IBM’s Third Reich Ties Presage Today’s Big Tech Ambitions

By Samantha Stone

Edwin Black wrote two decades ago about a stalwart American business and its underreported role in Nazi atrocities.

His book, “IBM and the Holocaust,” was a success by any measure. It had a respectable stint as a New York Times best-seller. It was lavishly praised by other journalists. It won awards and was published in multiple languages.

Black maintains IBM has never challenged the substance of his book. For its 20th anniversary, Black has been making the podcast-interview rounds defending his work and underscoring how IBM’s activities presage today’s Big Data.

“What most people can derive from my book at this particular point in time is that history repeats itself,” he said in a February podcast on the U.K.’s Revelation TV.

‘There Was a Time When We Wanted to Change China. That Illusion Is Long Gone’

By Charles McDermid

Last of three parts.

China is an increasingly aggressive global actor when democracy is at its weakest point in decades, writes German journalist Kai Strittmatter.

The result is a “global competition of systems” not seen since the end of the Cold War. 

Strittmatter, 55, author of “We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State” (2019), says China is openly advertising the superiority of its system over Western democracies, all while trying to reshape global organizations and infiltrating the West’s think tanks, companies, media and schools. 

In the last of a three-part interview, Strittmatter told Digital Privacy News that the time had come to stop being naïve about the nature and intentions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

‘You Don’t Need a Policeman. You Have Become the Policeman’

By Charles McDermid

Second of three parts.

Kai Strittmatter speaks Mandarin, studied in Xian and Taipei during the ’80s — and, for more than 20 years, was Beijing correspondent for the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

His 2019 book — “We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State” — probably won’t make him welcome in the Middle Kingdom anytime soon. 

He writes that Western assumptions that technology would force China to accept openness and democracy were dead wrong. Instead, these new tools are bringing the return of a totalitarianism that’s never been more “total.” 

In the second of three interviews, Strittmater, 55, told Digital Privacy News that today’s China was way beyond anything George Orwell ever could have imagined.

‘China Was Always a Surveillance State’

By Charles McDermid

First of three parts.

Investigative reporter Kai Strittmatter has a clear-sighted view of modern China and a grim analysis of the global ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Be warned: It’s alarming stuff. 

A techno-dystopian dictatorship is laid bare in his 2019 book, “We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State,” which was drawn from Strittmatter’s 30 years of studying China, including more than 20 years as a correspondent in Beijing for the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.   

Strittmatter, 55, documents how AI surveillance startups were heavily financed by the state in exchange for loyalty to the CCP — all part of Beijing’s rush to become the world’s economic leader at any cost. 

‘Privacy Is a Human Right and Should Be Considered as One’

By Maureen Nkatha

Ridwan Oloyede is cofounder of Tech-Hive Advisory, a consulting firm in Nigeria. He advocates for enforcement of data-privacy laws in Africa.

The European Union’s data-protection law, which took effect in May 2018, is forcing many nations to review their privacy laws — but Oloyede said this was proving difficult for most African countries.

Nigeria, for instance, adopted its first data-protection law in early 2019, but enforcing it has been challenging, he said, because of lack of government funding and little clarity on what constitutes a data breach.

Privacy Has ‘Risen to This Crescendo Moment’

By Vaughn Cockayne

Kate Kaye is a journalist in Portland, Ore., who has covered technology, data and privacy for more than two decades.

She recently started a podcast for Smart Cities Dive called “City Surveillance,” which has her traveling across the country interviewing surveillance experts and regular citizens about “smart cities.”

Kaye told Digital Privacy News that her journeys had opened her eyes to the dangers of the surveillance apparatus in the U.S. and that she hoped her podcasts would do the same for others.

‘Technology Has Become the New Policymaker’

By Gaspard Le Dem

Last of three parts.

Latanya Sweeney believes the myth that people need to choose between privacy and the benefits of new technology must be dispelled.

In the last of three interviews, Sweeney, who holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Digital Privacy News that the public still cared about privacy, but that tech companies were deciding the rules we lived by.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.