Hacker Cinema
Democracy
Democracy - Im Rausch der Daten
2015 · Film · documentary · 100 min
Directed by David Bernet
Digitalization has changed society. While data is becoming the "new oil", data protection is becoming the new "pollution control". This creative documentary opens an astonishing inside view into the lawmaking milieu on EU level. A compelling story of how a group of politicians try to protect todays society against the impact of Big Data and mass surveillance.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
GDPR was actually by "accident".
Jan Philipp Albrecht was appointed as rapporteur of the European Parliament for the process of the GDPR law making. His job was to take care of the process to find compromises between many opinions and fill them into law. Since he actually cares about privacy, he was in a position to make sure that the compromises keep a certain level of privacy protection. He's from the german "green/environmental" party. There is an interesting documentary about his role and the process: "Democracy: Im Rausch der Daten". I don't know if there is an english version. There is a german version on youtube. The "mistake" was to appoint him as rapporteur.
The "mistake" was not repeated, when Axel Voss from the german conservative party was appointed as rapporteur for the "Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (2019)".
(Note: The law making process in the EU is long and complicated and I do not know where this draft is currently in the process.)
Documentary Democracy: Im Rausch der Daten (2015) [0] gives insight in the some of the main characters during the GDPR negotations. It films behind closed doors where the real negotiations took place. Highly recommended for anyone interested in EU politics and in particular for those with interest in privacy.
Quotes from Alex Voss in today’s Financial Times [1]
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5053042/
[1] https://archive.is/P1gqZ
The GDPR was basically a legislative accident, in that the a member of the Greens and strong proponent of privacy and data protection was made rapporteur to the European Parlament for the proposal [0]. There is an interesting documentary on that ("Democracy", 2015, by David Bernet).
This new Copyright Directive seems to be an accident in the opposite direction, with Axel Voss as rapporteur.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Philipp_Albrecht
GDPR was a legislative accident: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Philipp_Albrecht
Also: Democracy (a 2015 Documentary by David Bernet)
The biggest browser maker is funded by advertising revenue.
I recommend watching the film "Democracy"[1], which showed how an EU data protection law went through the process to become law. The "main character" (chair of the process) was a German MEP. The thing I best remember him saying[2] was in response to some lobbyists, who wanted to know why he was pushing back against their business interests when they were all united. The MEP said he primarily represented the thousands of people in his constituency, even though they couldn't afford to send lobbyists to Brussels.
With some stronger wording ("This site shares your data, including the web pages you view and where you click, with the following companies: Google, AdNetwork234, ..., These companies use it to sell advertising to you and may further share your data") the cookie law could have been stronger.
The MEP was in the Green party, but most aren't -- pressure from individuals on other MEPs would encourage other, more business-friendly MEPs, to push back against the lobbyists.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/14/democracy-film-european-data-protection-privacy-debate
[2] I think it was in the film, but I also went to a screening with him giving a talk afterwards.
Good to notice that the new EU data protection regulation already has influence on the discourse even though it shall apply from May 25, 2018. And more importantly, even though Letsencrypt is a US based organization it applies directly or indirectly.
For those interested, I can highly recommend the documentary Democracy: Im Rausch der Daten (2015) [0]. For 9 month the documentary follows MEP rapporteur Jan Philipp Albrecht and his policy advisor Ralf Bendrath [1] (hacked a C64 in his youth, frequent attendee at C3) and gave a rare inside in the negotiation & process in Brussels. They even recorded the final negotiations in the backrooms and for those knowledgeable on the topic it is very interesting to see how some of the deals where made. After the screening at IDFA the director said he wasn't onset to make a documentary on the EU data protection reform and that Jan Phillip's rapporteur topic was chosen as an example EU process. Regretfully this documentary isn't exemplary for the EU process because most of the time the lobbyists of the large corporations have a far larger influence. The documentary clearly shows that the final text has been the result of the persistence & integrity of the the 3 main characters Albrecht, Bendrath and Redding. And as we're experience now, this has great influence on data protection for more than only Europe.
[0] http://www.democracy-film.de http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5053042/
[1] http://www.bfna.org/person/ralpf-bendrath