Sandra Fernandez - Likes

"...personal information is almost a kind of currency: it's something we spend." http://www.npr.org/templat... #privacy #datacapital

October 28 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Sandra Fernandez, Victor Ganata, Alex Scrivener and 5 other people liked this

Political capital is not a new concept. It's just that we're all now citizen-politicians of the public sphere. - Cliff Gerrish

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I don't think we're talking about "political capital" though. That's a term from a different community of people who measured influence through connections and the like. Data capital is about how much data you've accrued that's valuable (and transportable) to new contexts. - Chris Messina

Most people don't realize they have value in data capital, they don't realize they're 'spending' it, and they don't realize that the data they spend can get used in all kinds of unintended ways behind the scenes and after the fact. I'm pessimistic about the market solving this (because of fundamental power and information imbalances); we need (a lot of education, and) some basic legal frameworks to protect the rights and choices of citizens. - LogEx

This is a great statement about handing over identity information: "the general point: a characteristic of a 21st-century ID scheme is that it should only give up information necessary to enable a transactions, nothing more or less. So, if you are authorised to ask my ID card whether I am over 18 or not, that's all it should tell you. Not my name, not my address, not my age or date of... more... - LogEx

If you haven't see it, you might want to watch my talk where I describe data capital and social objects in greater detail: http://vimeo.com/6862420 - Chris Messina

Chris, that's a great talk, it's the kind of stuff I'm used to from you. Brand-mediated identity scares me. Kim's recent chart [http://www.identityblog.com/...] I thought was brilliant. I see a lot of potential in activity streams and distributed open social constructs. But this is why I was shocked at the articles about privacy on the other thread... too much cognitive dissonance... more... - LogEx

Yes, you are the platform in the future (hopefully). And there is value… but to whom, and how is it extracted (or withheld)? Hopefully there will be mechanisms where I can choose to retain value and use it how I see fit. A move to single sign-on everywhere with real-world identity jeopardizes too much of this control with the present structures. It requires too much trust… in numerous... more... - LogEx

The last three sections of the talk: dynamic personal expression, universal user experience, and data is money I suspect were shorter because they are still being developed. These are hard problems, and commercial social sites know that there is incredible value in the identity (and its associated metadata and social graph), so distributed open systems are up against some strong vested... more... - LogEx

Thanks. It's not enough to just beat the drum of privacy lockdown... there has to be a compromise between others controlling and owning all our data and an utterly isolating libertarian utopian. I don't think the extremes really work in reality — they're easier to describe — but fall down when you consider the diverse conditions in which people live. Therefore, we need more actual... more... - Chris Messina

Chris, you need a more thorough understanding of 'capital' and its relation to commodity -- See the first section of Marx's 'Capital' -- then you need a lesson in securitization, derivatives and relative liquidity. Your metaphor is an interesting one, but its implications seem to be lost on you. - Cliff Gerrish

Chris, I think what I've expressed is a compromise (technology, as usual, has already advanced beyond our ability to fully understand and direct its implications). I'm not advocating prohibiting businesses from collecting and using all personal information. But it goes beyond design (even if the designs achieve the goals stated above)... there are, and have to be more, explicit... more... - LogEx

Jessica Grieves

@beingkatie so funny that my first thought was for the chupacabra at @raysfranks and why there would be one in The Woodlands.

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