Can Sir Tim Berners-Lee save our privacy?

‘Every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.’ – a ‘nasty little song’, as Sting himself called it, about a romance turned creepy, but also a grim if fitting description of what most of us know by now: that our lives, including our moods and movements, spending habits, fitness and fears are almost continually tracked, recorded, and analysed. Our data is scraped for profit and, often, for hidden purposes. Privacy is undoubtedly under heavy attack today.

There is increasing unease about this state of affairs. Governments and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, are trying to rein in the power of Big Tech. But so far, despite some notable achievements, not least Europe’s GDPR legislation, pervasive extraction of our data continues apace.

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Enter Tim Berners-Lee, the so-called father of the internet.