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Privacy Is Power

Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data

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Privacy Is Power

By: Carissa Véliz
Narrated by: Emma Gregory
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Brought to you by Penguin.

As the data economy grows in power, Carissa Véliz exposes how our privacy is eroded by big tech and governments, why that matters and what we can do about it.


The moment you check your phone in the morning you are giving away your data. Before you've even switched off your alarm, a whole host of organisations have been alerted to when you woke up, where you slept, and with whom. As you check the weather, scroll through your 'suggested friends' on Facebook, you continually compromise your privacy.

Without your permission, or even your awareness, tech companies are harvesting your information, your location, your likes, your habits, and sharing it amongst themselves. They're not just selling your data. They're selling the power to influence you. Even when you've explicitly asked them not to. And it's not just you. It's all your contacts too.

Digital technology is stealing our personal data and with it our power to make free choices. To reclaim that power and democracy, we must protect our privacy.

What can we do? So much is at stake. Our phones, our TVs, even our washing machines are spies in our own homes. We need new regulation. We need to pressure policy-makers for red lines on the data economy. And we need to stop sharing and to adopt privacy-friendly alternatives to Google, Facebook and other online platforms.

Short, terrifying, practical: Privacy is Power highlights the implications of our laid-back attitude to data and sets out how we can take back control.

If you liked The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, you'll love Privacy is Power because it provides a philosophical perspective on the politics of privacy, and it offers a very practical outlook, both for policymakers and ordinary citizens.

©2020 Carissa Véliz (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Engineering Freedom & Security Politics & Government Professionals & Academics Science & Technology Espionage Technology Government Socialism Computer Security
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Critic reviews

A bracing call to arms to fight back against digital surveillance before it is too late. If you're one of those readers who gave up before getting to the end of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshama Zoboff's academic doorstopper, this is a good place to start. (Richard Waters)
All stars
Most relevant
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and I hope many others will do so too. In my view, it grips the reader from the beginning and raises a number of very valid concerns which should not be overlooked.

Fantastic - everyone should read this book

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As someone who wants to contribute to protecting our privacy in the tech world, this book was highly motivating. I recommend it to everyone!

Made me feel highly motivated!

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The message is not alarmist by any stretch. Its informative and factual.

I love how she rounds it all off by giving very practical everyday tips on how to take back our privacy rights... One cookie consent banner at a time😏

Very insightful read!

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An excellent, engaging, enjoyable and compelling discussion of the risks associated with 'big data' collected by social media companies in particular. The book builds of Zuboff's ideas relating to 'surveillance capitalism' but is more accessible and easier to digest, as well as offering more practical prescriptions about how we, at individual, national and societal level, might take back control of our own data to mitigate the dystopian risks relating to surveillance capitalism.

Accessible and Compelling

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Deep discussion of the many aspects of the surveillance society, but I found the "wakeup you are being spied everywhere' message leaning a bit too much on the conspiracy theory side of things. A more balanced account of the pros and cons of modern digital technology might have been more effective

Interesting but too apocalyptic

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