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GENDER EQUALITY

Stockholm boasts new network for women in tech

Sweden prioritizes gender equality - in all sectors. SheTec is a new Stockholm community aimed at inspiring, informing and empowering women in technology.

Stockholm boasts new network for women in tech

Sweden tops the global rankings when it comes to both gender equality and innovation. So it should come as no surprise that Stockholm has an entire conference devoted to Women in Techology, which took place in March earlier this year.

But now the city will also have a regular meetup specifically devoted to the topic.This week the new SheTec group in Stockholm held its first meeting.

Read also: 'Swedish women are strong and ambitious'

The event was a mingle with inspirational speakers, and was the kickoff event for the SheTec Spotlight series, where the organizers share stories of Women in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) industries.  

The speakers at this event included Ana Alonso from Ericsson, Thea Demanuele Olsson from Skype at Microsoft, Jenny Dybedahl from Geek Women Unite, Mei Wen from Startup Sweden, and Anna Bongenhielm from King, the makers of Candy Crush. 

“SheTec brings together successful women in Technology to support each other, collaborate, learn, network, and, ideally, provide mentorship to other women in the community,” said the main organizer of the Stockholm network, Shaena Harris.

The group is open to professional women at all levels of their career whether they are in technology today or pursuing a technology role in the future.

The event was held at the King headquarters in Stockholm, and was a smashing success. 

“Bravo to the King team! Nice evening, inspiring speakers and invaluable networking,” said Golnaz.

Great event,” Zuzanna J agreed. “Wish we had more time to continue the panel discussion, which was excellent! Thank you to the panelists! The office tour was a pleasant surprise – thank you, King!”

The event focused on women's roles in tech, but was of course open to the public and attendess of all genders. Swedish comedian celebrities Johan Rheborg and Henrik Schyffert stopped by as well.

Anyone who is interested in joining future meetup events can join the group here

 

TECH

Cookie fight: Austrian activist in tough online privacy fight

Five years after Europe enacted sweeping data protection legislation, prominent online privacy activist Max Schrems says he still has a lot of work to do as tech giants keep dodging the rules.

Cookie fight: Austrian activist in tough online privacy fight

The 35-year-old Austrian lawyer and his Vienna-based privacy campaign group NOYB (None Of Your Business) is currently handling no fewer than 800 complaints in various jurisdictions on behalf of internet users.

“For an average citizen, it’s almost impossible right now to enforce your rights”, Schrems told AFP. “For us as an organisation, it’s already a lot of work to do that” given the system’s complexity due to the regulators’ varying requirements, he added.

The 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict rules on how companies can use and store personal data, with the threat of huge fines for firms breaching them.

While hundreds of millions of euros in fines have been imposed following complaints filed by NOYB, Schrems said the GDPR is hardly ever enforced. And that’s a “big problem”, he added.

He said the disregard for fundamental rights such as data privacy is almost comparable to “a dictatorship”. “The difference between reality and the law is just momentous,” Schrems
added.

‘Annoying’ cookies

Instead of tackling the problems raised by the GDPR, companies resort to “window dressing” while framing the rules as an “annoying law” full of “crazy cookie banners”, according to Schrems.

Under the regulation, companies have been obliged to seek user consent to install “cookies” enabling browsers to save information about a user’s online habits to serve up highly targeted ads.

Industry data suggests only three percent of internet users actually approve of cookies, but more than 90 percent are pressured to consent due to a “deceptive design” which mostly features “accept” buttons.

Stymied by the absence of a simple “yes or no” option and overwhelmed by a deluge of pop-ups, users get so fed up that they simply give up, Schrems said. Contrary to the law’s intent, the burden is being “shifted to the individual consumer, who should figure it out”.

Even though society now realises the importance of the right to have private information be forgotten or removed from the internet, real control over personal data is still far-off, the activist said. But NOYB has been helping those who want to take back control by launching
privacy rights campaigns that led companies to adopt “reject” buttons.

 Shift of business model 

Regulators have imposed big penalties on companies that violated GDPR rules: Facebook owner Meta, whose European headquarters are in Dublin, was hit with fines totalling 390 million euros ($424 million) in January.

One reason why tech giants like Google or Meta as well as smaller companies choose against playing by the GDPR rules is because circumventing them pays off, Schrems said.

Thriving on the use of private data, tech behemoths make “10 to 20 times more money by violating the law, even if they get slapped with the maximum fine”, he added.

Contacted by AFP, both companies said they were working hard to make sure their practices complied with the regulations.

Schrems also accuses national regulators of either being indifferent or lacking the resources to seriously investigate complaints. “It’s a race to the bottom,” Schrems said. “Each country has its own way of not getting anything done”.

Buoyed by his past legal victories, Schrems looks to what he calls the “bold” EU Court of Justice to bring about change as it “usually is a beacon of hope in all of this”.

Meanwhile, the European Commission is considering a procedures regulation to underpin and clarify the GDPR.

In the long-run, however, the situation will only improve once large companies “fundamentally shift their business models”. But that would require companies to stop being “as crazy profitable as they are right now,” Schrems said.

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