Konrad Kollnig

Die Bundesregierung plant die Einführung einer Bürgernummer: eine Identifikationsnummer für jeden, der einen Wohnsitz in Deutschland hat. Datenschützer warnen vor einem Überwachungsstaat. Besteht wirklich Grund zur Sorge oder wird bloß Panik geschürt?

Mit diesem Thema beschäftige ich mich in Oxfords neuer Studentenzeitschrift, The Flete.

This article is part of a series. Next week, I’ll release a short report on digital learning.

The arguably most studied problem in education is how to conduct education. Whenever someone provides education, this necessarily involves thinking about how to bring across the material at hand.

Education has not changed meaningfully over the course of human history. Whether in Plato’s Academy back in Ancient Greece or in schools nowadays, teaching usually means the transfer of knowledge from a teacher to students.

How does learning work then, what makes it efficient, and what are the opportunities for digital technologies?

Never before in human history have companies held so much information about people. They hold some of the most private details about some of the most powerful people on this planet.

Worse still, this power is untamed. Who can promise that these companies will not one day use the gathered information against their users? Manipulate unconsciously. Sway opinions. Destroy privacy. Aren’t they already?

And then, my private information is not only open to these companies, but also—party—the US intelligence agencies. How have we come here?

I want my privacy, as enshrined in German and EU law.

More importantly, I want fair representation. Neither did I only not elect the US government, nor the private companies. And still, these entities hold substantial information and power over my life.

Let’s hope for change.

Update: The Schrems II ruling by the European Court of Justice underlines that US intelligence laws conflict with the EU right to privacy and data protection.