Yesterday, I talked about the Facebook wall in parallel to Plato. You know Plato, the allegory of the cave, the wall there, that the world we see is just the world that Google or Facebook, etc., actually want us to see.

As I said before, it’s maybe .1 percent difference we can make by opening up data, by embracing transparency, by creating accountability, including for my staff, by the way or me.

Yeah.

Take Cambridge Analytica. One of the most exciting conversations I had was with a woman like Lisa at TED this year. I play the cello, and I managed to have the idea that I could go to a rehearsal. I went to a couple of rehearsals this year, one with the Berlin Philharmonic, where my friend plays, and one with San Francisco Symphony.

Then that day, when I had the San Francisco rehearsal all signed up, I was asked to be at KQED, which is the public radio station in San Francisco, at noon. I had to leave at intermission, because I was going to do a recording with the East Coast with a woman called Manoush. The recording was about what pictures tell about us.

The only reason I did this, that Manoush had done a show before with Cambridge Analytica. That was the best piece I have seen about something I have spent a lot of time reading about. She really was good, so that’s why I decided on that.

I was at TED, and there was a random woman who were coming up to me across the hall, and say, "Andreas." "Oh, Manoush," when I read her name tag. They have some people who really...I’m not sure whether you know the show. It’s called Notes to Self. Have you heard about it?

Yes, you know it? She is great. Just by exposing what companies know, what companies do, what the government knows, what the government does, I think she is doing a great job as a journalist.

I would argue there, and that’s why I mentioned Plato. You could also mention Immanuel Kant, on having these categories of how we perceive things. You could mention quantum mechanics, that we only can observe eigenvalues to the operator.

For me, all the same thing, reality, as such, we have no way of knowing. We only know it mediated through the senses.

There, I gave a talk at Google earlier this year, which is on the web. At the end, it’s very interesting that they cut that out. I ended by saying Google has enormous responsibility of they shape, they do the ways of world-making.

As the Harvard professor said it, they have enormous responsibility to try to allow us to get more, not a way from full six degrees, but maybe two degree of the world, as opposed to .1 percent of a degree of the world.

I know Larry quite well, and it’s just pushing them. I’m not worried about Google much. I’m worried about Facebook big time. I know Mark somehow, and that’s a very different game from Google, how they, for instance, collaborate with the Chinese.

Whereas Google said, "Well, these are our principles. If you don’t want it, then I’m sorry. We’re not providing the services." whereas Mark says, "Oh, no problem. We’ll find some backdoors for you. We’ll help you out, if you can help me out with the revenue streams from mainland."

Totally. Everyone knows that.

Supposedly. Under the laws to come, there’s no question about that, that right now, the EU earlier this year, what was it, four percent of the overall global turnover? I’m looking forward to Facebook actually getting whipped into place by the EU. I genuinely look forward to that.

It’s the best thing we have.

Principles or translations?

Really?

That’s interesting, because I did a workshop for the FTC in the United States, where we had really a large number of data protection agencies from around the world. I do remember, like the candidates of the Ireland, that guy was good.

The Hong Kong guy was a mere puppet. The Korean guy with the Korean agency, the agency I visited afterwards. I actually was thinking that I did not meet the Taiwanese person.

Ah, yes. I thought, it’s only that many people I can remember. That’s why I missed that.

OK.

Last time I was in Taiwan, there was a discussion about the -- I’m not sure I’m using the right word -- national identity card, biometrics, and health insurance, which was a very solid discussion between it all, where I personally...

The reason I wrote the book is I believe we need to move society to become more data literate. Part of that is that if you really don’t want your health data in the cloud, you have an accident, and you are unconscious, then there is no way of finding your health data.

If you, on the other hand, have your ID card -- and I don’t know what the situation now is in Taiwan -- where Germany, everybody has their health card. America, nobody has a health card.

