Emerald de Leeuw is a privacy and data ethics specialist recommended by Forbes as a female entrepreneur to watch. In this Talk, she explains how social media nearly killed her when she was young. She delivers a moving speech on the future of these information flows and on what to do to secure our personal data. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx Emerald de Leeuw is a data protection and privacy specialist, entrepreneur. She joined MIT Sloan’s School of Business’ Cybersecurity consortium on critical in fracture (IC3) in 2018 where she contributes on areas relating to European data protection law. She founded EuroComply, a company that advises organisations around the world on matters relating to data protection and privacy. She is a faculty member and board examiner at the Law Society of Ireland on the Technology Law and Data Protection Courses In 2018 she was awarded the prestigious German Marshall Fund Fellowship from the US Department of State. She was recommended by Forbes as a female entrepreneur to watch and has featured frequently in publications such as Bloomberg Law. In 2017. She works with the European Young Innovators Forum and the German Marshall Fund of the United States to improve transatlantic cooperation for entrepreneurs and to improve the ecosystem for female professionals and entrepreneurs. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx