What GDPR taught me about power and why Australia needs it / What does privacy feel like

Privacy is frequently framed as a technical problem or a legal checkbox. But living under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) revealed something deeper: privacy is about power.

Having grown up in the former Soviet Union, where surveillance was overt and understood, and later working in cyber security across multiple countries, I’ve experienced three very different data realities. None have been as quietly transformative as GDPR. Not because it is perfect but because it fundamentally shifted who holds control.

This talk explores what GDPR actually changed in everyday life: the ability to question, to access, to push back and to be acknowledged. It translates regulation into lived experience, moving beyond compliance language to what data rights feel like in practice.

Australia now stands at a similar crossroads. As debates around privacy reform, data breaches, and digital identity intensify, the question is no longer whether data is collected but who it ultimately serves.

This session would offer a grounded, human perspective on why data protection matters, what Europe got right (and wrong), and why meaningful privacy is about restoring balance between individuals and the systems that shape their lives.