Tech Entrepreneurs Highlight Digital Privacy Products at Web Summit

Brendan Eich, founder of the Brave browser, observed "small minorities can move markets, and that's happening".

Advertisement
By Agence France-Presse | Updated: 8 November 2019 10:17 IST
Highlights
  • Whistleblowers have been raising alarm about abuses of our privacy online
  • There is an entire new industry around digital identity: Brittany Kaiser
  • Kaiser's work at Cambridge Analytica is a subject of Netflix documentary
Tech Entrepreneurs Highlight Digital Privacy Products at Web Summit

Co-founder of Own Your Data Foundation Brittany Kaiser (L) and Founder of Elixxir David Chaum (R)

Photo Credit: Patricia De Melo Moreira/ AFP

Whistleblowers and digital pioneers have long been sounding the alarm about abuses of our privacy online. Now, a slew of tech entrepreneurs are bidding to turn growing consciousness about the problem into a money-making industry and many showcased their skills at this week's Web Summit in Lisbon.

"Undeniably, with the new tensions that exist, obviously there is a movement among people to regain their right to privacy," organiser Paddy Cosgrave told AFP.

"Providing personalised encryption at the level of the device, so that any key stroke on your device is unreadable by a third party … is booming. There are many companies trying to make progress in this space," Cosgrave said.

"I believe there is an entire new industry around digital identity, data ownership, data management and data monetisation for yourself," said American Brittany Kaiser who helped lift the lid on data abuses at Cambridge Analytica which last year found itself embroiled in a scandal involving the misuse of Facebook data.

Advertisement

Kaiser's work at Cambridge Analytica is also a subject of a Netflix documentary, The Great Hack.

Blow the whistle
Kaiser co-created a foundation "Own your data" in order to "blow the whistle on the whole industry" and denounce abuses of companies harvesting data without web users' explicit knowledge.

Advertisement

She warned that "it's going to be hard to get to the point of mass adoption" of products and services designed to allay privacy fears but sees a "wave of momentum" after a year-and-a-half of campaigning.

Brendan Eich, founder of the Brave browser, as well as Mozilla and Firefox and the man behind JavaScript, observed "small minorities can move markets, and that's happening".

Advertisement

The way ahead is "privacy by default," said Eich, touting data protection and adblock capabilities as key Brave attributes.

Eich hopes Brave will have 10 million users by year's end, although he said that would have to double or even triple before it could generate revenues from opt-in online ads.

US "godfather of crypto" currencies, David Chaum, meanwhile said he believed the digital world has reached a key juncture.

"This is like a kind of a historic moment. I think if you look at smartphones, the killer app is clearly messaging integrated with payments.

'Shocking' scale
Chaum is behind Elixxir, which seeks to offer digital privacy by deploying a mobile messaging app partnered with a virtual payment vehicle along the lines of Chinese behemoth Tencent's We Chat platform, securing communications through blockchain protection.

Briton David Chance also wants to take digital privacy to another level having left Google to launch a startup, yourself.online, offering retrieval of data which has remained in the public sphere without user consent.

"The most shocking thing is the scale of the problem," says Chance. "We find personal data for about 80 percent of the people that sign up for our service. That could be a phone number, an email address or a date of birth.

"Companies are gathering up information that we kind of left as our online footprints and are using this to determine whether somebody gets a job, credit or a mortgage."

Following criticism for not doing enough to secure user data, Facebook recently promised to bring end-to-end encryption to its Messenger platform, as is already the case with WhatsApp.

Jay Sullivan, whom Facebook recruited earlier this year as Messenger's director of product management and privacy and integrity issues, says data protection is now a basic reqirement, a decade after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg suggested privacy was no longer a "social norm" or indeed to be expected.

Eich said consent is key.

"People don't like (being tracked). They think, 'I feel like some creeper is stalking me. I feel abused'," he said.

 

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Advertisement

Related Stories

Popular Mobile Brands
  1. Check Deals on Smartphones During Flipkart Independence Day Sale 2025
  2. Poco M7 Plus 5G Launched in India With 7,000mAh Battery at This Price
  3. iPhone 14 Price Drops to an All-Time Low on Vijay Sales
  4. Vivo V60 With 50-Megapixel Telephoto Camera Debuts in India at This Price
  5. Book Tickets to Watch PM Modi's Speech on Independence Day This Way
  6. Perplexity Reportedly Offers to Buy Google Chrome for $34.5 Billion
  7. Realme P4 Series Specifications Confirmed Ahead of Launch on August 20
  8. Sony ULT Tower 9, Tower 9AC, Field 5, Field 3 and ULTMIC1 Launched in India
  9. Elon Musk and Sam Altman Get Tangled in War of Words, Once Again
  1. Lenovo Tab With MediaTek Helio G85 SoC, 5,100mAh Battery Launched in India: Price, Specifications
  2. Poco M7 Plus 5G Launched in India With 7,000mAh Battery, Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 SoC: Price, Specifications
  3. iPhone 14 Price in India Drops to All-Time Low on Vijay Sales: Price, Specifications
  4. Honor Magic V Flip 2 Launch Date Set for August 21; Design, Colour Options Revealed
  5. Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Design Officially Teased Ahead of Launch on August 20
  6. Perplexity Reportedly Offers to Buy Google Chrome for More Than Its Own Valuation
  7. Raphael Domjan Nears Solar Flight World Record with 8,224-Metre SolarStratos Journey
  8. Singapore Researchers Build Maple Seed Drone with Record 26-Minute Flight
  9. NASA’s Curiosity Rover Spots Ancient Coral-Like Rock on Mars
  10. Habitable Zone Explained: The ‘Goldilocks Zone’ Where Life-Friendly Planets May Exist
Gadgets 360 is available in
Download Our Apps
Available in Hindi
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2025. All rights reserved.