Media Futures recently interviewed Rob Wainwright at Cebit Sydney
Former Executive Director Europol ( The Hague Netherlands)
Senior Partner Deloitte from May 2018
Held Tuesday 15th May 2018
Rob’s comments are very relevant to the media industry given the increasing amount of cyber crime, fraud through internet transactions, the dark net and use of social media for criminal purposes. In a data driven world who are you really dealing with, it pays to now what is truly going on. Your privacy is paramount
Topic – Data, the new oil in the network economy fighting crime and terrorism
Q 1. Privacy by design – What is it ?
Rob Wainwright – It’s a mindset amongst policy makers, data scientists and policy makers and leaders in industry and governments that the products that are being developed and the way in which we are handling personal data should be managed so that we should have minimum privacy standards.
At the design stage of a new product we should be thinking about core principles of privacy,that the data owner is giving consent and that there is a proportional way that the the data is being handled with high security standards. Privacy design should no longer be an after thought. It should be baked into the way our whole data processing should be running.
Q 2. Is there data or security to police online shopping?
Rob Wainwright – There are functions such as the padlock you see on trusted websites and look for the scams even if something is too good to be true then you are on the wrong website. In the end with these large online shopping companies we are depending on the abilities of the company’s themselves to make sure they have built in strong security mechanisms and that they are looking for any kind of suspicious transactions. Criminals are becoming more sophisticated and exploiting loop holes so it does put more responsibility on the vendor and the shopper themselves. Be alert to any signs of criminal activity.
Q 3. Personal products to protect the individual, are there such products available?
Rob Wainwright – It depends on the user awareness and experience and that they are especially careful in how they share their personal information. We can take assurance with industries that I’ve worked with and in my new role at Deloitte that the financial sector has the strongest controls around cyber security. They regard personal data and superannuation funds for example as crown jewel data as they would call it. That’s not to say its impossible to hack into of course but the protocols are very strong particularly with the larger financial institutions and you have a very likelihood that it will be safe.
Media Futures presents articles of interest to the media industry and those involved with applying data as part of their media models
If your media policy, media strategy, media planning, media buying and media audit have not addressed data security its time to seek out an independent expert.
Website mediafutures.com.au




Wednesday 30 October 2019
Credit to CEBIT 2019 for arranging this interview
Here's what Stephen had to say.
Q 1. Has social media peaked? Is there too much of it?
I don’t think social media has peaked.There are still a lot of people in the world who don’t have the internet. In many ways social media is useful like electricity and water. Facebook has 2 .6 billion users and there are 7 billion people on the earth so in that sense there is a long way to go. Social media absorbs our attention and has AI to support it.
Anything of too much can be bad and there are limits and there are limits and how it interfaces with your psychology and emotions.Some of that is not understood and we are starting to understand it.
It can be disconnecting and alarming, like the telephone, how can you talk on that contraption for so long and you cant see them. Humans are adaptable.
Is there too much social media..... I don’t think so, but we need the right kind and right quality of social media.
Q 2. With the recent investigations into social companies, has the integrity of the social sector been damaged?
It depends on your perspective as a user, as a social scientist or an advertiser or government.
They all have slightly different perceptions. We have left the age when social media was universally good.
Thats behind us. There is good and bad in the internet and social media.We tend not to understand the bad things and if we do not understand them then we don’t know how to put in mitigations.
I urge companies like Google and Facebook to open up their platforms and ask the experts to come in and ask what good and bad effect is this having on individuals, societies, politics, how opinions get formed. Some are easy to identify and can be removed but it’s the subtle effects those are the ones we need to understand more deeply.
Q 3. How can SME make money from social media if a bidding system exists?
Facebook is pretty good as a platform and they and others have built tools to reach audiences. Before the internet if you were a coffee shop as an example you could not afford to run TV advts or radio advts or place newspaper advts, the audiences were too big and the advts too expensive.
Social media is built for the long tail of small business that traditional media could not build for.
The fact it is a bidding system should not make any difference as its a sustainable business and if a level is not found then prices come down. There is tension in an auction and small business should not be at a disadvantage to big business.
Q 4. How far can social media go? What are its limits?
The key insight from social media is that it taps into a human desire, to be connected to other people and it uses technology to do that.
There is a lot more energy left in social, we have not seen the end of it.
There are 2.5 billion smart phones now,10 years ago there were none. Theres a long way to go.
Its based on what people want to know. Whats going on in my world.The things that are disruptive and exciting are the advancement of data privacy and and consumers will have more control. The things to watch for the future is virtual technology like VR I phones. As an example if my friend is in Bali I can go surfing on VR with that friend.
Copyright Media Futures
Media Futures interviewed Stephen Sheeler at Cebit 2019
Darling Harbour Sydney October 2019
Website mediafutures.com.au




