Hacking Privacy

Youth-run design jam tackles how to build a digital future that protects everyone’s privacy.

Source : Michael Zhang – Mach 1 Studios

Growing up in a digital age, with technology ever-present, young people are said to have a different sense of privacy. Constantly connected and with much of their lives lived online, some might argue they don’t value privacy the same way older generations do. Citizen Hacks would disagree. The youth-run group, whose altruistic goal is for the next generation of innovators to “actively participate in building a digital world that works for everyone,” wanted to give young people a chance to take a deep-dive into the complex issue of privacy. While still in high school, members of the group decided to organize a design jam to try and answer a key question: “How can we build a digital future that protects everyone’s privacy?” Over 36 hours straight, participants worked in teams to design, create, and pitch answers to this challenge. “Real Results” spoke to event co-organizer Benn McGregor to find out more.

How did you come up with the idea for a design jam about privacy?

Three of us wanted to organize a privacy design jam – myself, along with two of my friends, Mio Yamanaka and Marcel O’Neil. At the time, we were at the very end of high school. [All three are now third-year software engineering students at the University of Waterloo.] We were inspired to do something when Dr. Ann Cavoukian^{Footnote 1} offered to speak at our school. We reached out to her and asked if she would be interested in speaking at a design jam if we were to organize one, and she agreed. Marcel discovered the OPC funding opportunity, so we applied.

Privacy doesn’t seem like something many high school students would be thinking about …

We wanted to give students the chance to explore what is a very complex issue. We were spurred by a desire to give students an opportunity not just to build cool technology, but cool technology that is concerned about real world impacts, specifically privacy.

What concerned you about privacy?

In the last half of the decade, there's been a lot more awareness about these things. We were hearing about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and practices of social media companies that were undermining personal privacy, and search engines' practice of collecting people's data to sell to advertisers. Everybody is using technology now, which means privacy is an even bigger concern. But there are no clear answers yet. People don't quite know how to go about dealing with privacy, and it varies in different contexts. We thought that as students – the next generation who will be building these platforms – we should have these skills in addition to the technical foundation you learn in university.

Why a design jam?

These problems are all very complex, and there are no clear-cut solutions, but they have real-world impacts. Developing the skills to deal with these really complex challenges was part of the impetus for organizing the design jam. During the event, we offered workshops, presentations, and panels so participants could learn some skills and different approaches to creating privacy-oriented technology.

Young people are said to have no concept of privacy, or at least a very different one than older generations. Do you agree?

“If there's no privacy, there's no freedom for youth to explore their identity, to connect with others, to investigate different ideas, to try creating new things.”

I feel like young people are often lumped into a group of people that don't care as much about privacy or have a different concept of privacy. But I don’t agree. If there's no privacy, there's no freedom for youth to explore their identity, to connect with others, to investigate different ideas, to try creating new things. Also, when you know that your data is being collected and you’re being observed, it affects your behavior. Without privacy, youth don’t have the chance to mature in an authentic way.

Who participated?

Primarily high school and university students interested in engineering and computer science, but we also wanted to attract students from other fields like business, the arts, and the humanities, so we ended up with a diverse group of participants. There were also some privacy experts in attendance who shared their expertise. Having participants from diverse backgrounds gives you different perspectives. That’s important, because a more inclusive design process will also help to build trust.

How is trust related to the issue of privacy?

Trust is a huge component of privacy. Users are putting their trust in a company when they disclose data. They trust that companies will not take advantage of this. So companies need to design technology to protect users’ privacy to maintain this trust.

How did the event go?

Having everybody in the same room, literally, and having the workshops, and hearing about other people's projects – it was very interactive. And because of the time constraint, you're not bound up by the considerations of trying to build something and turning it into a business and all those real-world concerns. Everything was at a very conceptual level and it was fast because you only have 36 hours to come up with something.

What potential career impacts does this project have on young people like you?

It's very important to have the ability to design privacy-protecting technology because companies are looking for these skills more and more. As a Waterloo student, I alternate between school and work every four months. For example, my last work term was at a video game company, but we still had to talk about the GDPR [the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation], and think about how to collect data in a way that protects people's privacy.

In an ideal world, if you’re working for a company developing whatever it might be, you’d always be asking ‘how does the product implement the principles of privacy and privacy by design?’ so that privacy becomes a consideration much further upstream in the development process. Just like building ethical, less-biased AI, it should be a consideration as you're building the technology, not something that's added on at the end. We’re not quite there yet, but hopefully Citizen Hacks helped move the needle forwards a little bit more among the next generation of developers and innovators.