Digital Rights And Privacy Are Shifting. Here’s How To Be Part Of It.

A lot of experienced civil liberties and privacy activists have taken jobs at major tech companies in recent years, even as these companies come under major scrutiny. It seems like everyone wants to do their part in the world of digital rights and privacy nowadays, but it could become a sticky situation where these activists turn their back on their passions.

In this Q&A, we’ll hear from Leena Romppainen, Staff IT Engineer at Aiven, a software company that combines open source technologies with cloud infrastructure, on whether or not individuals can truly be activists while working for a tech company and her advice on how to participate in the current shift we’re seeing in the digital rights and privacy space.

Gary Drenik: A lot of digital rights activists have been making career moves to big tech lately and clearly, that’s a bit of a conundrum. What do you think this means for the future of digital rights? Are these career changes going to improve the state of digital rights or are those activists turning to the dark side?

Leena Romppainen: In terms of the future of digital rights, I’m hoping what every other activist is hoping for: these career moves will create positive changes for a myriad of digital rights issues. However, no one can predict exactly what transitioning into big tech as an activist will accomplish. Recently we saw Google announce plans to double its AI ethics research department to 200 people and increase its funding over the coming years. However, this announcement came about because the company terminated both co-leaders of its AI ethics division after a disagreement over their research paper on large language models. While activism in tech can be a good thing, it can also make your professional career more difficult.

There are two sides to the coin at play here. There is a good chance that these career changes could improve the state of digital rights as we know it, but there’s also a chance that these activists’ passions might become a lower priority, or even be overlooked by superiors. Are some turning to the dark side? Maybe, but they don’t make these career changes with that intention in mind.

Activists tend to be people who want to change the world for the better. With tech companies, I imagine that this might create situations where you go to work somewhere and then realize that you cannot actually do good, or that you might even be turning to the dark side of some sort. It really varies, and I think it’s impossible to know in advance how things will work out. You can do your best, and if things don’t work out as you expected, you’ll need to think hard about your choices.

From my point of view, my career and advocacy haven’t been too intertwined. My employers have always been supportive of my activism. However, in my career, I have made choices to avoid working for specific places that would not support it. While Aiven’s enthusiastic support for open source aligns with my activist side, most of my day-to-day work doesn’t connect too much with my activism overall.

Drenik: According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, 64.8% of US adults don’t like advertisers accessing their personal data. Since we know there’s a lot to be done in terms of digital rights privacy specifically, can you outline the biggest challenges global companies are facing in this regard?

Romppainen: The biggest challenge is definitely cybersecurity, how to keep things safe and secure from attacks but easy enough to use without needing to turn everyone into a security specialist. Companies around the world are experiencing a large influx of phishing and ransomware, and unsuspecting employees are easy targets. There are a lot of phishing and malware attempts going on, and especially if people are busy, it’s easy to make mistakes. At Aiven, we educate our people constantly about risks and how to avoid them, and of course, we also use various tools and services to help people keep things secure, e.g. identify phishing, use good passwords, etc.

Sheer amounts of data collected for various purposes are also an issue. At times it feels that everyone wants to get access to a lot of data about you and use it for a multitude of reasons, e.g., sales and marketing purposes. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) of course tries to limit data collection, and companies of all sorts should have already tackled this.

Drenik: Now that we’ve touched a bit on the business side of digital rights privacy, what’s it like being on the employee side? How about as the president of Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi)? Do those two differ at all?

Romppainen: On the employee side I’d say that due to Effi, I’m probably a bit more aware than the average person about privacy issues. With that said, I’ve worked in Finland all of my life, and here we have had legislation about privacy in working life for a long time. Because of this, my experiences are presumably very different from people in some other parts of the world. And of course, Europe also has the GDPR. In a global company, you would often need to deal with different jurisdictions, and in the companies, I’ve worked for, we’ve usually checked the strictest privacy rules and operated by those across the board.

Drenik: It’s obvious you are passionate about the world of digital rights and digital rights privacy. Do you have any tips to offer others who are also passionate about the topic but want to get more involved in their personal life than their work-life?

Romppainen: There are a lot of civil society organizations dealing with the topics of intersecting technology and human rights. For me, a natural first step would be to find something that matches their interests and contact the organization. To name a few, Electronic Frontier Foundation in the US (with some global reach as well), European Digital Rights (EDRi) and Access Now (working globally) are some organizations I would recommend. Organizations usually do a lot of different activities, ranging from doing grassroots events and training to following legislation in their area and providing opinions to legislators. Specifically, Access Now has an annual event called RightsCon which is wonderful for jumping into human rights in the digital era.

Drenik: Let’s talk about your predictions for digital rights and digital rights privacy in 2022 and beyond. Recent Prosper Insights & Analytics data found that in the US, 67.6% would like to see legislation enacted to prevent third parties from selling personal data to advertisers and others. How do you think current legislation in Europe will impact the tech industry? Do you expect more activists to continue making the switch?

Romppainen: The legislation will definitely impact the industry, but it’s often hard to be accurate in predicting how exactly. Even with GDPR, we are still going through interpreting and enforcing it.

Draft legislation may change a lot before passing through parliament(s), and of course, there is a lot of lobbying going on, and once the legislation has passed, there may still be differing interpretations, which finally get solved in the courts, until it is time for the next round of legislation on the same topic.

Relevant legislation in Europe includes the recent Data Act, which is the EU’s latest attempt to regulate the exchange of data between companies and the public sector. When it comes to use of data, legal uncertainty is often the biggest problem for many companies. The Data Act aims to provide clarity on who can access and share data and under what conditions. On one hand, the challenge remains to protect sensitive corporate data and personal data. On the other hand, it’s giving people as much data sovereignty as possible and at the same time, continues to figure out ways to improve the world. Public data can bring remarkable benefits, just like in the case of open source. For example, in some cities in Finland, data has been crowdsourced to acquire information about city infrastructure that needs to be repaired or maintained. Citizens are engaged through a gamified experience to share photos or videos. This is a great example of data collection serving the greater good.

Drenik: Thank you, Leena, for sharing your advice and personal experience of being a digital rights and privacy activist while working for a global tech company. There are certain difficulties intertwining your passions and work, but with your tips, current and future activists can be prepared to pursue their activism efficiently.