Technology continues to challenge many established assumptions about privacy and identity, as everyday activities such as checking e-mail or using a credit card contribute to a growing “paper trail” of personal digital data.

To discuss this and other topics from his new book, Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, Harry Lewis will speak at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 19 in room 324 of the Darrin Communications Center (DCC).

Lewis, the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, and former dean of Harvard College, is author or co-author of six books. The most recent, Blown to Bits, seeks to inform readers about the origins and consequences of the explosion of digital information, and detail how an individual’s data trails can be captured, digitized, retrieved, and copied by governments, corporations, and other people.

Open to the Rensselaer community and the public, Lewis’ talk is intended for a general audience.

Rensselaer Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Professor Randolph Franklin, a former student of Lewis, organized the event.

“This is a topic that goes beyond computer science and delves into public policy and individual freedoms,” Franklin said. “In these times of massive data generation, where everything is recorded and nothing is forgotten, we have to realize that there are high-level decisions about privacy that are being made without our input or consent. Dr. Lewis will explain why and how this is happening, and what we can do about it.”