By Jenneke Evers

Privacy is Power: Why and How you Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Véliz (2020) Bantam, London, 288pp., £15 (hardback) ISBN: 9781787634046

Privacy at the Margins by Scott Skinner-Thompson (2020) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 220pp., £25 (paperback) ISBN: 9781316632635

We all know that 2020 was in many ways a terrifying year. Not only did we have to live through a pandemic, we also remember the violent ways that Black Lives Matter protesters were quelled. Those working in privacy law or ethics will probably remember 2020 as the year that a new infrastructure was developed: the contact tracing apps. Others, engaged in civil rights, will remember the surveillance of Black Lives Matter members in the US. Two recent books, published within a month of each other in September and October 2020, engage with both types of surveillance. Carissa Véliz uncovers in Privacy is Power how our data are used by high-technology companies and governments, and treats in more detail why we should be wary of contact tracing apps. On the other hand, Scott Skinner-Thompson examines how the privacy of marginalized communities (such as black, gay, trans and religious communities) is often violated and proposes a new way of understanding privacy.

page: 80 – 85
Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 37, Issue 1
SKU: 370108