Aral BalkanFeb 14, 2019

Privacy is not a science, it is a human right

https://ar.al/2019/02/14/privacy-is-not-a-science-it-is-a-human-right/

My response to a dangerous turd of an article by Bart van der Sloot (co-founder of Amsterdam Privacy Week – sponsored by Palantir and Google – and docent teaching “Privacy and Big Data” at Tilburg University)

Mr. Sloot attempts to reframe privacy as a “science” and shame those who work to protect it for having a “pro-privacy agenda” & not being “neutral”. He also calls for “new rules” to disallow such biased behaviour.

Privacy is not a science, it is a human right

Given the levels of institutional corruption in academia and in the regulatory bodies and advocacy institutions that should be protecting our privacy, very few things shock me these days. So hats off to Bart van der Sloot for managing the impossible and finding a new low by framing institutional corruption as scientific neutrality in his article Dubbele petten in de privacywetenschap. The gist of Mr. Sloot’s argument can be summarised with this doozy of a quote from his article1:

Show threadMatti Minkkinen

@aral
This came as a surprise. I don't know van der Sloot's work that well but enjoyed some parts of his article on privacy interpreted as non-domination in courts.

Seems like they are building a similar divide that we have in futures studies (emancipatory research / instrumentalist foresight) and also in security research (peace research / traditional military security research). Can they really not see how this dismissal of ethics is dangerous with privacy at this point in time?

Feb 19, 2019 at 11:32amWeb