It’s mandatory. That was about two years ago when the discussion. There are pros and cons. What our job is as educators or as government is to make sure it’s data for the people. My older brother is mentally retarded.

I’m very glad that he grew up in Germany, where he gets health insurance. He has a place where he can live with other people. What if you can see this from DNA, maybe even before the person is born?

What if they find out that, let’s say, I have some disease, then I’m applying for a mortgage, and they say, "30 year? No. No 30 year mortgage for you. 10 years, we can do 10 years." What about health insurance? We have preexisting conditions.

I had back surgery 10 years ago. I was very honest when I filled out the application form. I said I had back surgery before and stuff. Had I not been honest, I probably would have been stuck with a $200,000 bill.

They would have said, "Ah, you did not indicate that you had back surgery before. We are not paying for that." How can we watch the watchman? How can we make sure that companies, and that’s the role, I think, of government. That’s the role of individuals.

I am not worried about Amazon price discrimination and this. Poor Jeff Bezos had to go and testify about this. This is not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about not getting insurance at a reasonable price.

Now, the fascinating thing is, we want companies -- say, banks -- to believe that fairness is that if somebody is a higher risk of paying back something, that we charge them a higher premium. I had lunch with the son of CP Group in Bangkok, who just allowed us shareholder in Ping An.

We want to actually be fair, that if somebody has likely to have a problem of paying that mortgage or something, or that loan back, then it’s the right thing, also for that person, to not get that loan, the same to questions before.

One, if it’s used against the people, like for my brother, or two, what if the data is wrong? It’s influenced on my dad having been in prison. It is what I worry about, data for the people.

The for comes from the US, data of the people, by the people, for the people, data with the people.

Sousveillance, by the way, have you met the guy who invented sousveillance?

Yeah, Mr. Mann. He’s absolutely awesome. Steve Mann, it’s one of the good things, if you write a book, that random people who we are talking about in the book who I didn’t meet say, "Hi, I’m Steve Mann. When do you have time to get together?"

We got together at the Stanford pool, because he likes to go to the pool. [laughs] That is brilliant. I translated the word into German. There’s Überwachung and Unterwachung. I’m very proud of that term.

It’s a great neutral term, once you get the term. Unterwachung, that you take pictures of the people. That will be stories about the German police showing up at my brother’s place, because I took pictures of what they thought was inappropriate. I didn’t think so.

Or my friend who runs for the Singapore police big data, Dan Ong, another Stanford student whose grandfather -- he usually don’t tell you that -- his grandfather used to own the red light district...Then now, I hope I am not...

I don’t know about people’s religious beliefs. His father became very Christian to rebel against his grandfather. He doesn’t even call his grandfather his grandfather. He’s just, "Oh, my father’s father," to be clear that that is not values we subscribe to.

He works for the Singapore police. When he was a kid, he was flipping noodles, finding out what’s happening in the red light district. I was in charge of the data, the big data project of Singapore police.

These are interesting problems that an officer, you know, Andreas, he told me, sometimes when we are in action, we might be running so fast that the thing gets disconnected. Then what can you do? We need to protect our country.

We can’t worry about our body cam when we are really in action. If it falls off, what can we do about this?

What can you do? I’m not sure whether you know about that US case which I discussed in the book, where some court told a police officer whose body cam fell off, and his intercom wasn’t working, they said, "Sorry, but despite being under oath, we don’t believe what you said."

The body cam falling off and the intercom not working, against one statement of you, the judge said, "We believe the other party."

It’s, "I am sorry my camera fell off, and my intercom wasn’t working," and, "We are sorry for you, too, but maybe it’s time to look for another job. If you can’t keep your intercom on, I don’t think it’s the right job for you." [laughs]

Thank you for coming back to the topic. I do like the for the people, in contrast to against the people. For me, that title, when I came up with title, I knew that’s the title. The German book has the same title. It’s just, there is no way of translating this into German.

Olfa and I talked a lot about the Chinese title. I forgot what they finally picked in mainland.