Episode 120: Online Privacy Rights and the Datafication of Our Lives with University Trustee Jane S. Hoffman ’86 (’21 P)
In this episode of Northwestern Intersections, Jane S. Hoffman ’86 (’21 P) joins us for a conversation that highlights her recent book, Your Data, Their Billions: Unraveling and Simplifying Big Tech. Understanding the great benefits and genuine risks of navigating the internet and new technology is essential in our increasingly virtual world. She shares how her book offers an accessible explanation of how big tech collects and trades our data to make profits, and how her policy proposals would protect online users’ privacy rights. And how you can take meaningful steps towards safeguarding your privacy while enjoying the positive features the internet has to offer. Hoffman also describes how helping others understand complex subjects like data, privacy, money, and sustainability through accessible language is a through line in her career path.
You will also learn more about an opportunity to enter for a chance to win a signed copy Hoffman's book, Your Data, Their Billions: Unraveling and Simplifying Big Tech.
As Commissioner of Consumer Affairs in New York City, Hoffman found herself never tiring of hearing people's problems and finding solutions. During her run for Lieutenant Governor of New York she describes how she had the opportunity to tour the entire state and listen to her potential constituents and understand the issues impacting them and their communities. Hoffman tell us how she later founded the Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy to help force politicians and their policy makers to talk about the existential threat of climate change in a public forum. And subsequently introduce language around climate change into common discourse. Helping others understand complex subjects such as data, privacy, money, and sustainability through accessible language is a through line in her career path.