How Much Data Is Being Tracked on You?
Rising popularity in technology over the last decade has seen massive growth in all things related to computer science. This has given birth to many sub-branches such as data science, SaaS (software as a service) and also machine learning (AI). As a result, data is being extracted on us constantly, and possibly, more data than you are aware of: did you know apps have full access to your camera and microphone (even when you aren’t aware of it being on)? Apps use it to track your eyes and to overhear your conversations- a snooping method of data extraction. Most people are oblivious to this; therefore, this topic is important because people need to be educated about the data being produced about them. In spite of all this, I don’t believe that the intent of the data is necessarily malicious, instead it’s merely a method of fine-tuning technology so it is optimised for its purpose, so I don’t propose it as inherently bad.
Data is any information or figure about a person. It can take copious forms, but usually it is used to monitor a person’s activities, personality or use of technology. For example, data can be your phone’s maps app monitoring your geographical location during the day. Other forms of data could be the things that you talk about on your texts or even the search history on social media. There are two dominant reasons why firms would want this information:
1) There is no legislation impeding them from extracting as much data about a person as they please
2) Monetary incentives from their business model means that developers want consistent, loyal customers on their app/software. Using the data they extract, they can create an app personalised to each user making it addictive, creating consistent customers.
To make this clear let’s use Tik Tok: your For You Page is administered by which posts you spend the bulk of your time watching. Tik Tok’s machine learning models will be able to take these data feature and return new videos which it hypothesises will appeal to you the most. The posts the model output becomes the next post you see on your for you page and this cycle repeats with every video you watch. This has shaped tik tok’s loyal userbase because the individualized content becomes addictive, explaining why over its 680 million monthly users, on average every user spends 52 minutes on the app daily.
Now, aware of why firms crave this data about us, let’s explore what information they take:
· Geographic Location: Apps monitor your location because it is an indicator of your hobbies. If someone is at the gym every day, we can postulate that the person is physically active and prioritises their health. Similarly, technology can use this data to target ads orientated around fitness at this user as opposed to unrelated content that is unlikely to engage that user.
· Messages: Nowadays, every app tracks the messages you send and search for specific keywords that allow them to track your interests. There are job roles specific to finding algorithms that can find and simulate someone’s personality like this called growth hackers. With the ability to simulate someone’s personality, this facilitates process of the model choosing personalised content for the user. This is why you start to get advertisements on subjects you may have recently been talking to your friends about.
· All Activities on Technology: If you ever had doubts about your phone tracking the time you spend on apps then you can see it for yourself on your screen time- it displays, precise to the closest minute, the time spent on every app you’ve used on your phone in the day. Similar to geographic location, this can be used to predict your hobbies.
· Listens to your conversations: Devices listen out and overhear your conversations for specific keywords that are useful for ads. Keywords are usually anything that has active advertising available such as stocks, car trade, real estate are all examples. If you don’t believe the technology is listening then explain how your Google Pixel or Alexa would hear you say ‘Alexa’ or ‘Google’ when you switch it on unless it was already listening in the first place?
Blatantly, your privacy is being intruded by the technology you are surrounded by. If you are still hesitant about how much data there is out there about you, you can request Google for all the information that it possesses about you. In a particular case I read about, the file that the person received was 5.5Gb which is the equivalent of about 3 million pages on Microsoft Word. This information spanned from app usage, all his photos and Gmail data to every comment he had ever left on YouTube.
We have already begun to see the consequences of this data through social media addiction among adolescents which recently have developed into mental health problems. Technology addiction commenced by the personalised apps can also seem to sedentary lifestyles that are associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease and early death. Moreover, the personalised content on apps has led to recent tribalism as it promotes one sided thinking. The tribalism was witnessed during the presidential election in America where riots were ignited following Biden’s victory. The tribalism is deep rooted far enough that people don’t associate with people with differing views to them anymore. Although this is an intrinsic quality of humans, technology has catalysed it and enhanced the divides. Consequently, society is progressively becoming increasingly segregated as time goes by- a pernicious trope of data and technology.
To conclude, in the future, as technology continues to advance, more and more data is going to be extracted about us which may have unsustainable effects if it isn’t monitored appropriately. Therefore, I believe regulations will need to be established to prevent excessive data being taken as currently there is no legislation preventing it from happening. Although this will harm the business models of firms, I believe it is necessary because the current route of technology is steering us into a future where our long term health will be compromised.
