Privacy Today

Data is the main fuel of our digital economies. Our financial transactions, communications, relationships and interactions with governments and businesses generate data that is collected, bought and sold. As the collection and analysis of data becomes more sophisticated and accurate, and as datasets grow to become Big Data, the opportunities ahead seem infinite – but the risks are also great.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated data collection, as governments are turning to technology and analytics to process and analyze data in order to contain the spread of the virus. While this is a valid public health strategy – and so far the most efficient one – contact tracing and other uses of technology are raising some complex ethical questions. How do we ensure data privacy as we battle COVID-19?

Carissa Véliz, ethicist and director of the Data, Privacy, and the Individual research project at the IE Center for the Governance of Change, will help us understand today’s privacy challenges and novel data governance, as well as address the interpretation and enforcement of regulation, how to complement regulation with better ethics, and how to find technical solutions to data problems.

Moderated by Carlos Luca de Tena, Head of Operations at the IE Center for the Governance of Change.