Privacy Is Power - by Carissa Veliz (Paperback)

About the Book

The moment you check your phone in the morning you are giving away data. Before you've even switched off your alarm, a whole host of organizations have been alerted to when you woke up, where you slept, and with whom. As you check the weather, scroll through your "suggested friends" on Facebook, you continually compromise your privacy. Without your permission, or even your awareness, tech companies are harvesting your information, your location, your likes, your habits, and sharing it amongst themselves. They're not just selling your data. They're selling the power to influence you. Even when you've explicitly asked them not to. And it's not just you. It's all your contacts too. Digital technology is stealing our personal data and with it our power to make free choices. To reclaim that power and democracy, we must protect our privacy. What can we do? So much is at stake. Our phones, our TVs, even our washing machines are spies in our own homes. We need new regulation. We need to pressure policy-makers for red lines on the data economy. And we need to stop sharing and to adopt privacy-friendly alternatives to Google, WhatsApp, and other online platforms. Short, terrifying, practical: Privacy is Power highlights the implications of our laid-back attitudes to data, and sets out how we can reclaim control.

Book Synopsis

An Economist Book of the Year

Every minute of every day, our data is harvested and exploited... It is time to pull the plug on the surveillance economy.

Governments and hundreds of corporations are spying on you, and everyone you know. They're not just selling your data. They're selling the power to influence you and decide for you. Even when you've explicitly asked them not to.

Reclaiming privacy is the only way we can regain control of our lives and our societies. These governments and corporations have too much power, and their power stems from us--from our data. Privacy is as collective as it is personal, and it's time to take back control.

Privacy Is Power tells you how to do exactly that. It calls for the end of the data economy and proposes concrete measures to bring that end about, offering practical solutions, both for policymakers and ordinary citizens.

Review Quotes

An Economist Book of the Year

"In recent years, concerns over digital data mining and violations of online privacy have become an increasing concern within both public and political spheres...These concerns are meticulously explored in Privacy is Power. The book exposes the ethics of how corporations and governments exploit data, and how users can obtain greater protection." -- Newsweek

"Carissa Véliz has written a book that everyone should read. If you are uneasy about the creeping digitalization of human life and our ever-eroding expectations of privacy--or would like to be--then you will enjoy and benefit from her book." -- Public Books

"No one explains the issues and opportunities in privacy better than Carissa Véliz. Her book, Privacy Is Power is brilliant." --Roger McNamee, author of Zucked

"A powerful cri de coeur for technological liberation that merits the attention of every consumer of digital services." --Kirkus Reviews

"An essential guide to one of the most pressing modern issues." --Hannah Fry, author of Hello World

"We didn't see digital surveillance coming, but today it's threatening democracy and basic freedoms. If you want to understand why privacy matters more than ever before, and how we can preserve it in an age of data grabbing, read this book." --Nigel Warburton, author of A Little History of Philosophy

"A forceful call for us to tame the data economy by reclaiming our privacy ... and our power." --Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet

"In this bold, original, and engaging book, Carissa Véliz makes a compelling case for the revolutionary goal of reclaiming privacy from the grip of a destructive data economy. While many have lamented the ills of surveillance capitalism, Véliz's courageous manifesto paves a clear path for regaining power--taking back our ill-gotten information from tech companies and data brokers and reinvigorating democracy in the process." --Evan Selinger, Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy

"How much does it matter that every day we unwittingly hand over more and more of our personal data to internet giants? In this smart, stylishly written, and alarming volume Carissa Veliz argues that it matters a great deal and that we don't have to put up with it. Essential reading for those of us who click 'agree' ten times a day." --Jonathan Wolff, author of An Introduction to Moral Philosophy

About the Author

Carissa Véliz is an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI, as well as a tutorial fellow at Hertford College, at the University of Oxford. She is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics.