In Plain Sight
Maintaining the illusion of privacy is of paramount significance for stakeholders of social media companies. The Facebooks & Twitters of the world retain powerful legal firms to craft bulletproof ‘Terms of Service’ pages to ensure users are as comfortable as possible with sharing their personal information. But can something be both private & public? Most Americans may be oblivious to the reality that, at their core, social media companies are in the business of selling personal information.
The gurus running the development teams at Microsoft, Facebook, and Google are engineering algorithms and digital buckets to collect and decipher every morsel of our traceable existence. Ideally, they splice apart and encrypt any personally identifiable information and sell only fragments of our profiles to various business interests without our express consent or — wait actually, even though we skipped the T&S pages and tapped “OK”, it’s still somehow binding (not that you’d understand it anyway because you’re likely not a lawyer).
As the fallout continues in the form of abuse and accusations stemming from the contentious 2016 U.S. Presidential election, large technology firms are being targeted by governments domestic and abroad and brought to task regarding user privacy and concerns over the spreading of false information or ‘fake news’ (Not an American right? 🤔). Ahead of the 2020 elections, hopeful candidates have already poured much of their advertising resources into social media campaigns targeting American voters.
Right To Remain Silent?
Since election 2016, Facebook and its peers have made bold moves to ensure they maintain the trust of the American public. They’ve taken rather public measures to bolster their stance privacy such as Twitter announcing in late October that it would no longer allow political ads on its platform and Facebook removing popular pages it’s algorithms deem to be politically unsavory.
Whatever your personal stance is on the political climate or the role of these tech giants in shaping that climate, the early observations ahead of 2020 are that Americans are continuing to feed the details of their lives to the hungry hard drives on the vast networks of data centers that form the backbone of social media. When something is on the mind of an American, she/he still assumes the same level of privacy as before 2016 as the illusion has been upheld. Americans will not stay silent!
Digital Detectives
As law enforcement agencies seek to tackle the crimes of the impending decade, they too are tapping into the technological treasure the trove 2020s look to bring. Unlike when you skip past Facebook’s T&Cs after an app update so you quickly share ‘Candy Crush’ high scores in between red lights to any ear that’ll listen, there are tremendous ramifications to these invasive technologies being used without our awareness in the context of policing.
Maintaining civility in a home is challenging enough, (note the recent uptick in gruesome domestic violence incidents in major cities throughout the western world) police forces have their work cut out for them as they embark on the herculean task of maintaining civility in cities as large as 6, 8…30 million human beings! The same technological advancements which allow people who are millions of miles apart to exchange ideas in 4K clarity yes, those algorithms we can thank for the times we’re spooked by how YouTube or Spotify know us better than we know ourselves and always plays “our favorite” song as if on schedule, are being applied towards predicting, preventing, and investigating crime.
Much like Facebook’s wordy Terms of Service designed to keep us ignorant to the reality that nothing’s actually private any longer, law enforcement’s mission includes having these advanced policing techniques blend seamlessly into civilian environments. Major cities across America have been using smart traffic cameras to catch speeding drivers for some years now and their usage continues to expand rapidly. In New York City, for example, home to 8 million-plus, advanced automated camera systems are now being installed on MTA buses to catch drivers in pre-marked bus lanes. If the ‘normal’ speed trap cameras weren’t inconspicuous enough, these newer units are mounted directly inside of the city’s newer WiFi-enabled buses to catch unsuspecting lane-violators in the act.
Augmented Surveillance
Why stop outside of the vehicle? In Australia, authorities have already begun using an AI-enhanced camera system which allows law enforcement to detect when a driver is using their phone. No, this isn’t a sci-fi movie! The mobile phone detection camera is designed to detect telltale signs of distracting driving and scan for the devices. Once the photo is snapped, drivers are sent a fine which increases with every successive infraction ($233-$309US). Earlier trials of the tech captured 100,000 offenders. Imagine when similar systems pop up in New York or San Francisco.
In Dubai, a police force that already has a reputation of being ahead of the curve revealed plans to add Tesla’s freshly announced Cybertruck electric cars to its fleet. The all-electric pickup trucks are scheduled for production in 2021 and feature bullet-resistant shielding, autopilot and have a range of up to 500 miles on a single charge. The nation, which already has forces that use Google glass to fight crime, is not shy when it comes to giving law enforcement the tools their government feels they need.
It’s an open secret that the NSA and other government enforcement wings have advanced tools at their disposal but, it’s likely Americans are unaware of how they’re deployed or how effective they are. These specialized scanners are relatively small and inexpensive and allow agents to scan crowds at mass gatherings (protests, concerts).
“and it can track almost 10,000 phones at once and also scoop up your text messages, your phone calls - like, really intimate types of data” -Goerge Joseph, City Lab reporter
These ‘digital nets’ can fish out a trove of personal data on thousands of unsuspecting individuals without even giving them a choice to skip an annoying popup on their device. In almost the blink of an eye, law enforcement agencies can gain access to your device’s communications and files.
Anything You Say
In China, they’ve established a ‘social credit system’ backed by rich networks of CCTV systems as well as crowd-sourced facial recognition data. More on the ‘prevention’ side of the policing equation, the system seeks to reinforce ‘good’ behavior by credit certain acts over others with algorithms for deductions for ‘poor’ behavior. Some of these deductions are for playing loud music, eating in the transit system and failing to show up to restaurant reservations.
Backed by powerful data analytics tools this system of hyper-mass surveillance is bound to draw the attention of other governments who will surely look to implement new tactics to control people. The system resembles more of a Black Mirror episode than real life but, it is indeed real. We don’t have to look far to see similar systems already cropping up even if they’re not as auspicious.
Germany’s credit system is showing signs it’s slanting in the ‘social credit’ direction as they’re increasingly relying on big-data analytics in its health insurance and credit rating systems. Basically, the decisions you make every day can increasingly be tagged by your governments for them to use for (or against) you at a later date unbeknownst to you. What you do in your spare time, whether or not you flake on a reservation, can one day determine your healthcare premiums!
Smile, You’re [ALWAYS] in Public
Just off the coast of India lies a population known as the Sentineli. With fewer than 200 in existence, this tribe remains one of the few ‘uncontacted’ populations on Earth. They don’t have technology problems. If you’re reading this, it’s likely you aren’t Sentineli. It’s good to be aware of your technological surroundings.
The moment you picked up your device this morning you consented to be ‘watched’ by Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Amazon and any/all of their business partners in exchange for an easier and more exciting routine. The general population can’t afford to wait for corporate stakeholders whose interests are earning trillions of dollars off of our digital leisure to help them grasp how exposed our digital lives are. It’s beneficial for any civilian to understand that when they leave their home in 2020 they’re potentially being ‘scanned’ by federal and local governments equipped as never before.
The device in your hand is designed to share your location, your reading habits, your exercise patterns — your innermost personal preferences with an array of computers designed to decipher/disseminate that information for the consumption of both capitalistic entities and governments. With the backdrop of an impeachment investigation where citizens are salivating over details of the president’s secret activities, it’s interesting to note that he commands the forces that have your secrets stashed as bits in a data center deep under Utah ready to be extracted and potentially used against you in a court of law.
User beware.
