Thread · 5 tweets · 2 Nov 2020

While the intent is no doubt laudable here, this is mostly an example of how not to talk about privacy. A quick smell test is that it doesn’t have “Google” at the very top. A lot is wrong here: • The idea that there is a %age of personal data one can collect. (…)

• No differentiation between first-party and third-party collection. • No indication of purpose limitation (eg. Ikea might know your address _just_ to deliver, Facebook stole it from your address book for targeting & conversion measurement). (…)

• No consideration of betrayal by software you’re supposed to trust, like a browser tracking your reading history (Chrome) or an OS your location (Android). • Boring and sensitive data (eg. phone type and health) given at same level. (…)

• No indication of pervasiveness (the more constantly you know, the more dangerous). • Nothing about kids (eg. Google Classroom forces you to sign over your child’s data when it’s the only education they have in a pandemic).

Overall, an assessment of which companies are trustworthy with data and which aren’t would be very valuable to people. But unfortunately it takes more than just a spreadsheet and getting it wrong largely gives the wrong conclusions.