Is Privacy Really That Hard?

The books you read, or even how fast you read them, the roads you travel, the concerts you visit, the payments you make: in our digital age all this - sometimes very - personal information is collected, stored, processed, analysed and used for other purposes. You have zero privacy anyway - get over it. Is that indeed the case? Can we no longer imagine a digital world where our privacy is protected? Is privacy really that hard? Or is it possible to design systems in such a way that they protect our privacy, without sacrificing functionality?

In this edition of Let’s Ask, privacy expert Jaap-Henk Hoepman argues that privacy really isn't as hard as the tech-giants of Silicon Valley make us believe. Using concrete examples, he will show that a digital world can exist in which we read our books, travel, visit concerts, and make payments without anybody watching over us. This world is possible, if we design it that way.

Jaap-Henk Hoepman is associate professor at the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences of the Radboud University Nijmegen and in the IT Law section of the Transboundary Legal Studies department of the University of Groningen. His main research interests are privacy by design and privacy friendly protocols for identity management and the Internet of Things. On October 5, 2021 his first book Privacy Is Hard and Seven Other Myths. Achieving Privacy through Careful Design will appear at MIT Press. It explains to the general public how technology can be used to protect privacy.

Let's Ask
In Let's Ask (before: Ask a Scientist) Groningen's finest researchers share their knowledge to provide context to that recurring 'thing' in the news and will answer your questions. In collaboration with Usva.

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