Regulations to protect personal data don’t inspire much love. Companies frequently regard them as a nuisance, a needless expense, and a hindrance to innovation. Governments think the rules should apply to everyone but themselves. And ordinary people often act as if they don’t care whether their data is safeguarded at all. But such regulations matter now more than ever. The world is increasingly defined by technological asymmetries; a huge gulf has opened up, with big corporations and powerful governments on one side and ordinary individuals on the other. Even in wealthy democratic societies, individual autonomy is at risk now that even simple choices, such as what news stories to read or what music to listen to, are dictated by algorithms that operate deep within software and devices -so deep that users are usually unaware of the extent to which data processing shapes their decisions and opportunities. Today, technology "is being used to control what we see, what we can do, and, ultimately, what we say", the cryptographer and privacy specialist Bruce Schneier has written. "It makes us less safe. It makes us less free".