6 Mar 2018, 09:00

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner is delighted to welcome Cory Doctorow, a pioneering international commentator on internet and digital technology, for a lunchtime PrivacyLive forum.

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian technology, copyright and privacy thinker, blogger, journalist, activist and science fiction writer. He is co-editor of Boing Boing and the originator of Doctorow's Law: "Anytime someone puts a lock on something you own, against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit."

This OPC PrivacyLive Forum is at 1pm on Tuesday 13 March 2018 in the Cable Room at Mac's Function Centre, 4 Taranaki St Wharf. Wellington. This public event is free. Register here to attend.

Doctorow will discuss the topic 'Machine Learning, Big Data and Being Less Wrong'. He will explain the seemingly limitless possibilities for machine learning and how it will require skilled practitioners and careful research to separate approaches that seem promising from those that deliver.

He argues that in order to get these things right, we must preserve the right of inquiry, discussion and experiment - the right to investigate how systems work, to share conclusions, and to implement them without fear of reprisal.

He says if you're also concerned about Internet of Things surveillance, you must allow firms and individual to offer patches that override the manufacturers' choices about how these work, otherwise, we're entirely beholden on firms to check their own worst impulses.

Doctorow's visit is enabled and supported by InternetNZ and the New Zealand Festival Writers and Readers. 

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner presents free lunchtime PrivacyLive forums. The forums are intended for anyone with an interest in privacy-related and data protection issues.

A PDF copy of this media release is available here.

For more information, contact Charles Mabbett 021 509 735.