What Will A Future Without Secrets Look Like By Acquisti Summary

In “What Will a Future Without Secrets Look Like?”, a TED Talk delivered at TED Global 2013 in June, Alessandro Acquisti argues that our privacy is at risk because sensitive information is more accessible than most people think. Acquisti maintains that finding sensitive information on a specific person is very easy with modern technology; he shares the results of experiments conducted to help prove his point. Explaining the negative effects caused by this information being accessible, Acquisti warns that the information can be found by using a single photograph of the person and can even jeopardize future jobs. Acquisti also used the notorious story of Adam and Eve in his talk to better explain his point that privacy is achievable, but it’s

He opens this part of his argument by explaining how drastically things have changed over the years, he says, “Back in the year 2000, about 100 billion photos were shot worldwide, but only a minuscule proportion of them were actually uploaded online. In 2010, only on Facebook, in a single month, 2.5 billion photos were uploaded, most of them identified” (1:14). In saying this, Acquisti brings to his audiences’ attention that things are not as they once were, as technology advances people need to be aware that information is not as protected as it once was. Acquisti starts explaining how this could affect people by mentioning an experiment done at Carnegie Mellon University, the experiment entailed students to fill out a survey after having their picture taken, while they filled out the survey the photograph was uploaded to a computer program that searched images found on Facebook, according to Acquisti, “By the time the subject reached the last page on the survey, the page had been dynamically updated with the 10 best matching photos which the recognizer had found, and we asked the subjects to indicate whether he or she found themselves in the photo” (2:34), the computer found “one out of three subjects” (3:19). This hard evidence which also has viable credibility as it was conducted by a well know university isn’t enough for Acquisti though.

At no point does he tell his audience why, apart from being a TED Talk speaker, he is qualified to be delivering such an imperative message. But after doing some research it can be found out that Acquisti is indeed qualified to be discussing his chosen topic. Princeton University has an entire page on their site dedicated to Acquisti. His bio there says, “Alessandro Acquisti is an Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, a member of Carnegie Mellon Cylab, and a fellow of the Ponemon Institute” (“Alessandro Acquisti”). This bio also informs readers that he received a Master and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from UC Berkeley and “a Master in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1999; and a Master in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics also in 1999” (“Alessandro Acquisti”). Further research leads to a biography written by Alessandro Acquisti himself for his page on Carnegie Mellon University/Heinz Colleges website, here Acquisti states that he “received the PET Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies, the IBM Best Academic Privacy Faculty Award, and the Heinz College Teaching Excellence Award.” With the reputable schools he has attended and taught at, as well as the awards he has won in the privacy field, he proves himself to be a credible source on the topic of