Frankly, I'd be pulled out of the experience because of just how meta it is. It would be like holding up a mirror at you, causing you to evaluate why they choose to advertise to you _like that_, and which products it targets you with.
Doesn’t seem that sad. In uni, I had attention to spare but no funds. Why is it so sad that one can deliberately trade that asset for coffee? And why is it so much better to transmute time into an intermediate asset first before trading it for coffee?
You can always just go to another coffee shop. It is not like this is the only coffee shop. I would have definitely participated when I was in school. Seems like a good service considering it could help you find a job after college.
it's sad that we are getting towards a world where hyper consumption becomes such a focus and so important that advertising is able to get budgets that can support this kind of ads.
The fact that you had attention to spare while in uni can also be seen as a loss (not a personal attack to you). But if you are in uni and don't have anything better to do but to listen to someone reading you ads, then, in my opinion, it's sad (again no attack against you).
Normally I'm very against personal data leaks like this, but in this case it looks to be mutually beneficial. Companies recruit the people at the coffee shop (who are all university students/professors), and the people giving away personal information (which you do anyway on your CV) get free coffee and maybe even a career.
Of course, that's based on this article. In reality it might be much worse.
I think there is still a very large and unexplored market of opt-in based advertising, this is a good example.
Other examples might be at gas stations, get reduced fare if you listen to targeted ad etc. Or ads when inside an uber. I dont mind targeted advertising actually (if its actually interesting to me), sometimes I wish I could see more of it but I have adblock running everywhere
Another example I see is sponsored pizza at tech meetups and sponsors etc
First reason is that the transaction is more transparent. Contrast that to what is happening on the internet - in the cafe informed consent is given explicitly instead of implicitly and from often less informed internet users.
Second reason is that it will perhaps unintentionally push into consciousness of people the notion that private information has real, tangible value which would hopefully translate into change of awareness and attitude on the internet to treats to privacy that exist there that I think we both find more nauseating.
> First reason is that the transaction is more transparent.
Is it? If this concept takes off, these places will be set up for maximum data collection. I don't give consent to use my PII, but the camera in the corner has facial recognition, tracks what I eat, how I eat it, who I am with, etc.
There is no rational form of consent available. You either give up your data or you don' get coffee, period. That's not consent. That's an asinine abuse of privacy. If there were actual consent they would allow you to pay for the coffee. They don't.
That's not a valid form of informed consent. That's coercion.
1.) Totally opt-in. Unless this cafe holds a monopoly on the coffee market on this college campus, students can choose to participate.
2.) It seems like the students have some control over what data to share. Hopefully it's not a binary all-or-nothing situation, but if there's a chance students can share whatever they want (and receive tiered cafe services in proportion to whatever they share), that seems kinda interesting.
I'm more than happy to grant companies access to me. But I want something in return. In this case, maybe a chai latte?
It seems to me that this idea is a race to the bottom. If people continue to give up first level information (name, address, etc) it devalues it because that info becomes commonplace and widely distributed. So what happens then -- dig deeper into your life? Does the 2019 version of this cafe want complete access to your phone / laptop? What about the 2020 version?
Oh yea I'm a huge privacy advocate and wouldn't set a foot in a place like that either. Although it's getting harder and harder it seems. Was just commenting that you get more than a 4 dollar latte.
Does that mean you get free coffee everyday or a one time deal? If its everyday then it's a decent amount of rewards for what essentially LinkedIn is getting for free.
It’s unfortunate that this is what privacy advocates are up against:
"Maybe I should have been more apprehensive, but everyone has your information at this point anyway," she said. "To give out my name and email and what I study does not seem so risky to me."
Unfortunately this kinda of apathy doesn’t leave much room for those who don’t want to give up their information. There is no alternate model for companies like Facebook or LinkedIn that allows for possibly paying users to maintain some level of privacy.
University students as a demographic have traditionally been capable of rising to enact social change motivated by principle or altruism.
I think the answer here is to remember that individual privacy as a social norm is healthy for your community, regardless of whether you personally expect to need it.
This isn't that different to me from a lot of college job fairs where you drop your resume at the door or upload it online, except it's open every day.
I definitely remember a lot of events like "bring your resume, hear from a panel about exciting careers in X, and eat free pizza!!"
You should assume that Equifax or the like will eventually implement a Chinese style social credit system which Banks, Employers and Landlords etc will use and will be judged legal because "contracts"
Your daily habits, used for who knows what purpose over the many decades remaining in your life, are worth a hell of a lot more than a latte.
