00;00;05;24 - 00;00;36;12
Speaker 1
This is the data privacy detective. Today we're turning our eyeglass to things. This typically the Internet of Things. Now, that's a catch phrase for wear objects, equipment, things, meet data where the Iot the Internet of things meets data infrastructure. Now, let's take a quick example, an automobile. Now we don't think of a car as a collector and transmitter of data the same way we think of our computer or smartphone.

00;00;36;18 - 00;01;05;04
Speaker 1
And these are generally does a law that regulates personal data privacy around the world. Now we have Europe's GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, that's law throughout the EU, and it talks about data controllers and processors of our personal data. And that generally means companies that use computers and smartphones and equipment like that to collect and process our personal information and their very controls over.

00;01;05;12 - 00;01;39;08
Speaker 1
Well, is that a car and a vehicle? Not so obvious. And yet some say that the average new automobile has within it 4000 computers and modern vehicles collect a lot of data about ourselves and transmit it. Now, that's just one example of what we're going to talk about today. And I covered this an episode 90 about The Edge with a capital league where devices and traditional data for infrastructure connect.

00;01;40;03 - 00;02;01;25
Speaker 1
Now, joining me today for I think what will be a very interesting and thought provoking discussion is Daniel Murray now day on your intellectual property and technology transactions attorney with Prosper and TOD, a U.S. law firm with offices from Houston to Washington, D.C. So thank you for joining us today, Daniel.

00;02;03;08 - 00;02;04;19
Speaker 2
Joe, thanks for having me on.

00;02;05;14 - 00;02;22;18
Speaker 1
Well, let's jump in now. Now, let's start our conversation with this general question. With the Internet of things emerged is let's start with U.S. law is a law in the United States ready to protect our personal information?

00;02;23;04 - 00;02;52;16
Speaker 2
I think a lot depends on it. If you're a person that loves regulation or if you're a person that hates it, I, I can be I can take either side sometimes. But here in the U.S., we don't have, you know, a broad federal data privacy law, at least not of the type that, say, Europe has with GDPR or Canada has with Tibbett.

00;02;54;03 - 00;03;02;11
Speaker 2
And California has their own state law called CCP, which is a fairly broad data privacy law.

00;03;02;11 - 00;03;08;03
Speaker 1
So fairly recent and easy. But even that's not comprehensive, that's aimed at certain things.

00;03;08;14 - 00;03;30;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, some people are really pushing for for the U.S. to kind of join everyone else and have have something on the books. We don't we don't yet. So in some ways, we're not ready for what's coming down the road. Or some may even say we're not ready for what? What's already here with all the data collection that goes on with our smartphones, things like that.

00;03;30;14 - 00;03;48;01
Speaker 2
The technology's always changing, on the other hand. So I think from a positive perspective, the fact that the US doesn't have a federal law yet may, may allow us, if we ever do have one, to, to craft it, you know, more up to date.

00;03;48;29 - 00;04;12;13
Speaker 1
And evolving things beyond smartphones and computers and your traditional data infrastructure. Because let's face it, the automobile collects a lot of data about us and those in the car and what happens to that data. And yet a lot of laws are thinking about the traditional data infrastructure rather than equipment. So maybe it's an advantage to the United States, as you say.

00;04;12;13 - 00;04;40;19
Speaker 1
Maybe not. And then, of course, internationally, you have countries like China that want central government able to access any data about its residents generally for the social or scoring system they have, you know, as compared with Europe, which is much more pro individual, giving us the right even to delete data, very great differences around the world. But again created when it was more a world of data infrastructure that we worried about and now automobiles.

00;04;40;19 - 00;04;59;12
Speaker 1
And I'll tell you what, let's let's move away from the automobile for a minute. Let's take our homes, whether we rent or we own or for that matter, if we're just visiting. Are there devices listening and watching us collecting and sharing the data of us and our family members and our visitors?

