For starters, users, consumers, and all of us have to be more vigilant, and we have to speak up with the companies that we do business with. You may say that's hard to do. Facebook is the way it is. How are you going to get changes? You would be surprised at the number of times they have changed. When they introduced a privacy practice, like their news feed in 2006, everyone blew up at that, and then they reversed it. There have been a number of missteps, and it's only because the public has spoken out that they have pulled back.
Let's talk for a moment about what companies can do and what we can ask businesses to do and governments as well. Mobile devices, as you know, are the way of the future. Everyone is going into mobile. You can't read anything on that in terms of the policy and other things. For example, in the United States people are using a blue button. I think the blue button was made available for veterans in the U.S. to access their health data. What did Veterans Affairs have on them? They had this blue button, and they would immediately see what they had on them. The same idea is coming out for a green button for the energy sector. If you want to see how much energy you've used, people have said there should be a green button. You'd press it, and you would see how much energy you are using, and you can compare it to others like your neighbours, etc.
What this speaks to is not only companies being far more careful but circumspect about the information they automatically collect from consumers without their knowledge or consent. The opposite of privacy as the default is public as the default. We have to reverse that. We have to change that. Also, they have to know they have to be accountable to you, the user, the data subject. They have to be transparent with the information they have about you in their possession, in their databases. You should know what they have. Unless you know what they have in their possession, you won't know what's at risk, and what might be, if it's hacked, or if there is a data breach.
LinkedIn was just hacked and their passwords accessed. You are not going to know what they're going to have access to. It's very important to have that kind of transparency. Then, all of us speaking up and getting on the case of business. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not anti-business at all. I love business. We have to have strong businesses to have a strong economy. They also need to know they have to protect their customers and their customers' information. How can they do that? We can help them figure out how to do that and be transparent with their customers.