The Chinese Government has many advanced methods of social control, from constant cctv surveillance, direct access to every social media network, massive censorship powers, etc.
The comedown from empire isn't pretty and even if the trade war somehow delays China from superseding the US GDP it is somewhat inevitable. Although the social credit system probably comes to the US it is naive at best to assume that the vast majority of other forms of control that China has developed don't make their way over the Pacific.
> While English-language media describe China’s social credit system as a Black Mirror-like authoritarian implementation, Chinese social media users seem to focus more on the advantages than the burdens.
> At time of writing, Sesame Credit has 240.000 fans on its official Weibo account (@芝麻信用), where they promote the most recent benefits to users with higher credit scores, such as the possibility to get Hello Bicycle (哈罗单车) rental bikes without deposits.
> Apart from Hello Bike or Ford, there is a myriad of other brands that seem happy to participate in the Sesame Credit system and the idea of Shared Economy. “Thumbs up for sharing [economy]!”, some netizens comment.
What is the relevance of this? A tiny fraction of people, who are benefitting materially from the system, are happy about those benefits -- that's not shocking. And it has no bearing on the wider effects or ethics of the system.
>>Your daily habits, used for who knows what purpose over the many decades remaining in your life, are worth a hell of a lot more than a latte.
The value of something does have a temporal component. You're talking about a cup of coffee now, when I desperately need caffeine, vs. the value of something (my personal data) far into the future.
People in general underestimate the cumulative effects of small things. Like “just one cookie” won’t make a difference but do it hundreds of times and you wake up one morning to discover that you’re fat and your clothes don’t fit and you’re not quite sure how it happened. That is how it is with giving away tiny pieces of personal data.
That's cute while it's a small experiment in faraway countries. Now imagine being unable to rent an apartment without running an app that tracks your calls and location 24/7. I don't know what "Chinese" has to do with the absurdity of this Panopticon.
So you link yo an article that explains exactly why this is problematic, and you're still saying it's because "China".
It's not. It's because of scale. If a similar system was being implemented in the US the shitstorm would be even bigger.
Tala is a whole other story, it is small scale and not mandatory. As it grows to the point where using it is expected or required it will face the same exact criticism.
Taking out a mortgage in the US is not mandatory. Getting a loan for your business isn't either.
I get what you're saying, but I still sense some cognitive dissonance. If the US lets some hip start up build a social credit score and then just heavily buys into it, I think it will face less pushback than if they use a scary federal contractor to build the same score. I get the feeling that people think governments are intentionally evil.
There is a difference though. A system implemented by Equifax would presumably look at your social media habits or phone usage and say, "Sorry, we're denying you a loan because our data indicates that you may default."
The Chinese social credit system looks at your social media and phone usage and says, "Sorry, we're denying you a loan because you were critical of the government."
It is fair to criticize the prospective Equifax system and the concerns around pervasive data collection are valid. But the Chinese system is in a whole different, far more evil league.
> While English-language media describe China’s social credit system as a Black Mirror-like authoritarian implementation, Chinese social media users seem to focus more on the advantages than the burdens.
This is a remarkably tone-deaf observation given that talking about the burdens will get them imposed on you.
Such a system, once in place, is really easy to change to filter for any kind of criteria. One must prevent the infrastructure for large scale surveillance. It's not okay just because you agree with its planned mode of use.
As per the case of the 1930's Dutch census data used by Nazi's to murder Jews. I doubt anyone in the Dutch government imagined such a thing for a moment, and yet - catastrophe and horror.
Fed with enough data, a ML system should be able to derive “We’re denying you a loan because you’re likely to default on it because you’re likely to lose your job because you’re critical of the government”.
It likely wouldn’t be able to express that to humans that way, though, so humans would say “We’re denying you a loan because the computer says we should”
> The Chinese social credit system looks at your social media and phone usage and says, "Sorry, we're denying you a loan because you were critical of the government."
That's a common misconception of how Chinese social credit works. China doesn't really care if you're criticizing the government as long as if they don't think of you as a threat. If they do, they'll simply imprison you. If the government is only a little suspicious, they wouldn't want to send you on guard by lowering your credit score.
> China doesn't really care if you're criticizing the government as long as if they don't think of you as a threat. If they do, they'll simply imprison you.
Incidentally, this is also how it works in the United States. Or they'll just come to your apartment and shoot you.