00;04;59;20 - 00;05;36;15
Speaker 2
There are and there are more all the time. So, you know, people sometimes will become an Apple family or an Android family. But your Apple devices, maybe it's an ITV or your phones, they often we're listening to you. You know, if you if you are asking Syria question, well, it only works because Siri is is listening for you or if you have an ITV or a fire TV from from Amazon or there are other types of Android players, you know, if they can obey your commands, that that's because they're listening to you.

00;05;36;18 - 00;06;05;00
Speaker 2
You're getting more of them more and more of those devices in your house and even things like, I think Google's nest line of products which have some smart thermostat functionality. And I think they also integrate with your security system and you can have, you know, cameras and other things. So compared to five years ago, you have, you know, maybe ten times the number of products in your house that are listening to.

00;06;05;00 - 00;06;23;29
Speaker 1
You and expanding all the time. Only smart speakers. I've heard light bulbs even collects data about us and smartwatches now that could be inside or outside. I mean, the point is there are a lot of things watching us and collecting information about it. Yeah.

00;06;24;02 - 00;06;49;19
Speaker 2
And then these these companies want to want to own the home. So Amazon would love to have every product in your house be be from them. So they have smart light bulbs, as you mentioned, smart speakers, fire tablets, fire TVs. And the same with Google there. They want to do your thermostat, your security, your your smart speakers, your whatever it may be.

00;06;50;03 - 00;07;09;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Now, when we when we when we buy a smart phone, I think most listeners now know that you can go to settings and you can set your privacy settings, you know, whatever you want to do any in Europe. And it would be designed that the default would be pro privacy. And then if you want to be less private, you can choose that.

00;07;09;24 - 00;07;25;19
Speaker 1
But you know, you buy a television set or an air conditioning system. Where do you go to settings? You know, what do you have to go find the website and then you see what? It's very different, isn't it, from traditional data infrastructure?

00;07;25;29 - 00;08;06;24
Speaker 2
It is very different. Like your TV. I think I've changed the contrast ratio and different stuff like that, but I, I'm not sure that I've double checked what data is it collecting about me? And then it can be confusing again because so you have a Samsung TV and you hook it up to your fire TV box from Amazon and then maybe your speaker system that you integrate with your TV is from Polk or LG, and they're all integrated together because, you know, maybe it's just your fire TV remote that controls everything you can turn it on or just the volume.

00;08;06;27 - 00;08;17;22
Speaker 2
And when you're when you're speaking, when you're doing voice commands, it's probably that same public speaker listening to you interacting with the fire TV, putting something on a Samsung TV, you know.

00;08;17;25 - 00;08;40;10
Speaker 1
So now you've got seven different companies who are collecting and they can then process your data. That's what you're saying. Very different from having your smart phone and you tell your smart phone provider, whoever it is, you know, I don't want my GPS operating all the time, so whatever. But now, now you're in a home and it's all being collected and shared by companies.

00;08;40;10 - 00;08;41;15
Speaker 1
You may never have heard of.

00;08;43;09 - 00;09;07;20
Speaker 2
Your Internet service provider is probably tracking you, too. I don't know that I've ever checked my terms and conditions with my my my service provider. So their network neutrality isn't the rule anymore. So they're they're probably measuring and seeing where people are going because they have to adjust the things they do. And they may want to charge things differently.

00;09;08;06 - 00;09;35;16
Speaker 1
And, you know, in the United States, without an overarching federal law about all this, it's sort of up to each company to decide what it wants to do. And so virtually impossible, isn't it, for all of us in our home to really control our own privacy when devices are listening that we really don't know how to control. And so it's a it's a challenge for regulators, as you say, that'll be up to the voters and then the regulators to create the laws.

00;09;36;22 - 00;09;56;27
Speaker 1
And then you go internationally. I mean, imagine imagine the problems of a car maker. If it makes a car with components from all over the world and it sells it in more than one country, which laws still which law is it supposed to comply with? Because a data privacy laws are going to be different in different countries, although the cars, the car, you know what I mean?

