Privacy is Power
  • Published: 28 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9780552177719
  • Imprint: Corgi
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

Privacy is Power

Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data

Formats & editions
Paperback
28 Sep 2021
EBook
24 Sep 2020
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As the data economy grows in power, Carissa Véliz exposes how our privacy is eroded by big tech and governments, why that matters and what we can do about it. 'Essential reading for those of us who click 'agree' ten times a day' - Jonathan Woolf.

An Economist BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

As the data economy grows in power, Carissa Véliz exposes how our privacy is eroded by big tech and governments, why that matters and what we can do about it.

The moment you check your phone in the morning you are giving away your data. Before you've even switched off your alarm, a whole host of organisations 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, Facebook and other online platforms.

Short, terrifying, practical: Privacy is Power highlights the implications of our laid-back attitude to data and sets out how we can take back control.

If you liked The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, you'll love Privacy is Power because it provides a philosophical perspective on the politics of privacy, and it offers a very practical outlook, both for policymakers and ordinary citizens.

  • Published: 28 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9780552177719
  • Imprint: Corgi
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99
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About the author

Carissa Véliz

Carissa Véliz is a Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, and Christ Church at the University of Oxford. Véliz has published articles in the Guardian, The New York Times, New Statesman, and the Independent. Her academic work has been published in The Harvard Business Review, Nature Electronics, Nature Energy, and The American Journal of Bioethics, among other journals. She is the editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics.

portrait photo of Carissa Véliz

Praise for Privacy is Power

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

You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it', Scott McNealy once said to reporters. This book is a thoughtful response to the claim of Sun Microsystem's co-founder. It shows that we still have privacy to lose and why we should protect privacy for ourselves and for others. Engagingly written, clear and admirably brief, Véliz shows how we ended up with societies built around the buying and selling of personal data; why this is bad personally and politically; and what we can do to change things. A fantastic little book.

Anabelle Lever, author of On Privacy

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

Powerful

Will Hutton, Observer

A bracing call to arms to fight back against digital surveillance before it is too late. If you're one of those readers who gave up before getting to the end of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshama Zoboff's academic doorstopper, this is a good place to start.

Richard Waters, Financial Times

Privacy is Power is an intelligent, persuasive and disquieting manifesto for taking back control of our data.

Cathleen Mair, The Idler

An Economist BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: galvanises an important conversation.

Economist

I have read a *lot* of books on privacy and the surveillance economy. This is the best I've ever found. Lovely clear writing backed by an Oxford don's intellectual firepower. Could not recommend it more.

Barton Gellman, Author of Dark Mirror