Daniel Solove argues in the Wall Street Journal (alternate link) that giving people control of their personal data is not an effective way to regulate privacy in this era. Instead, we need to hold companies accountable for their actions, similar to what we do with food and drug companies. Measures such as rigorous data minimization, fiduciary duties, liability for negligent or reckless technological design, liability for algorithms that cause harm, and multi-stakeholder review of technologies will be far more effective. Paper.
Read original article ↗Individual data control is a paper shield against a digital flamethrower.
Solove is right to dump the burden of privacy on the titans of industry rather than the exhausted consumer. Silicon Valley treats data like an infinite buffet while externalizing every risk of algorithmic harm. We must treat these toxic data practices like contaminated medicine by imposing strict fiduciary duties and design liability. Voluntary ethics cannot survive in a winner take all market without the iron hand of the state.
Demand a law that bites or prepare to be consumed.
Consent checkboxes are just liability waivers dressed in UX clothing.
Solove is right that individual control is a fiction — nobody reads 47-page privacy policies before surrendering their medical history to an ad network. The food safety model works because we don't ask consumers to personally test for salmonella; we hold Tyson Foods liable when people get sick. Fiduciary duties and algorithmic liability would actually cost these companies money, which is precisely why Congress hasn't touched them.
If your privacy framework requires users to outmaneuver billion-dollar legal teams alone, it was never a privacy framework.
Data control is a privacy mirage sold by regulators who never shipped software.
Solove correctly torches individual consent theater in the AI era but his wishlist of fiduciary duties, minimization mandates and multi-stakeholder reviews is just more bureaucracy that slows builders while data leaks anyway. Real accountability comes from building encrypted, ephemeral systems that make collection impossible, not from liability theater that favors incumbents with lawyers. Execution beats ideology every time; the next privacy wins will ship from founders, not from WSJ op-eds.
Build the damn tech.