00;09;57;18 - 00;10;16;28
Speaker 1
Let me introduce another subject I know you've thought about, and that's in advert and collection. Most of the times when we're dealing with data privacy, it's about our personal information and we share it. And then we should have some right to control some of it. But, you know, we bring visitors into the house. What are we supposed to do?

00;10;16;28 - 00;10;33;16
Speaker 1
Not post a warning. Warning, unless you consent to the use of of your presence here, you know. Yeah, we're going to record you and 27 companies are going to have your data. So if you want to come in, come on. It wouldn't be very friendly, but no.

00;10;33;22 - 00;10;42;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. And you have a party with 20, 50 people over. I have no idea how much data is collected, say by your smart speaker during that time.

00;10;42;19 - 00;10;52;17
Speaker 1
Okay. And one of your guests gets really drunk at in beer and their pictures taken without their knowing. How are they supposed to request those be deleted, even if they're European residents?

00;10;53;08 - 00;10;59;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. If you're if you're a European citizen, you have a right to be forgotten under the GDPR.

00;11;00;16 - 00;11;02;00
Speaker 1
This some extent. That's right.

00;11;02;04 - 00;11;02;14
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;11;02;20 - 00;11;08;24
Speaker 1
Not in the United States that as far as I know, not in any law of any state in the United States.

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Speaker 2
Right.

00;11;10;22 - 00;11;32;04
Speaker 1
So the inadvertent collection problem is, is a real issue in a car at home and elsewhere. Well, let me turn to a couple of the newer challenges for what we're talking about, and those would be the metaverse and blockchain technology. So let's start with the metaverse and of course, methods, a new name for one of the big companies.

00;11;32;04 - 00;11;43;04
Speaker 1
If you speak Facebook, metaverse. And what do we know about the metaverse? I you know, I looked it up, Daniel, in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I couldn't find it. So why don't you tell us what the metaverse is?

00;11;43;06 - 00;12;15;26
Speaker 2
I couldn't I couldn't find it there either. I tried. And the metaverse is the forthcoming kind of virtual reality world that that we may be spending quite a bit of time in and we'll see. Some people think I don't know, ten, ten years from now, you and I might be spending 4 hours a day, 10 hours a day in a virtual reality world where we're interacting with other people, maybe having this conversation, just this podcast in, in that world.

00;12;16;01 - 00;12;27;19
Speaker 2
And this would be through the use of some type of VR or air augmented reality, VR or AR headset, which we would put on and then enter this, this.

00;12;27;19 - 00;12;41;29
Speaker 1
Metaverse and so, so it's may have Android headsets and others in different Apple headsets. Who knows what the future will be for any company but so who's going to own that data and what are the rules are going to apply to that?

00;12;42;04 - 00;13;00;20
Speaker 2
It's I think it's an open question. I think definitely companies are trying to position themselves to be the main provider there. So that's part of what I think Facebook did. They're definitely aligning themselves with that metaverse, and I think they want to be your main go to for for that.

00;13;00;20 - 00;13;04;14
Speaker 1
They want to own the metaverse, like you're saying. Some companies want to own the.

00;13;04;14 - 00;13;43;06
Speaker 2
Home, you know. Yeah. So on the home people want to own the verse and it's so hard to predict what exactly it'll look like or what the experience will be will be like from a kind of a data privacy and data use perspective. But, you know, all the data that is collected about you right now, whether it be whether it's your smartphone, your your smart speaker, your car, the same thing will be true in the metaverse, your data of how you spend your time, what you do, how you spend metaverse money, that's all going to be very valuable, potentially even more valuable than than the things collected.

00;13;43;06 - 00;13;48;20
Speaker 2
Now, if if we're spending a ton of time in the metaverse, then the value just goes up and up.

