Tech companies have a responsibility to ensure their products are secure, but for tech to be trustworthy, researchers, civil society organizations, and governments need to get involved in governance, according to Wafa Ben-Hassine, principal on the responsible technology team at Omidyar Network.
“With great power comes great responsibility,” she said on a panel this week about trust in technology during the World Economic Forum’s Global Technology Governance Summit. “Unfortunately, those that hold the power exhibit very little responsibility,” she added.
“Part of the problem is a lot of the technology was developed by mostly white males who are based in California,” Ben-Hassine said. “The technology is then deployed to the rest of the world. That carries certain values with it that do not incorporate the rest of the world.”