

For decades, the business world has embraced worker empowerment. But recently a countermovement—workforce optimization—has been on the rise. It treats labor as a commodity and seeks to cut it to a minimum by using automation and artificial intelligence, tightly controlling how people do their jobs, and replacing employees with contractors. This approach is especially prevalent in the tech sector and the gig economy. And it is cause for deep concern.
Peter Cappelli
I can only agree.
A friend of mine sent this link to me. I was incensed. (I think he knew I would be). In turn, I sent this link into an Internet Identity community I belong to and asked : “How many different ways is this wrong?”
Amazon To Pay Consumers For Their Shopping Data
People First Podcast Guest Tim Walters was quick to reply (the link takes you to the podcast – the show has not yet gone live).
The great and sadly late European Data Protection Supervisor, Giovanni Buttarelli, said it all in 2014:
“There might well be a market for personal data, just like there is, tragically, a market for live human organs, but that does not mean that we can or should give that market the blessing of legislation. One cannot monetise and subject a fundamental right to a simple commercial transaction, even if it is the individual concerned by the data who is a party to the transaction.”If I thought it was worth $10 a month, I’d go to a shopping district and gather discarded receipts to scan for Amazon. After all, “That data will be used anonymously, the company says.” But . . . if it is genuinely used anonymously, why doesn’t Amazon just collect and study discarded receipts themselves? They could certainly find a way to do it at far more scale — not to mention, actually anonymously — than a cumbersome mailed-pictures-of-paper-receipts-for-Amazon-credit scheme. (S&H Green Stamps, anyone?)
The company says it deletes any sensitive information such as prescriptions from drug store receipts and allows panellists to delete their own information whenever they want.” Oh, not so anonymous after all.
Tim Walters / Giovanni Buttarelli
What do you think?
It’s a couple of months old now – but sharing for posterity.
This popped into a thread that I am part of …
A thread that caused ‘Friend of People First’ – Adrian Gropper to write;
A talk that argues that most of the big data is being used to screw us and mentions data trusts as a possible solution. Data trusts are an immature concept but worth considering because it’s one approach to decentralizing governance. Until we figure out data governance principles that are transparent and contextual to specific communities we should limit data aggregation by default and focus on personal agents and other fiduciaries.
Adrian Gropper
It is interesting because on that very same day I received these words from another ‘Friend of People First’ and occasional colleague Daniel Szuc after he received my newsletter declaring Data is Energy.
Energy is energy.
Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong
Climate is a result of energy misused.
Environment is the outcome.
What are the impacts on our environment today, inside people and in the outside environment people live in?
What contributes to the health or toxicity of the environment?
Data, understood deeply, should be used to contribute to the healthy environment … yet … how is it being used today?
The answer, of course, is exactly what Adrian expressed above.
It is being used to screw us.