Nov 2020

Véliz is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Tutorial Fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford.

For every depressing headline about yet another data breach or exploitative data practice, there are examples of how some of the world’s best brains are contributing to (and shaping) this area in a positive way. That is something to celebrate. The writing style of this book points to the author’s ease around philosophical and ethical discussions and asks us to challenge the apathy around some of the infringements to data privacy we are seeing across the globe.

Highlighting the extraordinary scale and impact of the digital surveillance world we now find ourselves in, it is a stark reminder that the way in which this data are used is about so much more than selling us more stuff. It is about manipulating and persuading us in ways that are often in plain sight, yet sometimes obscure. Being nudged into buying things we may not want or need is bad enough, but if we are being pushed to think and behave in ways that others have determined, that is extremely disturbing. With the clue in the title, Véliz encourages us to reclaim some of that power and gives the reader the gift of infectious energy and optimism to help us on the way!

“It’s too late to prevent the data economy from developing in the first place – but it’s not too late to reclaim our privacy. Our civil liberties are at stake. The decisions we make about privacy today and in the coming years will shape the future of humanity for decades to come.”