Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL), HKU

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Book Talk

Meet the Team

Book Talk

Why Privacy Matters

Consumer Law and Policy

Date & Time Tuesday, 26 April 2022 8:30-9:30 pm (HKT)
Duration 1:00
Location Online via ZOOM

A much-needed corrective on what privacy is, why it matters, and how we can protect in an age when so many believe that the concept is dead.

Everywhere we look, companies and governments are spying on us – seeking information about us and everyone we know. Ad networks monitor our web-surfing to send us “more relevant” ads. The NSA screens our communications for signs of radicalism. Schools track students’ emails to stop school shootings. Cameras guard every street corner and traffic light, and drones fly in our skies. Databases of human information are assembled for purposes of “training” artificial intelligence programs designed to predict everything from traffic patterns to the location of undocumented migrants. We are even tracking ourselves, using personal electronics like Apple watches, Fitbits, and other gadgets that have made the “quantified self” a realistic possibility. As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg once put it, “the Age of Privacy is over”, but Zuckerberg and others who say “privacy is dead” are wrong. In Why Privacy Matters, Professor Neil Richards explains that privacy is not dead, but rather up for grabs. More information about the book is available here .

About the Speaker

Professor Neil Richards

Koch Distinguished Professor in Law; Co-Director at The Cordell Institute, Washington University Law School

Professor Neil Richards is one of the world’s leading experts in privacy law, information law, and freedom of expression. He holds the Koch Distinguished Professorship at Washington University School of Law, where he co-directs the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law. He is also an affiliate scholar with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and the Yale Information Society Project, a Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and a consultant and expert in privacy cases. Professor Richards serves on the board of the Future of Privacy Forum and is a member of the American Law Institute. He is the author of Intellectual Privacy (Oxford).