Today we travel to a future where you can sell your personal data directly to a company, to get a better deal on a car or a house or a latte.

What could go wrong?

Guests:

• Richie Etwaru — CEO & Co-founder of Hu-manity.co
• Sarah Jeong — journalist & lawyer
• Abigail Echo-Hawk — Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute

Voice Actors:

• Commercial voice: Brian Downs (Patron!)
• Monica Pugh: Shara Kirby
• Detective: Keith Houston, check out “This Eternal Afternoon” every Sunday at 4:30 PST on twitch.tv/rogerniner.

Further Reading:

• Complete Ownership Over Your Data is the New 31st Human Right
• New Company Hu-manity.co Uses Blockchain to Declare a 31st Human Right, Empowering All Humans to Claim Legal Ownership of Inherent Human Data
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Governor Newsom Delivers State of the State Address
• California governor proposes ‘new data dividend’ that could call on Facebook and Google to pay users
• The Payoff From California’s “Data Dividend” Must Be Stronger Privacy Laws
• Oregon Health Information Property Act Proposes Paying Patients to Share Their Healthcare Data
• Andrew Yang is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
• Selling Your Private Information Is a Terrible Idea
• Beware the Tech Industry’s Latest Privacy Trojan Horse
• AT&T is putting a price on privacy. That is outrageous
• California proposed regulations on data pricing (PDF)
• Andrew Yang’s Plan to Pay You for Your Data Doesn’t Add Up
• Do maps have “copyright traps” to permit detection of unauthorized copies?
• Here’s What It’s Like To Visit An Actual Paper Town
• Nester’s Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co.
• Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
• Orbiting Frog Otolith
• Taylor Swift’s Feud With Scooter Braun Spotlights Musicians’ Struggles to Own Their Work
• When a Government Declares Memories Classified
• How Companies Learn Your Secrets
• Hack Investigates: Is my phone listening to my convos?
• Your phone isn’t spying on you – it’s listening to your ‘voodoo doll’
• New Research Study Shows That Social Media Privacy Might Not Be Possible
• How to Spot Police Surveillance Tools
• ICE Using Powerful Stingray Surveillance Devices In Deportation Searches
• How Facebook Outs Sex Workers
• We’re Not As Selfish As We Think We Are
• Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Report (PDF)
• Abigail Echo-Hawk on the art and science of ‘decolonizing data’

Episode Sponsors: 

• MOVA Globes // Visit movaglobes.com/flashforward and use the code FLASHFORWARD, all one word, at checkout for 10% off your purchase.
• PNAS Science Sessions // Listen wherever you get your podcasts! 

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. The voices from the future this episode were provided by

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.

And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.

That’s all for this future, come back next time and we’ll travel to a new one.

Flash Forward is a critically acclaimed podcast about the future.

In each episode, host Rose Eveleth takes on a possible (or not so possible) future scenario — everything from the existence of artificial wombs, to what would happen if space pirates dragged a second moon to Earth. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a black market for fecal transplants? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) By combining audio drama and deep reporting, Flash Forward gives listeners an original and unique window into the future, how likely different scenarios might be, and how to prepare for what might come.