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Leading privacy scholar to speak in Dublin

“Navigating Privacy in a Data Centric World” is the topic for a talk at Regent House in Trinity College later this month.

On Monday, 28 January at 4pm Jules Polonetsky of the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) will give a public lecture on how almost every area of technical progress today is reliant on ever broader access to personal information.

Dr Jules Polonetsky is known for his book ‘A Theory of Creepy: Technology, Privacy and Shifting Social Norms’.

He believes that the rapid evolution of digital technologies has thrown up social and ethical dilemmas that we have hardly begun to understand.

Companies, academic researchers, governments and philanthropists utilise ever more sensitive data about individuals’ movements, health, online browsing, home activity and social interactions.

Machine learning

To collect the data, cars, drones, phones, wearables, TVs and faces are tracked. Sensors, that see and hear, collect new types of information and machine learning provides exponentially deeper analysis.

The talk will address the following questions:

Whether European data protection will reshape the leading data intensive technologies.

With the backlash against tech company practices leading to regulation in the US and globally, what is the role for Ireland at the centre of the new generation of regulation and tech development?

Societal benefit

Can data be mined for the benefit of society without creating an Orwellian future?

The FPF is a non-profit organisation that serves as a catalyst for privacy leadership and scholarship, advancing principled data practices in support of emerging technologies.

FPF brings together industry, academics, civil society and other thought leaders to explore the challenges posed by technological innovation and develops privacy protections, ethical norms and workable business practices.

FPF is based in Washington DC, and is active in the US, Europe and Israel.

This event is organised by the Ethics & Privacy Working Group of the ADAPT Centre, in conjunction with the Trinity Long Room Hub, the Technologies, Law and Society Research Group in association with TCD School of Law, TCD School of Religions, Peace Studies and Theology, TCD Library and DCU Institute of Ethics.

The event is free and all are welcome but booking via Eventbrite is essential.