Big Tech’s role in facilitating a host of digital harms in recent years has become painfully clear: political polarization, consumer manipulation, discrimination-by-algorithm, worker insecurity, to name just a few.
The European Union has taken on a leading role in safeguarding citizens from these harms, first and foremost with the implementation of privacy standards and data protection law. Indeed, privacy has taken on a dominant position in the marketplace of public values in the digital age.
There are good reasons for this. Privacy is undoubtedly a core value of democratic societies, to be championed and cherished. It is the “breathing room” we need to engage in the process of self-development. But at this stage in our digital evolution, our heightened sensitivity to privacy, our fixation on data protection, may act as an obstacle to a “digital Europe fit for all”.
