Impact of Surveillance on Society

These programs, mass surveillance, is not about public safety.

It is not about terrorism.

It is about power.

It is about economic espionage, it is about diplomatic manipulation, and it is about social influence.

It is about understanding the actions of everyone in the world as carefully as they can,

no matter who they are, no matter how innocent their life.

But we see how these same technologies are being applied to create what they call the social credit system.

If any of these family photos, if any of your activities online,

if your purchases, if your associations, if your friends are in any way different

from what the government or the powers that be of the moment would like them to be,

you're no longer able to purchase train tickets,

you're no longer able to board an airplane,

you may not be able to get a passport,

you may not be eligible for a job,

you might not be able to work for the government.

All of these things are increasingly being created and programmed and decided by algorithms.

And those algorithms are fueled by precisely the innocent data that our devices are creating all of the time,

constantly, invisibly, quietly, right now.

Our devices are casting all of these records that we do not see being created,

that in aggregate seem very innocent.

You were at Starbucks at this time.

You went to the hospital afterwards.

You spent a long time at the hospital.

After you left the hospital, you made a phone call.

You made a phone call to your mother.

You talked to her until the middle of the night.

The hospital was an oncology clinic.

Even if you can't see the content of these communications...

The activity records, what the government calls metadata, which they argue they do not need a warrant to collect,

tells the whole story.

And these activity records are being created and shared and collected and intercepted constantly by companies and governments.

And ultimately it means as they sell these, as they trade these, as they make their businesses on the backs of these records,

what they are selling is not information.

What they are selling is us.

They're selling our future.

They're selling our past. They are selling our history,

our identity.

And ultimately they are stealing our power and making our stories work for them.

We will come, we could come with a legal proposal this summer.

We are witnessing the lightning speed at which technology is advancing and how it penetrates every corner of childhood and adolescence.

And the discussions about a minimum age for social media can no longer be ignored as you all know here in this room.

Almost all EU member states call for an assessment on the need for it.

At the moment Denmark wants to introduce one,

nine other member states too.

The European Parliament has come to the same conclusion.

The question is not whether young people should have access to social media.

The question is whether social media should have access to young people.