If there is one single matter that worries tech leaders today it is the difficulty in conciliating innovation and regulation.
Most companies, from tech giants to startups, are still trying to adjust to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and yet more of the same is coming.
The next step will be the adoption of the EU’s ePrivacy Regulation, which will be published toward the end of 2018 or early 2019.
Recently, lawmakers signed the California Consumer Privacy Act into law. It will only take effect in 2020, and while not as far-reaching as the EU’s protection -- as it offers some loopholes to the industry -- it goes in the same direction. Those implementations will have effects on current business operations and future innovation.
The fact is that if the European Union hadn’t stepped in with strong regulations, cybercrime would reach epidemic proportions and eventually erode our businesses and damage the fabric of the internet.
Today, we have an average of 23.14 billion devices connected across the internet of things (IoT).
This number will jump to 75.44 billion in 2025, according to a recent study conducted by Statista.
With more devices connected across the IoT, the internet will become more susceptible to data breaching. Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021.
This represents the greatest wealth transfer in history, risks incentives to innovation and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs.
We are experiencing a moment when regulation becomes crucial for innovation to remain sustainable.
There is a risk that cybercrime could reach epidemic proportions and eventually erode our freedom to use the internet as we desire.
The more information is known about an individual or an organization, the more power a bad actor can have over us.
Personal and corporate data can be used to affect our reputations, and they can be used to influence our decisions.
In the past, innovation was promoted and often initiated by the government.
The best example is DARPA, which created what was essentially the precursor to the internet known as ARPANET.
Once the market was ready, the emerging startups were ready to take over.
This worked very effectively but has since been forgotten. I think it's time to rediscover this model.
I see regulations not as an impediment but as an opportunity for tech companies to revisit business models and be even more innovative.
Because unless we as tech leaders do not create the appropriate and novel tools to empower users to be put back in control of their personal information, regulation alone will not be able to protect the user and create a sustainable ecosystem for IoT.
If tech organizations are not held accountable for how they use personal data, we are creating a predatory world.
We tend to assume that there is one set of rules for the real world and another set of rules for the digital world.
But that's a mistake -- there is just one world.
It is time to recognize that the cloud no longer serves us and that big data can be a threat to democracy, the free market and the universal and constitutional right to privacy.
We need to ideally destructure the cloud and turn it into a mist, which will lead to the IoT as it could and should be.
Let us welcome the era of smart data.
We need to focus on novel technologies for authentication, identification, encryption and anti-artificial intelligence bots.
This last point is crucial for the digital ecosystem to remain sustainable.
We need to create novel and efficient solutions to distinguish real humans from server farms and bots.
This need will increase as “good” bots and blockchain protocols become more prevalent.
Otherwise, the “know-it-all artificial intelligence” that can access our businesses and our personal data could generate unpredictable financial loses and unsustainable predatory market competition.
A growing digital economy can only be sustained if innovation and regulations work in tandem. I feel that it is time for the tech innovators to think about "privacy by design" when they invent our future.
