Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting

During this talk, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger discusses his recent book, ‘Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age‘, which looks at the phenomenon of perfect digital memory, and reveals why he believes we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, but it can also have unforeseen consequences.

Professor Mayer-Schönberger will examine the technology that is facilitating the end of forgetting – digitisation, cheap storage and easy retrieval, global access, and increasingly powerful software – and will describe the dangers of everlasting digital memory, from outdated information taken out of context to compromising photos the Web won’t let us forget. He will also explain why he believes information privacy rights and other fixes can’t help us, and proposes his own simple solution – expiration dates on information.