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Privacy Village Academy
Join The Community!AcademyAbout HGPE
  • Hitchhiker's Guide to Privacy Engineering
    • โ“What is HGPE?
      • โš–๏ธWho is this for?
      • ๐Ÿง™โ€โ™‚๏ธPrivacy Engineering
      • ๐ŸŽจCreative Privacy
      • ๐Ÿ”ฎGenerative AI
      • ๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ปAbout the Author
  • ๐Ÿง™โ€โ™‚๏ธThe Ethical AI Governance Playbook 2025 Edition
    • ๐Ÿค–Chapter 1 : AI Literacy
    • ๐ŸŒChapter 2 : AI Governance in the 21st Century
    • โŒ›Chapter 3 - Getting Started with AI Act Compliance
    • ๐Ÿš€Chapter 4 : Rise of AI Governance: Building Ethical & Compliant AI
    • Chapter 5 : Introduction to the Lifecycle of AI
  • ๐ŸŽ“Privacy Engineering Field Guide Season 1
    • โ“Decoding the Digital World: Exploring Everyday Technology
    • ๐Ÿ‘๏ธIntroduction: Why Privacy Matters?
      • Age of Mass Surveillance
      • Privacy & Democracy
      • Privacy & Government Surveillance
    • โšกChapter 1 : How Computers Work?
      • Electricity
      • Bits
      • Logic Gates
      • Central Processing Unit (CPU)
      • Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)
      • Motherboard
      • Data Storage
      • Databases
      • Operating System (OS)
      • Computer Code
      • Programming Languages
      • The File System
      • Bugs and Errors
      • Computer Virus
      • Internet of Things (IoT)
      • Cloud Computing
    • ๐Ÿ›ฐ๏ธChapter 2 : How the internet works?
      • Physical Infrastructure
      • Network and Protocols
      • Switch
      • Routers
      • IP Address
      • Domain Name System (DNS)
      • Mac Address
      • TCP / IP
      • OSI Model
      • Packets
      • The Client - Server Architecture
      • Secure Socket Shell (SSH)
      • Transport Layer Security (TLS)
      • Firewall
      • Tunnels and VPNs
      • Proxy Server
    • ๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธChapter 3 : How Websites Work?
      • HTML
      • CSS
      • Javascript
      • Web Server
      • Browser
      • HTTP
      • Databases
      • Front End (Client Side)
      • Back End (Server Side)
      • Cookies
      • Local Storage
      • Session Storage
      • IndexedDB
      • XHR Requests
      • Web APIs
      • Webhooks
      • Email Server
      • HTTPS
      • Web Application Firewall
      • Single Sign-on (SS0)
      • OAuth 2.0
      • Pixels
      • Canvas Fingerprinting
      • Email Tracking
      • Containers
      • CI/CD
      • Kubernetes
      • Serverless Architecture
    • โš›๏ธChapter 4 : How Quantum Computers Work?
      • Quantum Properties
      • Quantum Bits (Qubits)
      • Decoherence
      • Quantum Circuits
      • Quantum Algorithms
      • Quantum Sensing
      • Post-Quantum Cryptography
    • ๐Ÿ“ณChapter 5 : Mobile Apps and Privacy
      • Battery
      • Processor
      • Mobile Operating Systems
      • Mobile Data Storage
      • Cellular Data
      • Mobile Device Sensors
      • Wireless Connectivity
      • Camera & Microphone
      • Mobile Apps
      • Software Development Kits (SDKs)
      • Mobile Device Identifiers
      • Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
  • ๐Ÿ•ต๏ธโ€โ™‚๏ธPrivacy Engineering Field Guide Season 2
    • โ“Introduction to Privacy Engineering for Non-Techs
      • ๐ŸŽญChapter 1 : Digital Identities
        • What is identity?
        • Authentication Flows
        • Authentication vs. Authorization
        • OAuth 2.0
        • OpenID Connect (OIDC)
        • Self Sovereign Identities
        • Decentralized Identifiers
        • eIDAS
      • ๐Ÿ‘๏ธโ€๐Ÿ—จ๏ธChapter 2 : De-Identification
        • Introduction to De-Identification?
        • Input / Output Privacy
        • De-identification Strategies
        • K-Anonymity
        • Differential Privacy
        • Privacy Threat Modeling
  • ๐Ÿ“–HGPE Story and Lore
    • ๐ŸชฆChapter 1 : The Prologue
    • โ˜„๏ธChapter 2 : Battle for Earth
    • ๐Ÿฆ Chapter 3 : A Nightmare To Remember
    • ๐Ÿง™โ€โ™‚๏ธChapter 4 : The Academy
    • ๐ŸŒƒChapter 5: The Approaching Darkness
    • โš”๏ธChapter 6 : The Invasion
    • ๐ŸฐChapter 7 : The Fall of the Academy
    • ๐Ÿ›ฉ๏ธChapter 8 : The Escape
    • ๐ŸชChapter 9 : The Moon Cave
    • ๐Ÿฆ‡Chapter 10: Queen of Darkness
  • ๐Ÿ“บVideos, Audio Book and Soundtracks
    • ๐ŸŽงReading Episodes
    • ๐ŸŽนSoundtracks
  • ๐Ÿ‘พHGPE Privacy Games and Challenges
    • ๐ŸŽฎData Privacy Day'23 / Privacy Treasure Hunt Game
    • ๐ŸงฉPrivacy Quest
  • ๐Ÿ“ฌSubscribe Now!
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  • How did this passion project start?
  • How did HGPE start as a creative privacy project?

