Nathalie Maréchal leads RDR’s policy engagement with stakeholders in government, civil society, and academia; coordinates the development of RDR’s policy positions; and publicly represents RDR with the media and at conferences around the world. She is the lead author of RDR’s “It’s the Business Model” report series (2020), which argues that tech companies’ failures to staunch the flow of problematic content and disinformation online are rooted in their surveillance-based business models, and that policy solutions should focus on privacy and corporate governance rather than content itself. In 2019, Maréchal led the expansion of the RDR Corporate Accountability Index’s methodology to address human rights risks associated with tech companies’ business models, specifically the role that targeted advertising and algorithmic systems play in shaping internet users’ online experiences.
Increasingly, all industries are involved in what is known as "surveillance capitalism," a new iteration of our economic system in which business value is derived from the predictive insights gleaned from applying artificial intelligence (AI) to customer data and novel data sources. While this opens up potential new business models, it also has serious implications for the privacy and human rights of consumers. In this session, we will introduce the concept of surveillance capitalism and hear from companies in different industries about how they work to avoid causing harm when collecting and transferring customer data, carrying out targeted advertising, and building in insights powered by AI and IoT devices.
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I felt this conference was life changing. I am truly inspired and am plotting both career and personal changes to live up to the great lessons I learned. Both the sessions and the networking were vital.
