Defying the mainstream: building technology that respects our rights

Presented by Laura Kalbag at New Adventures, 23rd January 2020, Nottingham, UK. Our every move, habit, and facial expression is tracked and captured by the web and Big Tech at large. We’re told surveillance is the price of using modern technology, and that our personal information is merely used to improve our experiences. Instead, we see data about us being used to perpetuate systems of oppression and discrimination. Being designers who are also users, we also have to reckon with how we both contribute to this surveillance system and are exploited by it. Despite what we’re so often told, technology doesn’t have to be this way. This talk will explore a few of the practical ways we can design to benefit human welfare, not corporate profits.