Digital Protection Challenge - currently in development

How to make the Internet forget?

What is the problem we aim to solve?

Whether it is personal data, such as your bank account details and social network profiles, or confidential business and government information, unprotected data that makes it out into the Internet cannot be retrieved nor permanently deleted. The German Ministry of Interior’s recent wish for a 'digital eraser' to protect private data and Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt’s warning over the worrying amount of personal data individuals put into public domain highlight the increasing importance of this unsolved problem of protecting data on the Internet.

The problem has four aspects:

Technical: how to invent a technology that can make the Internet 'forget'
Social: how to make this technology accessible so that individuals are empowered to protect personal data at their own discretion
Legal: how to implement such a technology in a way that is not censoring free speech nor giving government or corporate authorities too much power
Governance: how to implement such a technology in way that it is democratic and neutral

Overview & Mission

OmniCompete together with its partners (tbc) is launching the first Internet Data Protection competition that aims to explore radically new ideas and game-changing solutions in data protection technologies from around the world.

It is our mission to spur tangible results within the next 18-24 months that help leaders in government and industry to make the right decisions for the growing problem of Internet data protection worldwide. The goal is to stimulate thinking and research in order to develop new technologies that showcase their inventions (prototype stage) at the final event of this Challenge and aim to beat the technical hurdles set up by the Consortium. For instance, the challenge could require finalists to retrieve the leaked private data of a fake user account on facebook, live at the final summit.

How does the Challenge work?

Drawing together international leaders from government and the private sector, OmniCompete will initially host a steering committee meeting to refine the problem and requirements for our international Challenge. Interested parties are welcome to attend.

The program aims to award the winning innovation $1 Million Dollars (tbc) of funding, sponsored by steering committee members from government entities and private sector firms.

Applying lessons learned from running various challenges in fields of security, cloud computing, aviation and energy, OmniCompete is confident that we will unearth hundreds of viable, emerging innovations from around the globe on this subject. Using our proven process, we will then use dozens of evaluators to filter out the best ideas that will be presented on stage to industry, VCs and government customers at a dedicated event.

Who are we looking for?

We want to get innovators out of their labs into the real world in order to create ventures that challenge the status-quo. We look for entrepreneurs and researchers from a wide range of industries, who work on advanced research/projects that are 3-4 years away from realization. This challenge will draw them into solving the digital eraser problem.

Case study: 'Drunken pirate' lark destroyed teaching career

The tale of Stacy Snyder, the "drunken pirate", is a cautionary one for any young person hoping to embark on a promising career.

Ms Snyder, a trainee teacher, had passed all her exams and completed her training. Her academic record was unblemished. That is, until her final summer, when her teachers – out of the blue – deemed that the behaviour she had displayed in her personal life was unbecoming of a teacher.

Her crime? She had uploaded an image of herself, wearing a pirate costume and drinking from a plastic cup on to a social networking site with the caption: "drunken pirate."

A colleague at the school where she had been training had seen it and reported it, saying that it was unprofessional to potentially expose pupils to photographs of a teacher drinking alcohol.

As university officials told her that her dream career was now out of her reach, she offered to take the photo down, and argued that it was not even possible to see what was in the cup. After all, she told them, "is there anything wrong with someone of a legally permissable age drinking alcohol?"

But her pleas were ignored. Ms Snyder never got the certificate she needed to teach and an attempt to sue the university for it was unsuccessful.

Placing a photograph of herself in "an unprofessional state" was her downfall: the image had been catalogued by search engines and by the time she realised the danger, it was impossible to take down.

Kevin Rawlinson for the BelfastTelegraph
Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/technology-gadgets/google-boss-eric-schmidts-warning-over-online-privacy-14914768.html#ixzz0z2vsC3eH