> It is fair to criticize the prospective Equifax system and the concerns around pervasive data collection are valid. But the Chinese system is in a whole different, far more evil league.
I think calling it outright 'evil' is unfair.
The Chinese model at least comes from a well-intentioned place. It's a ham-fisted version of the "nudge" programs you see in places like insurance plans, with a bolder underlying goal to create a better society. Their definition of "better" may not be yours, but the goal is not inherently malicious.
The American take of this will have the exact same flaws-- the data will eventually be mishandled, the models will have holes you can drive a bus through-- but it's justified in the sake of "we'll get slightly more accurate pricing for credit and insurance".
Personally, I find the push to allocating resources based on this kind of data interesting and could possibly be more efficient than the way it has been.
That being said, since these systems are abstraction on debt, the failure mode at the margins means that companies that become reliant on funds from these loans will be increasingly sensitive to people at the margins who will be denied such loans.
I also find it interesting that the public will also have increasingly more access to the data to be able to retroactively understand the factors that determine the go/no go (especially as these systems become increasingly automated). Combined with the above, it will be increasingly possible to create ways to dirty the waters in the signals for a variety of desired outcomes for 3rd party actors.
To understand the Chinese system you need to understand where legitimacy comes from in China. The Chinese government employs 50m people, it is a participatory state - everyone will know someone employed by the government. Personal obligations mesh people together to the state, migration and demographic change have disrupted connections and threaten this mechanism of legitimacy - the social credit system could be seen as a reaction and reinforcement of this. I think it is important that people try and see what is going on as it is rather than as a caricature because otherwise the lessons will be lost in the noise, in this case I think that the Equifax / capitalist system is remarkably similar to the Chinese system. Not only are people constrained by the predictions of loan repayment (and by the way that's a can of worms in terms of how & what) but also people are tracked and shamed by their opinions and habits online; and these are wilfully misquoted and misinterpreted to generate social constraints (the recent story about the estate agent who was falsely accused as a bigot and an adulterer : http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/07/when-a-stranger-decides-to-...)
My concern is that the truly evil have stealth and pretence on their side, while people who are developing the behaviours and norms that will be necessary for us to cope with the societal challenges we face - for example people who espouse radical anti-consumerism - may be driven out of debate by the norms and norm maintenance mechanisms that are accidentally and with good intention being developed in the west.
Since equifax is a US company, the data is only one robed person away from being used as, for example, "you have been deemed a 'national security' risk and so now you cannot enter/leave the country and now require additional attention from some certain 3 letter acronym gov. organization"
How do you imagine such an Equifax system would regard criticism of said Equifax system? Seems like the sort of thing that makes you a default risk, doesn't it.
Maybe? The point of the system is to profit/ensure no default/etc. So if the system determined criticism actually did make you more likely to default, sure. If not, no.
That may be the stated goal of the system. Any system, however, has an underlying goal of sustaining itself. If that's by accomplishing its stated goal, then great. If it's by suppressing criticism of itself, then that's just as good.
I always wondered: what if redlining worked from a financial perspective?
If it turned out that Ethnic Group A is on average 5% more reliable about paying their debt, this is valuable information, but the banks are legally bound to ignore it.
So they've probably spent a lot of time trying to produce similar metrics through proxy measurements. Seek out a profession or purchasing pattern that suggests a given ethnicity without outright saying it.
I suspect AI is, from a legal CYA perspective, the greatest proxy of them all. "It's a black box, we don't/can't know how it produces its results... yet mysteriously it biases exactly how we would if we could overtly discriminate."
I think (hope) this is the beginning of a big new trend.
Instead of having people and services steal my personal information to show me BS ads, let me sell my own personal data and maybe then you can show some ads for stuff I might actually be interested in.
You might argue that advertisers have too much access to our personal data, but I'd argue they don't have enough.
It’s not just buying interests, though, is it? It’s where you go, who you talk to, what you talk about, your sexual preferences, bank balance, religious views, whether you have weapons in your home, whether you’re having an illicit affair, what medications you’re taking, etc.
I don't really care if someone end up having this information of me, its when they use this information to do actual harm me that I care, but in this case its already illegal to do so.
It’s maybe not a big deal on an individual level, sure - but imagine the damage one could inflict on humanity by having this dataset for world leaders or even whole populations.
The parent specifically mentioned this information becoming available:
> It’s not just buying interests, though, is it? It’s where you go, who you talk to, what you talk about, your sexual preferences, bank balance, religious views, whether you have weapons in your home, whether you’re having an illicit affair, what medications you’re taking, etc.
