PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES
Big cyber incidents make the news. Stuxnet, NotPetya, WannaCry and other such attacks, designed to advance the political agenda of the originating country, get headlines.
But cyber-enabled financial crime is now so ordinary that only the most egregious examples make the news. We live with heightened risk because we want the benefits of the digital world.
Control and use of data are the greatest sources of power and wealth creation in the 21st century. Attitudes to, and laws about, data are reshaping our societies and economies in fundamental ways, with profound differences emerging.
The less the state has control over data and the less it is the source of innovation, the less powerful it becomes. The converse is also true. In democracies, the position of the state has been diminished relative to both the individual and the private sector, which has become the primary source of innovation.
“Big Tech”— which in the West means primarily American tech — has mushroomed into a powerful force based on profits made from the exploitation of data, not least personal data. Through social media platforms,…
