Radio Curious

What happens to the digital trails of our personal information and ideas that remain online when we research or upload data? Is this information accessible to others? Could it be used later to our potential detriment or character defamation? In this, the second of a two part archived conversation with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University, and author of “Delete: The Virtue Of Forgetting In The Digital Age,” we discuss methods by which people may protect themselves from revealing personal information online and how personal information may be deleted.

His book asserts that the capacity for eternal memory can have unanticipated and often unwanted consequences. In this two part archive edition of Radio Curious with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, we explore some of the ways in which our personal information, data, conversations and experiences are forgotten by us as individuals, but remembered digitally. We consider the future potential effects on society of digitally preserved information, as well as the consequences of remembering what is sometimes best forgotten.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, joined us by phone from his then home in Singapore on January 4th 2010. We began the second part of our conversation by discussing how to delete personal information so that it is no longer available.

The book Viktor Mayer-Schönberger recommends is “Collected Fictions,” by Jorge Luis Borges. The film he recommends is “The Lives Of Others,” directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Click here to listen to part two or on the media player below.  

Click here to listen to part one.

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