Whose Data Is It Anyway?

EDINBURGH—In thinking about the theme of TEDGlobal this year, one quickly understands that there are two sides to "radical openness." On one side is the protection of privacy and personal data. On the other, the desire for transparency and open data. Of course, we want both at the same time. The talks today presented arguments and examples from both sides, all driven from the technology we use everyday.

Malte Spitz (left), a member of the Green Party in Germany, opened up a morning session with a powerful talk on how his mobile phone changed his life. He began by talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and asked the audience to imagine each person at the Wall with a mobile phone. How would it have changed what happened in 1989?

"If the Stasi had known who had mobile phones in 1989, they would have known who was participating and the fall of the Berlin Wall might never have happened," he said.

In 2006, the EU approved a policy that allowed the phone companies to retain customer data from six months to up to two years. Customers fought back, but the policy remained. Spitz requested his data from Deutsche Telekom to see what information they were storing. When his requests were repeatedly ignored, he sued the company. They finally settled, and Spitz received an envelope with his data enclosed. It contained 35,830 lines of code.

Working with Die Zeit, a German newspaper, he decided to take his information public and put some visualization around the data to provide context. He quickly learned that significant details were exposed in the data – when he traveled by train between two cities, who he called and how often. It was easy to extrapolate from the data how it might be expanded upon – by identifying the people in his network the phone company could break into the networks of others, eventually compiling a detailed picture of an entire community. It was an eye-opening realization.

"Privacy is a value of the 21st century, it is not outdated," Spitz said. He argued that we should be in control of our data, telling the audience to request information from their own service providers to see what information is stored. "Every time you use your mobile phone, let it be a reminder that you have to fight for self-determination," he said.

Flipping the conversation around to the issue of censorship, TED Fellow and Yemeni self described "activist academic" Walid Al-Saqqaf spoke about censorship. The son of the slain Yemen Times founder, Al-Saqqaf and his sister have followed in their father's footsteps to provide news and content from his country. When his website, Yemen Portal, was banned by the government, he responded by starting an anti-censorship campaign and developed a circumventing technology - Alkasir Technology (Arabic for "the circumventor") - which is used around the world to circumvent government firewalls by "split tunneling."

This means that traffic is diverted to a secure tunnel if the website is verified to be blocked by the user's ISP. Al-Saqqaf also noted that social media drives much of the traffic. In a graph, he demonstrated the domination of Facebook in areas where censorship is highest. For example, 90 percent of visits to Yemen Portal via Facebook were from Syria and Iran. In explanation, he simply said "The more repressed you are, the more you want to connect."

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[Image: TED Flickr stream]