COMP7004 Class 01.3

Thinking about the John Oliver video on Credit Scores from the last class I asked student to propose ideas that a government might use to make the problems less severe.

We came up with some suggestions and discussed them briefly.

We watched a video on the Social Credit system in P.R. China.  I asked the class how much of the problem stems fro the technology, and how much of it is about how it is used.  Someone pointed out that there is widespread surveillance in UK cities, but none of us would have any cause to be afraid.  So is it the technology itself, or how it is used? Is technology neutral? These are questions we will return to.


I asked students to speculate on which countries in Europe had citizens most paranoid about data privacy.  One student proposed Sweden and Finland, and speculated that this was connected the their proximity to Russia. I proposed Germany, because if it's past.

Full report: http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/flash/fl_225_en.pdf

It turns out Finns are super happy. It has been argued that fear about data protection is inversely correlated with trust I the government.  Finn trust their government. Germany came second.  The Austrians are most concerned.