PODCAST: Yours, mine and our data

Christina J Colclough

By Christina Colclough

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Podcast: UNIs Christina Colclough was in Norway in Feb 2020 to give a number speeches on data, data governance, why and how we must object to all this surveillance and co-create a new digital ethos!

Make a coffee, feet up and listen to this podcast on why we need to be critical towards the massive surveillance and monitoring we are subject to. At work, as workers and as citizens.

Recorded at a debate meeting at Kulturhuset in Oslo on February 11, 2020, Christina Colclough takes the audience through an awareness raising journey on why we need to push for a new digital ethos that protects human rights, our right to be human, our democracies and more. 

Tyranny of Convenience

Christina cautions that we should stop calling smart phones, smart fridges, smart speakers, smart. She agrees with Shoshana Zuboff who says we should call them Surveillance phones, surveillance speakers, surveillance fridges. We have been sold a convenience to shop online, via our speakers, to turn the TV on or off via voice command, to easily find information we assume is valid on the internet. We want – even expect – things to be free. Yet we know, there is nothing called a free lunch. 

Its all about data

When we use our credit cards, facebook, our mobiles, the likes we make and those we don’t, we are creating and giving away data. This data feeds into massive data sets and forms the basis of the inferences – the conclusions or analyses – they make on us. What goods are you likely to buy, are you an “investible” worker, what do your activities and non-activities say about your health, your whereabouts, your political persuasion or the lack of the same. Could you be convinced to vote differently? Or read other kinds of news? None of this is insignificant, it is all about profiling you, and forming the world that is available to you.

So, should it be yours, mine or ours?

Christina takes us through the data journey, digital developments and what we can do, or even should do, to reclaim our rights and push for a set of collective solutions that benefit people and planet above all else.

Listen up for commentary and discussion with the trade union movement:

– Stina Hassel, NTL country board member – NTL
– Hans Martin Aase, The Trade Union
– Geir Aasen, Associate Secretary in the EL and IT Union in Norway


The meeting was organized by the Trade Campaign – Network for Fair and Democratic Trade Policy, Trade Union and Attac Norway

The trade campaign is an alliance of various organizations from trade unions, farmer organizations, to the environment, – solidarity, – and development organizations.


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