New technologies empower citizens to impact society on an unprecedented scale. Yet the technological innovation environment, in its current form, mainly brings in profits for private companies rather than society’s benefit. While promising social innovations exist, they struggle to reach a critical mass that can match the scale of society’s challenges.

Israel is considered a world leader in medical data, which is partly why it has received priority access to the COVID-19 vaccines. Experts agree that the Pfizer deal offers reasonable protection of citizens’ personal data - but some parts of the deal prompt questions that need answering.

In January 2020, the Norwegian Consumer Council and the European privacy NGO noyb.eu filed three strategic complaints against Grindr and several adtech companies over illegal sharing of users’ data. Like many other apps, Grindr shared personal data (like location data or the fact that someone uses Grindr) to potentially hundreds of third parties for advertisment.

The proposed new EU Data Governance Act (DGA) is a positive step towards to enabling data-driven innovation. It has the potential to revolutionise data sharing between organisations to the benefit of businesses and society more generally.

As many countries continue to struggle with a third wave of COVID-19 all governments and public health authorities will need to remain open to new ideas for controlling the pandemic.

Australia is presently embroiled in two major showdowns with superpowers. One is with China. The other is with Google and Facebook.

We discussed the importance of having control over our data. Others, meanwhile, have championed the competing model of data ownership. Here, we outline why control, not ownership, provides the surest path towards data empowerment.

In an exclusive interview, Apple’s CEO talks about how privacy threats change behavior, tech’s role in igniting extremism, and why “Big Tech” is a misnomer.