AI, Privacy, And Power: Are People Finally Reclaiming Their Data?

Forbes

25-03-2025

Are we growing wiser about tech?
Deposit Photos
My, how things change. In 2019, I interviewed Cindy Goss, Founder/Principal ofPropel Business Solutions, Inc., a Southern California-based branding and marketing firm, about the dangers of Surveillance Capitalism. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it originates from a book by the same name by Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff.
An experienced marketer who groks data's value in the digital age, Goss and I first teamed up to make sense of so many growing number of business models built around monetizing attention and tracking online behaviors. While we both saw value in leveraging the Attention Economy, we were alarmed by unprecedented data extraction, specifically how big tech companies like Google and Facebook commodify user activity, often without informed users' consent.
Back then, it still came as a surprise to many people that we are the product of so many 'free' social media platforms. Too often we willingly give up our data, including our likes, our thoughts, even our location information to big tech companies for the privilege of connecting with others in innumerable ways.
The question then was whether enough people would 'wake up' to the fact that we are being endlessly exploited online. Specifically, we wondered how so many of us could willingly trade privacy for convenience and other perks.
Now, in 2025, are we finally experiencing an inflection point? This appears to be the case. Have conversations about data sovereignty, digital rights, and now, AI-powered privacy tools, entered the mainstream? Yes and no. While it's true anyone can learn how we are endlessly tracked, molded, and prodded, that was also true in 2019.
If that year signaled our societal adolescence regarding how we respond to web-based technologies—operating in a naïve and reckless manner—we may now finally be entering early adulthood. 'More than half a decade later, it seems like we're becoming more aware, more cautious, and happily, more empowered about the Internet and its impact on our lives,' says Goss.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the societal shift was COVID-19.
As businesses that are reliant upon in-person interactions like restaurants and gyms were forced to close or restrict access, others yet realized they could continue in a virtual manner during the pandemic. 'Overnight, so many of our clients, including law firms and other professional service firms, pivoted to operating virtually via teleconferencing applications like Zoom,' says Goss. 'They were a godsend from a productivity and business continuance standpoint.'
On the other hand, remote work also led to the normalization of companies surveilling staff, especially those who work from home. 'Take any consumer tech buzzword of the 21st century and chances are it's already being widely used across the U.S. to monitor time, attendance and, in some cases, the productivity of workers, in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and fast food chains: RFID badges, GPS time clock apps, NFC apps, QR code clocking-in, Apple Watch badges, and palm, face, eye, voice, and finger scanners,' Wired wrote in February, 2025.
'Track and trace' work technologies can't help but evoke unpleasant COVID phrases like 'contact tracing' so many of us would love to leave behind us. Such public disaffection dovetails with a growing shift in consumer attitudes—for the better. For example, prior to 2020, there was much more indifference as to how companies monitored our activities.
Nowadays?
People are more protective of their data than ever before. Much of the concern stems from high-profile data breaches, and the growing realization that our digital footprints are permanent. 'Many of us are more concerned about surveillance and online influences,' says Goss. 'Especially families that worry about all the increased time young people spend on their screens.'
Other factors have contributed to this sea change. The Business Transparency Act forced companies to disclose more information about their operations while individuals have simultaneously pushed back against personal data collection. Also, as AI-powered tracking and data collection have become ever more invasive, there are increasing demands for regulators to intervene. Meanwhile, governments have tightened regulations on data privacy, such as Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA).
There's a fine line here, though.
While governmental intervention has been encouraged to safeguard privacy, overreach remains a concern. For instance, the Twitter Files exposed alarming ways in which our nation's intelligence agencies pressured social media companies to censor or shadow ban information. Citizens seeking alternative news sources had to turn to decentralized platforms like Rumble for their news. Likewise, after sites like PayPal refused to process transactions for politically unpopular speech, people turned to payment alternatives, such as crypto currencies.
At the heart of this whole discussion is AI. Before the pandemic, AI was not the hot topic it is today. While it has the potential for misuse, such as supercharging surveillance capitalism, promoting censorship, and enabling debanking, it can do much good in the world. Next wave, AI-driven privacy tools remove centralized data control from big tech. Likewise, blockchain-powered identity protection allows users to control how their data is shared and who has access. And AI-driven encryption models enable individuals to collaborate peer-to-peer, transacting without third-party surveillance and/or incursion.
'In 2025, the key question is who will lead the AI revolution,' says Goss. 'Will it be corporations? Governments? Individuals? Some combination of all three?' Already, we are in an arms race against China. America stands apart from our rival due to our commitment to liberty and free market principles. Continuing to evolve our technology with this ethos in mind will help ensure we really are entering our early adulthood phase with technology.
For now, a growing tension persists in the zeitgeist. While each of us is forced to share ever more personal data, our institutions—both corporate and governmental—are often less transparent, less subject to control. 'We're asked to give up our privacy, yet the government has been quite opaque—not just this administration—but previous ones too,' says Goss.
The way forward is not to pretend we can go back to a less technological existence, one free from online interactions and AI. Instead, much like we posited in 2019, it's about finding solutions to empower the individual over big institutions. Our youth can help lead the charge in this regard.
'When I observe the younger generation, especially those who grew up in COVID's shadow, I feel heartened for the future,' says Goss. 'While it's devastating that so many missed out on key parts of their childhood like graduations and prom, they learned firsthand the dangers of technological centralization.' Moving forward, these same youngsters will be skeptical of authority in ways their elders were not, regardless of their political affiliation. This cannot help but bode well for the rise of human-centered innovation, the type that seeks to uplift rather than exploit.
'No pain, no gain,' is an immutable law of nature. Learning is impossible without strife. Reflecting on the last six years, it's undeniable that we have collectively experienced hardship—not unlike what a teen undergoes as they grow up. Wisdom can be the result of such struggle. As we straddle the halfway mark of the 2020s, here's to using all we have gone through as a vehicle for our collective growth.
Six years ago, our advice was to rebel against the forces of technological tyranny. While rebellion can serve a purpose, it's often the domain of the adolescent. It's what teens do. Now that we are a bit older, a bit wiser, let us use our hard-won insights and experiences to improve the world around us. As any grownup well knows, this is what real responsibility requires.