Shermin Voshmgir, Business Informatics, University of Heidelberg, 2018, emphasizes the necessity of data protection law in her lecture by casually drawing attention to one of the central requirements, namely “Privacy by Design”: Devices, applications, information systems, etc. must be designed during their technical development to be as data protection-friendly as possible, so that they protect our privacy. You can find out the reasons in my free translation from English to German:
“…In the data- and machine-driven age, everyone can be constantly followed by someone, institutions, any device, cameras or a machine through digitization and the IoT: Mobile phones, fitness trackers, electronically controlled vacuum cleaners communicating via WLAN, and lawnmowers, even kitchen appliances, can easily determine and control our consumption and eating habits.
Privacy is the state of being free from public attention, of not being observed or disturbed by anyone, not even by the police. The protection of privacy is sacred to us all and a fundamental right, which is reflected, among other things, in the secrecy of correspondence.
The Internet has existed since 1989. It connects all computers with each other, because it should be a democratic source for all people of freely available information and services. The Internet facilitates our lives through many services, Wikipedia, social media, the sale and trade of products, online banking, many good aspects. We just don’t pay for it directly, but with our privacy, our data.
The data transfer in e-mail traffic between computers is guaranteed and permitted by the communication protocol, TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and the IP (Internet Protocol), but communication protocols are only formal descriptions of digital message formats and rules. Since the Internet was never set up with a built-in cryptography layer, data is always stored on the Internet when uploading and publishing information on Facebook or in social media. Data is controlled by companies and institutions, and in these moments we lose control over it.
Privacy should remain a personal right; the General Data Protection Regulation also highlights the “right to be forgotten and to have data deleted.” For data backup, encryption is a long-known technique that we still use too little or not at all. Terrorist activities in America in November 2002 gave rise to the “Homeland Security Act,” which, among other things, established standards for maintaining information security and an annual independent assessment. Constitutional rights should not be abandoned. And yet we must take note that not only the Brexit campaign and the elections were abusively influenced by the control of data.
Block-chain technology could stabilize the Internet because no one can control the data. The financing structure is supported by encryption of the protocol layer. With the introduction of Bitcoin, however, only the data structure is changed from a centralized to a decentralized approach, but Bitcoin does not remain anonymous because of this! ……». Privacy by design is essential. A technology is and remains only a tool! The data protection law stipulates that it should be designed in such a way that it does not control people, but helps us to protect privacy. That’s why data protection is so relevant!