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  1. Hitchhiker's Guide to Privacy Engineering
  2. What is HGPE?

About the Author

Privacy geek in residence. | A privacy lawyer aspired to become a privacy engineer. | Director at Bilgi Privacy Innovation Lab | Founder at Verilogy

PreviousGenerative AINextThe Ethical AI Governance Playbook 2025 Edition

Last updated 2 years ago

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I was always a dreamer.

In my childhood, my imagination was shaped by Dragon Lance, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons role-playing, and even creating maps and stories on the school bus while I was ten-something.

Then I met Tolkien, his works are still the driving fuel of my imagination and creativity. Star Wars, the prequels made me love science fiction and considering the FX Darth Maul lightsaber, I carried from Boston back to Turkey -which was literally bigger than my body- demonstrates my passion.

In high school, I was fully focused on becoming a musician. I was practicing piano for hours after school. I was the keyboardist of four different high school bands of Tarsus American College music band โ€œEchoโ€, and played in festivals and bars to earn money.

Then I started law school but I was always intrigued by tech and creative things more than dull textbooks and the education system.

How did this passion project start?

This journey thought me a lot with regard to innovation around privacy and paved my way to becoming the director of the Privacy Innovation Lab.

Where we work with undergrad and LLM students to innovate on privacy.

Our current projects include developing an open-source local differential privacy library, public awareness around privacy activism, privacy patterns development, and a privacy engineering track for the master's program.

In PIL, working with young minds, and trying to teach them about privacy was a new challenge. I learned the hard truth, as starting with the privacy legislation itself was not intriguing for the students.

When we set out to work on privacy innovation, we saw that they don't know anything about privacy and more importantly, they didn't even care. Some of them didnโ€™t even know how to close their mics. So, I needed to improvise.

To teach them about privacy, we needed things that bring it to their attention first.

Then helped the students come up with their own innovative projects and we did pitching competitions that fed their interest.

Then when they are finally hooked, I kicked off the why privacy matters part.

And we made it fun and engaging and it managed to hook a lot of students.

We were over 30 people working on privacy projects at the end of the year. By telling them about privacy using creativity and art rather than something boring and legalese.

Thus, I noticed this crazy little thing called a โ€œcreative privacy mindsetโ€.

How did HGPE start as a creative privacy project?

As a person with ADHD looking down at long texts or watching long videos has always been a challenge for me.

Therefore I always tend to learn better when the information is flowing through something original and creative, out of the box, and using different ways to keep me coming back to learn more.

As a Tolkien, Frank Herbert, and Douglas Adams fan, Magic the Gathering cards collector, and fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, my imagination and the appetite to constantly create something have come up with a new plan.

The idea of sharing what I learned on my road to privacy engineering with a science fiction-themed comic book that utilizes environmental storytelling seemed crazy enough to give it a try.

Why not teach the privacy engineering skillset I have gained over the years, using the newly learned skills in no-code development together with the power of magically creating any kind of digital art with creative AI, and then adding some good storytelling and original soundtracks to turn this into a comic book that teaches privacy engineering to privacy lawyers.

Therefore, I proudly present my initial work on Hitchhikerโ€™s Guide To Privacy Engineering. Here you will find a story-driven, immersive cyberpunk artwork coupled with some cosmic horror elements having babies with the most ambitious privacy engineering knowledgebase.

I hope you enjoy learning more about the technical side of privacy and use this book on your own journey of becoming a privacy engineer.

This is quite a passion project of mine so loved working on every detail of it, hope it finds a connection with the creative children in all of us.

Yours forever, Mert Can Boyar.

The next section will provide you with basic knowledge of how everything started which will be enough for you to start your journey.

We even released an album, which become a local hit in and won awards in high school music competitions.

I got more involved in entrepreneurship thanks to the and eventually, I became a data protection lawyer. Then, it turned into a passion that made me build more than seven products in privacy and start my own company .

I am also the director of where students and stakeholders gain interdisciplinary skills in modern software development, privacy engineering, data security, and legal compliance to fuel data protection and privacy innovation.

That is why I started the year with a documentary called . It's about how engineers from Apple quit the company to create some of the best Apple products like the iPhone.

And we started storytelling around how our data is used against us, and how it can harm us, or even harm democracies. We invited amazing storytellers such as to tell us stories about privacy.

Spotify's Top 50 Viral Playlist
Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation
Verilogy
Istanbul Bilgi University Privacy Innovation Lab
General Magic
Aral Balkan
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๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ป
Finals of Baker and Mckenzie Legaltech Startup Challenge, 2019
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