Exploring the tensions of the new internet reality - where privacy, trust, innovation and regulation rub up against each other - was the basis of lively, interactive discussion in the first Big Conversation, hosted by Nik Gowing of the BBC.
Monitoring, analysing and monetizing end-user data without the explicit consent of that end-user is an unacceptable compromise of personal privacy in the view of Klaus Leisinger, Chairman of Novartis.
Andy Haire echoed this concern with an anecdote: a pop up browser appeared on his screen advertising the services of an investment firm in managing his portfolio - which the ad had estimated to within 3% accuracy. The extent to which the private sphere is under attack from hyper-connectivity was illustrated by an email from the online audience explaining, "I don't have a Facebook account, but friends posted pictures of my new kitchen there and I started to get adverts for construction material and questions about my furniture through my gmail".
For WIPO's Ali Jazairy, the risk of ubiquitous connectivity is that we may end up as chauffeurs for the mobile gadgets we carry with us, not needing to input data ourselves, to the extent that smart phones could evolve into potential tools for terrorists.
Once on the internet, information is all but impossible to delete - but should this be the case For Mr Leisinger, the right to delete is indisputable, particularly given that teenagers and young people should not be penalized later in life for any less discrete data they may have posted now. Illustrating this point, Andy Haire mentioned a recent study indicating that 70% of employers had already turned down job candidates following an online search.
The issue, the panellists agreed, is not whether we should be able to delete data, but rather whether we can - and how we can ensure that deletion has effectively occurred in a world where is little trust in the big new players such as Google and Apple, and where the global and viral nature of the internet means information is perfectly, and infinitely, copiable. As Mr Jazairy pointed out, it is increasingly an intellectual property (IP) issue, where ownership of images and data is unclear and the details may be in the fine print of online contracts that no one reads.
Suggestions from Twitter contributors that no one is forced to use Facebook, Google or any other site, and that responsibility for ensuring privacy essentially resides with the end user's decision to engage in the internet space or not, were met with scorn from Mr Leisinger. Drawing comparisons with the warning leaflet included in any packet of pills, he said, "We cannot say that we are stuck with it because we were not aware of the risks; they are intruding into my bubble, and I have a problem with this".
Telcos, Andy Haire reminded the audience, have far more information on our habits, travels, conversations and contacts than we imagine; but setting barriers between providing a service and monetizing that service is not easy.
It is also culture-specific. In many Asian countries, for example, notions of the individual in society are radically different from those of the privacy-driven West, meaning there may well be less pressure from civil society for government transparency on use of data. Calling for dialogue, information-flow and transparency on issues of personal data, Klaus Leisinger warned against accepting blanket extensions of government control on the grounds of security, such as happened in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York: "Human history shows that if a right to access is granted, access is taken," he said, even if it is not clearly needed or discussed.
Turning the argument into a positive, Ali Jazairy focused on the opportunities created by the availability of information on the web, and its function as a platform for creative and collaborative innovation involving the best and the brightest globally. And innovation is the way out of the current global financial crisis, seeking and solving problems through technology and through novel business models of licencing out core skills - and buying in new ones. However, IP once more comes to the foreground in terms of how and when open innovation risks becoming IP theft, and how the balance between retaining revenue and limiting access to knowledge of universal social benefit should be maintained.
Ambivalence as to who owns data, who can or should control information on the web and how open source fits within innovation and IP: these are the fault lines of the internet society, driving lack of trust and privacy concerns.
Summing up, Mr Leisinger focused on how growing distrust and unease may curb the huge potential of the ICT space, forcing more regulation that may harm more than good.
For Mr Haire, telcos must move forward from current complacency to accept that innovation is the only way for the future. Innovation means sharing and collaboration, identifying partners in a particular space - a behavioural shift which, according to Mr Ali, must be adopted if businesses in the hyper-connected word do not want to be sidelined.