00;13;49;06 - 00;14;13;08
Speaker 1
And the laws probably haven't been written. All this talk briefly about cryptocurrency and really the essence of blockchain technology. Now, there's a benefit there from the from the blockchain point of view because it's so-called incorruptible, because no single user controls it. There's no central bank of data in a blockchain system. The ledger is agreed to and recorded by all system nodes.

00;14;13;09 - 00;14;30;22
Speaker 1
But then if the ledger can't be changed, how do you deal with data privacy concepts such as the right to be forgotten, the right to have your data corrected if it's incorrectly capped? How does blockchain interfere and rather interact with with data privacy?

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Speaker 2
It really complicates the issue of blockchain, such as Bitcoin. You get so much value from being incorruptible, you know, ledger, a distributed ledger where no, no single person, no single user can can change the system. It's, it's, it's built on, you know, all, all the nodes agreeing to the ledger. If blockchain is integrated into, say, the Internet of Things and say people's name and info and other things, get on to a blockchain, they can't really be changed.

00;15;06;17 - 00;15;17;20
Speaker 2
So I think anonymization will have to be a big part of maybe how it's integrated and made compliant with data privacy laws, maybe.

00;15;18;13 - 00;15;45;08
Speaker 1
Pseudonymous zanamivir anonymous. You really talking about the partition of collected personal data features? Yeah, we're regulators or law writers may may require that if they're on the privacy side. Well, let's turn to one more issue. There's so many here, and that's this evolution of data localization, where, for example, China wants to have access to all of its residents data.

00;15;45;08 - 00;16;12;04
Speaker 1
They have a certain scoring system and to control society more than we see in other societies, such as the United States, not taking sides on it. We're here to observe what's going on. But in that kind of world, when you add to that, that data can be collected and processed by things, you know, by cameras on the streets and devices implanted in your car and your home and so on.

00;16;12;17 - 00;16;14;02
Speaker 1
But is there any privacy left.

00;16;15;07 - 00;16;16;11
Speaker 2
Right? Sure there is.

00;16;17;01 - 00;16;43;22
Speaker 1
But it's a challenge. And so for lawmakers, they have to decide how to balance this between law and order. I'll just call it on one extreme and the personal privacy rights on the other side. But the equipment certainly challenges that beyond having smartphones, computers. And maybe just to wrap up here, you know, as things affect privacy, it's not just about what of our information is collected and stored.

00;16;43;22 - 00;17;08;02
Speaker 1
It's also that things are attacking us with ads. They're attacking us with robocalls. We haven't asked for that. And if you think of privacy as in part at least the right to be left alone, there are more and more things, the Internet of things coming after us without our request, without our consent. Daniel, would you agree with me?

00;17;08;02 - 00;17;11;00
Speaker 1
The laws are pretty behind in thinking that one through.

00;17;11;07 - 00;17;21;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, there's definitely complications coming down the road that will, I think, make some of the disagreements or controversies now seem like child's play.

00;17;22;09 - 00;17;39;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, maybe we'll get those sorted out. And meanwhile, life will evolve in ways where the law will have to catch up, as it usually does with it. Business realities and technology go evolution. Any final comments, Daniel, before we conclude this session?

00;17;39;29 - 00;18;04;09
Speaker 2
One kind of belief I have is that there are utopias. I don't think there's a utopia where we're we have perfect regulation. I also don't think there's a utopia where we have zero regulation of of data privacy. I think there's just going to be so many competing balancing interests. I think there's going to be harms from doing too much harm, from doing too little.

00;18;04;29 - 00;18;09;25
Speaker 2
But it's going to be tough to find the right balance. But I think we'll have to do it somehow.

00;18;10;19 - 00;18;29;17
Speaker 1
Look for the balance, maybe may the force be with us. Maybe Yoda will have an answer. Well, as always, I'll conclude by reminding us all protecting your personal data begins with you. There.