Houston, we have a [consent] problem.

When ‘Agree’ becomes the only option in the digital world, is consent even real?

As a survivor, I think a lot about consent. My first day at college orientation, we learned the definition of consent. Consent is knowing, voluntary, and clear permission by words or actions to engage in sexual activity. Two weeks later, my ability to consent was taken away from me, resulting in my assault. 

When I look back on that experience, what strikes me most is how my ability to consent was taken from me. I was put in a compromising position where I could not knowingly and voluntarily give my consent, and so it was assumed without my choice. 

Data collection practices compromise people’s ability to knowingly and voluntarily consent on their data. 

Let’s broaden consent outside of sexual activities. What are activities you knowingly and voluntarily consent to? What are activities you may not knowingly and voluntarily consent to? I live most of my life actively consenting; I consent to participate at work; I consent to having a relationship with my partner; I consent to getting hugs from my friends and my family members. 

But I honestly never know to the extent of which I am consenting to giving up my data in ways that harm me.  When I click the “Agree” button on the terms and conditions of an app, I have no clue what I am agreeing to. The terms and conditions are long and arduous that make eyes glaze over while I quickly scroll to get onto the device or app. 

How much of my data are they collecting? What are they doing with it? Who are they selling it to? How long are they going to store it? How is it going to benefit me?

The answers to these questions should be easy and transparent to the users, yet we barely know anything about how our most sacred information is being used. 

Imagine agreeing to go on a date, only to find out that your date expected sex because of an unspoken agreement. It’s absurd!

Yes, I voluntarily click the “agree” button, but I do not know the full extent to what that means. Both must be there to be considered consent by the above definition. 

Big tech coerces us to give up our data.

Recently I wanted to try out a new task management app. As soon as I got onto the first screen, it asked for my name and my email. I am increasingly reluctant to give up those pieces of information because I recognize it’s another piece of data that is being used to build a detailed picture of my online and offline life to potentially exploit me. However, there was no alternative in the app besides giving up that data to access it. I did not want to consent to releasing my name and email to the app; yet I was met with no choice but to exit. I couldn’t test it out and then give up my data later.

If we go back to a dating analogy, that’s like your date saying “if you want to go out on a date with me, then you have to have sex with me.” Why is my desire to try out a tool automatically lead to data collection?

Now there are many task management apps out there and so I can choose another app that may more align with my values around data collection, but that’s not the case with every tool we’d like to use. 

Meta and Google are the worst culprits. Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and has over 3 billion daily users on their platforms, almost half of the global population. Google processes almost 8 billion searches a day. It’s almost impossible to escape from these companies' clutches. The alternatives to Meta’s platforms are TikTok and X, with equally questionable privacy policies. There are privacy-forward alternatives to Google such as  DuckDuckGo, StartPage and Brave that block trackers; the former two note that they do not collect or store data. Moreover, a lot of our physical life has also become digital or “smart”, from the software on our cars, to our “smart” thermometers - all tools designed to collect data about our lives.

Coercion in the context of sexual violence is the application of unreasonable pressure for sexual access. Similarly, big tech companies leverage their enormous power to pressure users into participating in their platforms without appropriate alternatives. This concentration of power forces us to surrender our personal data, making it difficult, if not impossible, to fully understand or genuinely consent to how that data is used.

We must know how our data is collected to give proper consent.

The main way that our data is being collected without our knowing and voluntary consent is through Trackers. Trackers are tools and code that are embedded into websites to basically follow you around while you’re online, collecting pieces of information about your personal information, behaviors, IP addresses, location etc. The data collected is then used to create a detailed profile of you, allowing companies to target you and influence your preferences, behaviors, and purchasing choices. The most common trackers are cookies, small text files stored on your device to remember details like login information, browsing preferences, or shopping cart items. Other types of trackers include pixel tags, device fingerprinting, and URL tracking. We are literally being tracked all the time. 

There are policies to mitigate tracking and give us some form of control, typically involving opt-in or opt-out systems. Opt-in mechanisms require you to actively choose to share your data; if you don’t click ‘agree’ or ‘yes,’ then your data remains protected. It’s an active and resounding consent, in line with the definition of consent. In contrast, opt-out mechanisms assume consent by default, collecting your data unless you specifically choose to reject it. This is like being expected to give sex, unless you actively say no. GDPR, the European Union regulation around data collection and privacy, mainly operates as an opt-in policy. The United States does not have a federal law that requires companies to provide opt-in. Certain states have laws to varying degrees around data collection, mainly through opt-out policies. No state has a law for an opt-in policy. 

Consent is our greatest power.

Data collection methods rely on our complacency and mindless clicking. The best way to take back our consent is to be conscious about our clicks and actively choose where we provide our data.

1. Pause and reflect. Before signing up for that rewards program for a retailer you’ll only use once, or quickly clicking “allow all” in the cookies preferences, pause and think about whether you really have to give up that data. Consider questions like: Why is the company asking for that data? What do you receive in return and is that trade worth it?

2. Learn about our data rights. The United States does not have any meaningful data transparency and regulation laws at the federal level. But states are doing incredible things around data rights and privacy. For example, Colorado has the Colorado Privacy Act that requires opt-out options for marketing trackers and opt-in consent for sensitive data collection, such as race and health data. Pay attention to who’s speaking about data rights at all levels of government. After all, data rights are human rights. 

3. Imagine a data-driven world that is driven by consent rather than our silence. Imagine a consent-based data collection system that truly serves you: where you decide how your data is used to benefit you, and where you control what information is collected and what remains private, known only to you. I love a good recommendation for movies or songs, so I enjoy a Netflix recommendation or a Spotify recommendation. I do not like gendered-recommendations such as clothing, laser removal ads or botox on my feed so I don’t want my gender or race to be collected and used to exploit me. I also don’t want my health data to be collected to train algorithms to make health predictions or diagnosis, knowing that algorithmic biases negatively impact Black and Brown people’s lives. 

Without our data, these companies would be nothing. Apple’s privacy settings on the iPhone, which allowed users to opt out of app tracking, caused Facebook to lose almost $10 billion in revenue. That’s how much our data is worth to these companies. If our data is the reason these companies are so damn successful, shouldn’t we have a say in how our data is used?