Technology has changed and keeps dramatically changing our everyday life by transforming the human species to advanced networked societies. To celebrate this digital revolution, 17 May is dedicated to the “World Telecommunication and Information Society Day” (WTISD-17).

Does Facebook identify and manipulate your feelings? Is it able to recognize your personality type, habits, interests, political views, level of income? Does it use all the information in order to reach you with personalized ads or sponsored content? You bet!

With the recent revelations of the invasion of users' privacy and misuse of personal data from the likes of companies such as Facebook, it is inevitable that we, the consumers, are worried. And since these activities seem to be a trend lately, we absolutely should be. A majority of people use Facebook and similar social media services, and it doesn't seem the companies will change their way any time soon. Worrying on its own does not solve the problem however, so what can users do to protect themselves online?

Videos from CPDP 2019: Data Protection and Democracy are already available (featuring Katarzyna Szymielewicz and Karolina Iwańska).

Legal regulations take shape by practice. The GDPR - as a legal document - was born in 2016. After two years of incubation it was thrown into the market. A year later, many are curious to see whether it can swim. But the expectations were higher. We wanted it to change the whole ecosystem, change the distribution of power over data. Are these hopes lost already?