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In the future, many predict technology will be more intelligent and more living than most people can imagine today.

But an expert has warned we need clear guidelines on how to implement and use technology, or else citizens will lose their rights to their identity and their life. 

He says there is a solution, though, which involves putting the public back in control of their own data - rather than leaving it to big corporations.

AI expert Dr Rasmussen from the University of South Denmark has warned of the rise of technology. Companies like Facebook and Google have too much of our data, he said. And if we don't control our own data we could lose our identities (stock image shown)

The prediction was made by Danish professor Dr Steen Rasmussen, an expert in artificial life from the University of Southern Denmark, in a new international book about the future of technology.

It is already happening every day, he said: States, intelligence services, Facebook, Google and smartphones collect detailed data about everything in our lives.

'One may think it is harmless if Facebook knows that I drink too much or have sexual relations outside my marriage, or that I love strawberry jam,' he said.

But he said that giving large organisations and governments access to such data could be dangerous.

'One may also think that authorities only look in our data if there is reason to suspect a crime. But leaderships change.

'Historically, we know that democratic governments can be taken over by dictatorships. Remember that democratic elections put the Nazis in the German Reichstag.

'A dictatorship has a completely different approach to control or punishment. In such a state data could be used to persecute citizens rather than to protect and serve them.

He added: 'I believe the problem will escalate dramatically in the near future, if citizens do not protest.

'The technology is complicated and has developed explosively in the last generation, which means that neither our decision makers nor our media understand what is going on - and more importantly, they cannot imagine how technology could be used differently.'

'One may think it is harmless if Facebook knows that I drink too much or have sexual relations outside my marriage, or that I love strawberry jam,' he said. But Dr Rasmussen said that giving large organisations and governments access to such data, such as through our phones (stock image shown), could be dangerous

Dr Rasmussen points out that there are good technological possibilities to solve the problem.

'We could, for instance, modify our digital infrastructure, so it is the individual citizens and not the state or the big companies that own our data.'

In the book 'Beta-Life - Stories from an A-Life Future', an international group of researchers and writers worked together to give an insight into how the world might look like in 2070. Professor Steen Rasmussen is scientific consultant on a story by Sarah Dean.

The story is about a little boy, his parents and his PM - Personal Maker, an advanced 3D printer - that can print almost everything that the little boy could wish for.

But behind the boy's innocent play, the reader gets a glimpse of a monitored society where it is not the boy and his parents who have control over the PM.

Instead, other powers have patented the technology in the boy's PM, and hence there is no free and democratic access to or use of the technology.

Instead the boy's playing is guided by hidden controllers with their own agenda.

Dr Rasmussen also warned that in future artificial intelligence may be 'controlled' by larger organisations or governments, preventing us from having our own true experiences (stock image shown)

'I'd rather not be a part of such a society. I do not want international monopolies, a government or other authority to collect my data and prevent me from sharing my ideas and what I create and produce, with whom I want,' said Dr Rasmussen.

'My data, my opinions, my ideas and what I make must belong to me. The individual citizen's data must be protected from abuse.'

According to Dr Rasmussen, there are no miracle cures, but there are better technical solutions than the ones we have today.

These solutions require a restructuring of our digital infrastructure - first of all, different degrees of encryption of our private data are needed so that only the individual citizen can see everything.  

'We need laws that ban Facebook, Google and others from storing data about us unless we allow them to.

'As these services often need to make money, we could pay a small amount every month for their services.

'In this way they earn money from us directly and not from spying on us and selling our data.'

Recently others such as Stephen Hawking have warned of the rise of technology. He said that warned that humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself. Speaking at an event in London, he told the BBC: 'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race'

He continued: 'Also it is not good that we can readily be identified on the Internet. It should be possible to conduct online transactions without our whole identity following the transaction.

'In principle it should only be possible for companies or authorities to access our identity in the context of digital transactions if there is a legal basis for it.

'This must however be weighed up against the possibility of giving criminals easier play on the Internet. There are great business opportunities for truly democratic countries to develop the first democratic digital infrastructure. Citizens in the rest of the world would of course want to buy such an infrastructure afterwards.

Dr Rasmussen called for an understanding that things are not acceptable, as they are today.

And he would like decision-makers and media to 'wake up' and understand that digital technology allows for much better solutions than we have today.

Solutions that put the citizen in the center - not the state or large multinational companies, he said.