Microsoft CEO says privacy is a human right, and businesses should treat it as such

The growing global concern over data privacy took centre stage this week as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared his thoughts on the digital economy at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Data, and privacy around data, is a human right that has to be protected and you have to be transparent,” he said during a presentation about unlocking inclusive economic growth and equitable globalization through technological progress.

He called on businesses to place greater weight on what he called “data dignity”.

“Data dignity goes one step further than privacy. Because data that you contribute to the world has got utility – utility for you, utility for the business that may be giving you a service in return, and the world at large. How do we account for that surplus being created around data, and who is in control around giving those rights? That’s the next level of work we all need to do where it’s not just oh, I have privacy and I just give away my data. I should be able to, in fact, control it in a much more fine-grained way how my data is being used to create both utility for me and the world and the causes I care about.”

Canada isn’t immune to the explosive growth of identifiable data making its way online.

More than 28 million Canadians were affected by a data breach, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada reported in November 2018. And while data breaches increasingly dominate news headlines, Canadians maintain the sentiment that there’s nothing they can do about it.

Ninety-two per cent of Canadians are concerned about data privacy but feel they have little to no control over how their personal information is being used by government and other organizations, revealed a survey commissioned by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in 2019.

“I believe…

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