I don't think this level of detail exists for most public leaders. Do you know the bank balance of the leader of your country?
Just because an act is illegal doesn't perfect it from causing harm. You might not care now that this information is out there but you might care in the future and it will already be too late.
True, nothing is perfect anyway but by being illegal means it can be enforced and punished. More information available also mean law enforcement can be more effective.
Being paranoid about privacy is not perfect too, it has trade off aswell.
> More information available also mean law enforcement can be more effective.
Whether that's a good thing depends on which laws are being enforced. Better hope what you're doing now isn't made retroactively illegal, especially if it's now publicly documented forever.
They'll probably offer a free year of credit monitoring. Hopefully it was a really good cup of coffee. At least those accepting the offer have a (somewhat) better understanding of the price upfront than those on the web do... that's something.
To get the free coffee, university students must give away their names, phone numbers, email addresses and majors, or in Brown's lingo, concentrations. Students also provide dates of birth and professional interests
Well, what if the student comes again for another coffee? What new/different data does/can he give?
The fact that you came again is likely a valuable piece of data. And now you are identifiable, so if this is scaled to several coffee shops (not that this particular one would, but as a general idea), you get some pretty decent location tracking right there without having to sell people expensive devices with elusive privacy controls. Probably somewhat of an overshoot (or maybe not?), but given that companies like Google sell you local ads based on where you are, I can see why this approach would be valuable.
> "Maybe I should have been more apprehensive, but everyone has your information at this point anyway," she said. "To give out my name and email and what I study does not seem so risky to me."
I hear this a lot. As a privacy advocate myself, what is the best response to this?
And from that I can track down your social media accounts, perhaps your forum accounts, you most likely have the same username/identifier for all forums, correct? Now I know everything about you.
Also important to emphasise that once you know someone's user/email you can cross reference against leaked database dumps to reveal passwords. They might have changed them since on X website but may not on other sites.
How is this even validated or profitable? Companies ask me for various information all the time and I usually just make it up or use an old #, old zip code, etc. Once they have the data, then how do they make money?
If some of these companies still manage to correlate this fake data to you (i.e. you didn't play the game well enough), it might earn you the flag 'untrustworthy' on your profile, and you'll experience the blowback from that.
>Alex Inoue, Shiru Cafe's general manager, wrote in an email that the cafe does not give out data on specific students. But it does provide general, aggregate data such as student majors and expected graduation years.
I don't see how aggregated data would be valuable enough to fund the cafe. You could probably find that aggregated data via the university's own statistics. The article also says they collect phone numbers and email addresses, but this quote says they don't give them out, which seems a bit strange to me. And JP Morgan hired 40% of its hires from the cafe, but it wasn't given their phone numbers or emails? I guess it's possible but it also seems strange.
If you think of the cafe like a job recruitment site, such as Linkedin, Indeed, or Triplebyte, then it would be expected that the site would provide some way for employers to contact candidates. Handing out email and phone number might be considered acceptable, or alternatively providing an intermediary messaging service might be better.
College kids have no money, and want to be connected with companies. Companies have money, and want to hire people. It sounds sketchy, but is this really so different than companies hosting tech talks at college, exchanging contact info with participants, and buying pizza for the event?
Seems like its actually the studends being discriminated against. Students are always the low hanging fruit for these ideas, as they tend to be less thougutful and more impulsive, yet have just been granted full adulting powers before actually having the frame of refrence to use them.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] threadI’d probably do it. They’re open about what data they collect and what they use it for, which is better than many of the websites I use
"We have specially trained staff members who give students additional information about our sponsors while they enjoy their coffee."
What's not to enjoy about a fresh cup of coffee, payed for by a stranger who has special training in reading ads at you? Specifically at you.
I wonder if the customers<?> are allowed to not pay attention? or give incorrect information?
Coffee is just coffee...
The fact that you had attention to spare while in uni can also be seen as a loss (not a personal attack to you). But if you are in uni and don't have anything better to do but to listen to someone reading you ads, then, in my opinion, it's sad (again no attack against you).
Of course, that's based on this article. In reality it might be much worse.
Other examples might be at gas stations, get reduced fare if you listen to targeted ad etc. Or ads when inside an uber. I dont mind targeted advertising actually (if its actually interesting to me), sometimes I wish I could see more of it but I have adblock running everywhere
Another example I see is sponsored pizza at tech meetups and sponsors etc
First reason is that the transaction is more transparent. Contrast that to what is happening on the internet - in the cafe informed consent is given explicitly instead of implicitly and from often less informed internet users.
