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All Things Considered

Discussion & Talk

Religion & Ethics

Religious affairs programme, tackling thorny issues in a thought-provoking manner

Religious affairs programme, tackling the thornier issues of the day in a thought-provoking manner

All Things Considered: Privacy in a Digital World

Privacy in a Digital World

BBC Radio Wales - All Things Considered, Privacy in a Digital World

In an increasingly digital world, what is privacy and how important is it?

In an increasingly digital world, what is privacy and how important is it? Roy Jenkins looks at the issues.

We surrender some of our privacy whenever we order on line, or use any number of digital devices.   We trade our data for the service on offer – often ticking a little box and never reading the small print or giving the exchange  a second thought. 

But a series of exposes by the Guardian and 16 other international media organisations in the past week has revealed that our data is more vulnerable than we might have realised.  In particular many governments around the world have planted malware on smartphones in a complex system of surveillance accessing a level of detail we might have thought was open only to ourselves and to God. 

Targets for hacking, we’re told, include “lawyers, human rights defenders, religious figures, academics, businesspeople, diplomats, senior government officials and heads of state”. 

But quite apart from hacking, why are lots of us ready to give away so much private information, and how much should we to worry about it?   Is privacy just a concept past its use-by date?  And what does any of this have to do with religious faith?

Joining Roy to discuss the issues are

Dr Eric Stoddart – theologian at St Andrew's university in Scotland specialising in Surveillance and digital technology, author “Theological Perspectives on a Surveillance society”

Dr Kate Ott, from Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey - a theologian and ethicist who's written “Christian Ethics for a Digital Society”

Father Matthew Roche Saunders, who is about to become Parish Priest and Catholic university chaplain in Aberystwyth

Dr Andreas Weigend, former Chief Scientist at Amazon and author of the book, “Data for the People: How to Make Our Post-Privacy Economy Work for You.

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