Data on every activity we do is stored for ever. One author says we should be demanding to have this data consigned to oblivion

REMEMBERING; FORGETTING.

Austrian Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, author and professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University’s Internet Institute thinks we – and society as a whole – do too much of the former and too little of the latter, (no) thanks to the internet and digital technologies. And he thinks the situation needs to change.

His 2009 book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Agewas a philosophical and sociopolitical consideration of the effects on society of the internet's (and therefore, our) inability to forget even the most minute factoids of our lives. Data connected to our name and our every activity is posted and stored constantly online and in digital databases around the globe – whether we consult Google, upload a video to YouTube, post a comment on Facebook, or fill out a form on a retailer's website.

That’s even before you begin to look at all the information and activity stored by every type of organisation, from government agencies to communications providers.

His award-winning book argues that the human brain and the whole structure of human interaction and achievement is built around an ability for certain experiences and memories to pass into oblivion, so that we can look ahead rather than dwell on and obsess about our past.

Settling into a chair for an interview before a talk to the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin, Mayer-Schönberger said his original idea for the book was quite different.

“When I started, I thought it was a data protection story. The more I thought about it, I realised it was not a data protection story, it’s something more. The problem is not that others have information about us. The problem is, we are always stumbling over our digital memories, and that’s pushing us off the path of our present.

“The past always seems to be surrounding us. That has the power of derailing us from focusing on the present and future. That’s more important than data privacy or protection.”

In the book’s conclusion, he set out ways society could permanently remove information online, to automatically opt for delete rather than an eternal save. At the time, his notion that governments might legislate to require deletion, or that companies might voluntarily do so, when data gathering and mining were increasingly seen as critical marketing tools, seemed somewhat far-fetched.

Fast forward two years, and the European Commission has already promised to consider a “delete clause” in upcoming data protection proposals, while consumers have shown growing concern about the amount of information about them online.

If anything, says Mayer-Schönberger, “I’m more convinced than ever that forgetting is the needed solution. I think I didn’t push it hard enough in the book.”

What is quite interesting, he says, is that this issue of auto-delete “is heating up on both the regulatory and the market side.”

He finds the market side more interesting. He says there is a growing body of evidence that the majority of people prefer having options for automatic deletion of their own information. He cites the example of the storage site Drop.io, a highly successful start up.

“One of their claims to fame was that they provided an expiration date for things that people posted on the site. It turned out parents loved it because they could post up pictures of their children, but have them automatically deleted so that they didn’t remain as a record on the internet. I talked to the CEO, and he was amazed at how many people loved this functionality.

“The company was doing well and then it was bought up by Facebook. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories – but I do believe that Facebook bought it because it will have to consider this issue eventually.”

He notes that in the background, some companies already have features that allow for automatic deletion. For example, Google implemented meta-tags for webpages in 2007 in which you can indicate that pages are not to be indexed after a certain point. It was set up for expiring events like prize draws, but he says you can use it for anything you want.

“A lot of people came to me after I wrote the book and said, ‘you need to prove the technology works’. It already works.”

He notes a survey by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, published last year, in which 92 per cent said that they believed there should be a law requiring deletion of personal data after a certain point. Even 88 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed – the internet generation – felt there should be such a law.

“That was the highest positive for a legislative proposal that the researchers had ever polled,” he says. “That means there is market demand for people to be forgotten if they want to.”

Nonetheless, he feels that in the US, market forces, rather than laws, might be sufficient to bring about the kind of “delete” driven environment he described in his book. Really?

“If only Google and Facebook agree you’d have 72 per cent of the world’s data traffic taken care of. Now, if you add Flickr, YouTube, Bing and other sites in the Top 10, you get close to 90 per cent. Basically, give people the choice and then for all practical purposes, the problem is solved.”

But many would argue that companies will never agree to such a proposal, because they place a huge premium on the data they can gather and mine from users. For some internet companies and social media networks, isn’t long term use of user data essential?

“That is wrong,” he says, adding that geolocation data from consumers is interesting to advertisers for only about 45 minutes. “An expiration date might actually enhance the trust consumers have and enhance their desire to use a service over and over.”

He also argues that basing services on larger amounts of data gathered over time can actually decrease the value of the service, pointing to Amazon’s book recommendations.

“Over time, the book recommendations for me have gone down in quality and it’s obvious why – now they have lots and lots of data and they have no idea about what purchases are relevant to me.”

Two years after Delete'sinitial publication (a new paperback release is now out, with additional material), does he get tired about the focus on this single work?

"Sometimes it's hard, because there are moments where I have had enough of Deleteand enough of forgetting – because I see other important issues coming up – but I get sucked back into the debate when I think things are getting grossly misstated."

And he has a new book coming out in about a year. He won’t reveal the content yet. But he says, with a conspiratorial grin, that he expects it will stir up debate in an entirely new area of digital technology.

The video of Viktor Mayer-Schönberger’s IIEA speech is available on the IIEA’s website, www.iiea.com.