On May 6, 2020, I had the honor and the privilege to participate, as a member of the Homo Digitalis non-profit organization, in a very interesting and successful webinar organized by Bizrupt. The webinar focused on our digital footprints and what we can do to protect them. Just like fingerprints define our identity in the physical world, digital footprints, the traces we leave behind us as we march the sands of the Internet, define our digital persona.
We Leave our Digital Footprints Behind
Alexandra Karapidaki and Konstantinos Vassakis, Bizrupt’s Yin and Yang, said about the event:
Firstly, it is a fact that we spend a great deal of our daily life on the web and social media. Moreover, in our digital life, we leave our digital fingerprints even without realizing it. That is why we must all be informed, regardless of our background or our profession.
Wanting to provide our community with proper information, we invited Homo Digitalis and the CAPrice initiative to speak at the Digital Footprint webinar. We had the opportunity through simple and everyday examples to learn about personal data, their importance, and our rights in the framework of GDPRWhat is GDPR? The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is widely regarded as the world's strictest security and privacy law, promulgated by the European Union (EU) to regulate any organization... More. In short, Bizrupt considers personal data to be an important part of our lives. We will constantly seek to keep our community informed and aware about them.
What is Homo Digitalis?
Homo Digitalis is the first and only non-profit organization in Greece which aims to protect the digital rights of citizens. The group was originally founded by six friends who are lawyers and continued to grow. Consequently, Homo Digitalis now has more than 100 members from various professional backgrounds. This group voluntarily try to raise awareness of our digital rights. At the event, apart from myself, Homo Digitalis was represented by Elpida Vamvaka, Chair and co-founder, Konstantinos Kakavoulis, co-founder, and member Maria-Alexandra Papoutsi.
“Yesterday’s event provided an opportunity for Homo Digitalis members to talk about digital footprints and digital rights,” says Elpida Vamvaka.
She continues:
Digital rights are human rights that we already have but transposed in the digital era. Above all, protecting our personal data is one of our digital rights thats affects both adults and children. So, in an interactive presentation, our members explained with simple and everyday examples, the importance of personal data, and how we can exercise our rights in relation to them.
It is a fact that modern technology works by collecting recordings and often personal data. We can’t change that. What we need to change is for us to have control over our personal data. We aso need to learn to exercise the rights that the current legislation gives us. Our team hopes and works on it. We want to believe you too!
Introducing CAPrice Community
Ioannis Chrysakis represented CAPrice Community as its publicity manager. CAPrice stands for the Collective Awareness Platform for privacy concerns and expectations. This community effort is driven by consumers and developers who believe that privacy and digital services can exist in harmony.
“I had the opportunity to describe how citizens can contribute to the direction of improving data protectionWhat is Data Protection?Data protection refers to the practice of safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. It involves implementing policies, procedures, and technologies to ensure that... More policies. I did this by presenting a bottom-up solution to the topic of digital privacy,” says Ioannis Chrysakis.
“CAPrice Community acts as the basic communication vehicle to harness the power of the crowd. We achieve this through awareness and participation in crowdsourcing activities.”
In this context, Ioannis presented tools that are developing in the European project CAP-A which is enhanced by the CAPrice Community. CAP-A consortium consists of FORTH, Institute of Computer Science in Greece and IN2 company in Germany.
“CAP-A project will offer tools that are populated by users’ privacy concerns and expectations. These tools, above all, finally evaluate mobile apps’ privacy friendliness. They include the following: a privacy portal and a privacy dashboard, terms of service annotator, and a mobile application,” explains Ioannis.
At the end of his presentation, Ioannis presented an awareness interactive game based on Kahoot platform regarding famous mobile apps permissions.
Sum Up of the Digital Footprint Webinar
In conclusion, the Bizrupt event overall was a great success. Although certainly, nothing beats the feeling of a live event because in this instance the speakers have the chance to interact in real-time with the audience. Being able to see their expressions and reactions is a great way to take a presentation from better to best.
If you want to learn more about Bizrupt, you can visit their website https://www.bizrupt.gr/ or follow them on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram.
To follow Homo Digitalis and learn more about our activities, you can visit the website https://www.homodigitalis.gr/ or follow the team on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You can learn more CAPrice Community on their website https://www.caprice-community.net/ or follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
And now…Further Reading on Protecting your Digital Identity
Protect Your Privacy: The Basics
Social Engineering and How to Avoid Phishing Attacks
Safe at Home: Cybersecurity is for Everyone