Second reason is that it will perhaps unintentionally push into consciousness of people the notion that private information has real, tangible value which would hopefully translate into change of awareness and attitude on the internet to treats to privacy that exist there that I think we both find more nauseating.
Shiru Cafe into every city!
Is it? If this concept takes off, these places will be set up for maximum data collection. I don't give consent to use my PII, but the camera in the corner has facial recognition, tracks what I eat, how I eat it, who I am with, etc.
I'll definitely avoid these places.
That's not a valid form of informed consent. That's coercion.
1.) Totally opt-in. Unless this cafe holds a monopoly on the coffee market on this college campus, students can choose to participate.
2.) It seems like the students have some control over what data to share. Hopefully it's not a binary all-or-nothing situation, but if there's a chance students can share whatever they want (and receive tiered cafe services in proportion to whatever they share), that seems kinda interesting.
I'm more than happy to grant companies access to me. But I want something in return. In this case, maybe a chai latte?
I think you're undervaluing yourself at 4 bucks
It's certainly not a one off as apparently they have limits for per hour and per day.
It seems to me that this idea is a race to the bottom. If people continue to give up first level information (name, address, etc) it devalues it because that info becomes commonplace and widely distributed. So what happens then -- dig deeper into your life? Does the 2019 version of this cafe want complete access to your phone / laptop? What about the 2020 version?
The only wining move is not to play.
Unfortunately this kinda of apathy doesn’t leave much room for those who don’t want to give up their information. There is no alternate model for companies like Facebook or LinkedIn that allows for possibly paying users to maintain some level of privacy.
I think the answer here is to remember that individual privacy as a social norm is healthy for your community, regardless of whether you personally expect to need it.
(surely you can pay for a service to replicate whatever part of these platforms you need)
I definitely remember a lot of events like "bring your resume, hear from a panel about exciting careers in X, and eat free pizza!!"
Your daily habits, used for who knows what purpose over the many decades remaining in your life, are worth a hell of a lot more than a latte.
The comedown from empire isn't pretty and even if the trade war somehow delays China from superseding the US GDP it is somewhat inevitable. Although the social credit system probably comes to the US it is naive at best to assume that the vast majority of other forms of control that China has developed don't make their way over the Pacific.
> At time of writing, Sesame Credit has 240.000 fans on its official Weibo account (@芝麻信用), where they promote the most recent benefits to users with higher credit scores, such as the possibility to get Hello Bicycle (哈罗单车) rental bikes without deposits.
> Apart from Hello Bike or Ford, there is a myriad of other brands that seem happy to participate in the Sesame Credit system and the idea of Shared Economy. “Thumbs up for sharing [economy]!”, some netizens comment.
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/open-sesame-social-credit-in-ch...
> Team of scholars at Freie Universität Berlin surveyed 2,200 citizens. Particularly high level of approval among older and better educated
https://www.fu-berlin.de/en/presse/informationen/fup/2018/fu...
The value of something does have a temporal component. You're talking about a cup of coffee now, when I desperately need caffeine, vs. the value of something (my personal data) far into the future.
You are surely not serious?
Here's an article where a credit score based on phone habits is viewed positively: https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2017/02/22/woman-l...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/audreymurrell/2018/07/31/pushin...
It's not. It's because of scale. If a similar system was being implemented in the US the shitstorm would be even bigger.
Tala is a whole other story, it is small scale and not mandatory. As it grows to the point where using it is expected or required it will face the same exact criticism.
I get what you're saying, but I still sense some cognitive dissonance. If the US lets some hip start up build a social credit score and then just heavily buys into it, I think it will face less pushback than if they use a scary federal contractor to build the same score. I get the feeling that people think governments are intentionally evil.
You can certainly feel whatever you want, but I see many many comments with specific privacy concerns that don't even mention China.
In fact, when I glanced at the comments before clicking through to the article, none of the top comments mentioned China.
The Chinese social credit system looks at your social media and phone usage and says, "Sorry, we're denying you a loan because you were critical of the government."
It is fair to criticize the prospective Equifax system and the concerns around pervasive data collection are valid. But the Chinese system is in a whole different, far more evil league.
> While English-language media describe China’s social credit system as a Black Mirror-like authoritarian implementation, Chinese social media users seem to focus more on the advantages than the burdens.
