Since the first stories revealing the extent of mass surveillance appeared in the Guardian in June 2013, the Snowden files have helped to shine a light on the government agencies who monitor the online activity of their citizens and the companies who collect their customers’ personal data. Julia Powles (University of Cambridge), Mike Harris (Don’t Spy On Us), Josh Levy (Access Now) and Katarzyna Szymielewicz (Panoptykon Foundation) in a panel chaired by James Ball (The Guardian) explore who owns our data, how to take control of our online lives and ask what is the future of our personal data.

Our data shadows and digital dandruff can be used to track and record our activities online. Even if there is nothing to hide, this can become problematic. Katarzyna Szymielewicz discuss these problems with Jeremy Malcolm (Electronic Frontiers Foundation), Joana Varon (Centre for Technology and Society in Rio de Janeiro), Niels ten Oever (Article 19) and Harry Halpin (World Wide Web Consortium - W3C).

Anna Buchta (EDPS), Gwendal Le Grand (CNIL), Paul Nemitz (European Commission), Katarzyna Szymielewicz (Panoptykon Foundation) and James Leaton-Grey (BBC) discuss CJEU Google Spain and UPC Telekabel decisions and their implementation implications for rights to privacy and freedom to expression in Europe, as well as safeguards, processes and mechanism to protect human rights online.

Glenn Carle (Former Deputy National Intelligence Officerfor Transnational Threats at the CIA), Katarzyna Szymielewicz (President of the Panoptykon Foundation) and Robert Pritchard (Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Founder of The Cyber Security Expert) comment on US debates on private and state internet surveillance.

Watch video (Al Jazeera)