not necessarily different, it’s another data stream. We are able to connect our data; what inferences can be drawn about person or group? Employment, health care, areas where we’re worried about discrimination.
Derrick to products people: do people at your company look at data for judgment purposes?
Alex: most sensitive data is location, it’s computers looking at it. Trust is a key factor. We can’t tune ourselves out, must take security seriously but don’t beat consumers over the head with it.
Gilad: at end of day, any company must consider trust.
Derrick: lessons we can learn from IoT? Example: Facebook ads (offensive), changing privacy settings.
Alex: for web, criminals do look at Facebook. Security and privacy matters, but users can give up if message is beating them up.
Gilad: privacy best solution is market driven. PayPal as trust entity is more effective, efficient than regulatory approach.
Meghan: companies should help users use their products better, be better advisors.
Lauren: in move toward contextual notice: privacy policies were a radical failure. People don’t know what’s happening behind websites. How do we provide better contextual, relevant information? Tremendous amount of data being collected and shared, incentives vary among business models. Think long term re data use.
Alex: smart phones may be the better market. Google vs Apple approaches to data sharing, advertising; different approaches.
Derrick: do we have to make that tradeoff?
Gilad: when we show what we know about users, typical response is to delete everything. Problem is transparency, would help me make better decisions. Companies don’t have incentive to share what they actually know. Many users would make different choices if they knew.
Derrick: would there be market for ad-supported devices?
Alex: race to the bottom for device manufacturers, even Samsung needs services on top.
Lauren: there’s only so much space for ads, lot of value in the data in aggregated and depersonalized form.
Alex: companies are also lazy, e.g., context-based ads.
Audience: surveillance, Terms of Services; what’s role of access and choice?
Alex: I couldn’t understand ToS if I tried. Education, simplify.
Meghan agrees.
Lauren (an attorney) has written policy docs. They’re the rules that govern.
Derrick: they’re non-negotiable.
Lauren: privacygrades.com (not affiliated).
Audience: there’s another way. Terms are complicated, people can’t anticipate affects. When we give consent, we don’t know what it says or what it means. Ratings are helpful (e.g., buy a refrigerator), a point of comparison. We currently have no ability to compare policies and terms. We need subject matter experts to assist with this.
Gilad: Agree. User feedback, customer controls are needed.