This is a remarkably tone-deaf observation given that talking about the burdens will get them imposed on you.
... and exercise and driving telemetry data and family medical and criminal history and...
At a certain threshold the distinction with the Chinese system becomes irrelevant given the impact on an individual.
We must be very careful.
Fed with enough data, a ML system should be able to derive “We’re denying you a loan because you’re likely to default on it because you’re likely to lose your job because you’re critical of the government”.
It likely wouldn’t be able to express that to humans that way, though, so humans would say “We’re denying you a loan because the computer says we should”
That's a common misconception of how Chinese social credit works. China doesn't really care if you're criticizing the government as long as if they don't think of you as a threat. If they do, they'll simply imprison you. If the government is only a little suspicious, they wouldn't want to send you on guard by lowering your credit score.
This one says "Nope, the Chinese system wouldn't use the credit system for non benign reason. They don't care"
Different standard?
Incidentally, this is also how it works in the United States. Or they'll just come to your apartment and shoot you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
I think calling it outright 'evil' is unfair.
The Chinese model at least comes from a well-intentioned place. It's a ham-fisted version of the "nudge" programs you see in places like insurance plans, with a bolder underlying goal to create a better society. Their definition of "better" may not be yours, but the goal is not inherently malicious.
The American take of this will have the exact same flaws-- the data will eventually be mishandled, the models will have holes you can drive a bus through-- but it's justified in the sake of "we'll get slightly more accurate pricing for credit and insurance".
That being said, since these systems are abstraction on debt, the failure mode at the margins means that companies that become reliant on funds from these loans will be increasingly sensitive to people at the margins who will be denied such loans.
I also find it interesting that the public will also have increasingly more access to the data to be able to retroactively understand the factors that determine the go/no go (especially as these systems become increasingly automated). Combined with the above, it will be increasingly possible to create ways to dirty the waters in the signals for a variety of desired outcomes for 3rd party actors.
My concern is that the truly evil have stealth and pretence on their side, while people who are developing the behaviours and norms that will be necessary for us to cope with the societal challenges we face - for example people who espouse radical anti-consumerism - may be driven out of debate by the norms and norm maintenance mechanisms that are accidentally and with good intention being developed in the west.
They will feed your behavior into a machine learning algorithm, which will probably develop biases.
If it turned out that Ethnic Group A is on average 5% more reliable about paying their debt, this is valuable information, but the banks are legally bound to ignore it.
So they've probably spent a lot of time trying to produce similar metrics through proxy measurements. Seek out a profession or purchasing pattern that suggests a given ethnicity without outright saying it.
I suspect AI is, from a legal CYA perspective, the greatest proxy of them all. "It's a black box, we don't/can't know how it produces its results... yet mysteriously it biases exactly how we would if we could overtly discriminate."
Instead of having people and services steal my personal information to show me BS ads, let me sell my own personal data and maybe then you can show some ads for stuff I might actually be interested in.
You might argue that advertisers have too much access to our personal data, but I'd argue they don't have enough.
Ideally (hoping), in the future, these information should be made public for everyone, to level the playing field.
> It’s not just buying interests, though, is it? It’s where you go, who you talk to, what you talk about, your sexual preferences, bank balance, religious views, whether you have weapons in your home, whether you’re having an illicit affair, what medications you’re taking, etc.
I don't think this level of detail exists for most public leaders. Do you know the bank balance of the leader of your country?
Being paranoid about privacy is not perfect too, it has trade off aswell.
Whether that's a good thing depends on which laws are being enforced. Better hope what you're doing now isn't made retroactively illegal, especially if it's now publicly documented forever.
Well, what if the student comes again for another coffee? What new/different data does/can he give?
I hear this a lot. As a privacy advocate myself, what is the best response to this?
Also important to emphasise that once you know someone's user/email you can cross reference against leaked database dumps to reveal passwords. They might have changed them since on X website but may not on other sites.
I don't see how aggregated data would be valuable enough to fund the cafe. You could probably find that aggregated data via the university's own statistics. The article also says they collect phone numbers and email addresses, but this quote says they don't give them out, which seems a bit strange to me. And JP Morgan hired 40% of its hires from the cafe, but it wasn't given their phone numbers or emails? I guess it's possible but it also seems strange.
If you think of the cafe like a job recruitment site, such as Linkedin, Indeed, or Triplebyte, then it would be expected that the site would provide some way for employers to contact candidates. Handing out email and phone number might be considered acceptable, or alternatively providing an intermediary messaging service might be better.