Unless you’re living off the grid or under a rock, there are high chances that every day you are asked to make a choice about your privacy — when you allow cookies on a recipe website, when you download a new application, or when you ask Siri to add an event to your calendar.
Of course, Covid made this even more acceptable. Nearly all governments created apps, which every citizen had to download, to collect information on who has been infected, who has been vaccinated and who they have come into contact with. And for those of us from the not-so-privileged parts of the world, sometimes we are compelled to sign off on our privacy a little more blatantly, like when we have to share our social media credentials to apply for a visit to the US.
Monitoring our actions, and increasingly our behaviours, is a phenomenon gaining speed at a much faster pace thanks to technological advancements. Join us in this week’s The Global Tiller as we look into the world of surveillance, from state-sponsored to profit-driven. Why are some people signing off on their privacy and how far have we crawled into the dystopian world of Big Brother?
One can argue that tech companies already know too much about us by monitoring our behaviour online, what we buy and how we feel. But Amazon’s future plans are invading all aspects of your life. Here’s what that future would look like:
Every morning, you are gently awakened by the Amazon Halo Rise. From its perch on your nightstand, the round device has spent the night monitoring the movements of your body, the light in your room, and the space’s temperature and humidity. At the optimal moment in your sleep cycle, as calculated by a proprietary algorithm, the device’s light gradually brightens to mimic the natural warm hue of sunrise. Your Amazon Echo, plugged in somewhere nearby, automatically starts playing your favorite music as part of your wake-up routine. You ask the device about the day’s weather; it tells you to expect rain. Then it informs you that your next “Subscribe & Save” shipment of Amazon Elements Super Omega-3 softgels is out for delivery. On your way to the bathroom, a notification bubbles up on your phone from Amazon’s Neighbors app, which is populated with video footage from the area’s Amazon Ring cameras: Someone has been overturning garbage cans, leaving the community’s yards a total wreck. (Maybe it’s just raccoons.)
Standing at the sink, you glance at the Amazon Halo app, which is connected to your Amazon Halo fitness tracker. You feel awful, which is probably why the wearable is analyzing your tone of voice as “low energy” and “low positivity.” Your sleep score is dismal. After your morning rinse, you hear the Amazon Astro robot chasing your dog, Fred, down the hallway; you see on the Astro’s video feed that Fred is gnawing on your Amazon Essentials athletic sneaker. Your Ring doorbell sounds. The pills have arrived.
If you’re like me, this sounds like a nightmare out of a Black Mirror episode. Do I have no agency over my own behaviour? But it is also equally likely that what you see above is a life full of conveniences — not having to monitor my tea supply because Alexa ordered a refill last week, or not having to take out the trash because that’s between the robot and the racoon.
Choosing to bring these devices into our homes and signing off on our privacy is what some scholars are calling 'luxury surveillance' — a luxury because others in different circumstances are forced into it (think AppleWatch versus an ankle monitor).
It is this data and the predictive value of this data where the money lies. Technology companies are mining it to their heart’s content, banking on the kind of people who believe they have got nothing to lose because it’s not like they’re doing anything illegal and, for now, the technology spares them.
But, this is where the waters get murky. How long can we claim to be on the 'right side' of society? Did the Muslims in the US and Europe know that one day they’ll come under massive state surveillance because some people who share the name of their religion will carry out terrorist attacks? Did the Black Lives Matter protesters in New York City know their tweets were being compiled and monitored by their state police? Did British residents know their government is collecting personal data on government critics under the guise of combatting misinformation?
Who knows what may put you on the wrong side of power. What will happen to the archives of data that already exists on your views? Would you be able to say: "no, actually that wasn’t me".
You may argue that a company collecting data for profits is not the same as state surveillance but I hate to break it to you: it is the product of these very same tech companies that states use to surveil you and I. Big tech companies including Microsoft, LexisNexis, and Palantir have helped fuel the militarisation of local police forces and the US Department of Homeland Security’s demand for high-tech surveillance. And because they don’t play favourites, these same companies fuelled China’s surveillance state, too. Besides these two, countries as varied as Greece, Zimbabwe and the UAE, are complicit, and chances are, yours is too.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is a moment for strong policymaking. We need laws to regulate how surveillance technology unfolds and we need a system that keeps them under check. Unless we do that now, we’re just setting ourselves up to be prosecuted in the future.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
China gets a lot of flak for becoming a surveillance state but the history of state surveillance goes way back, as far back as the French Revolution. Here’s an interesting historical walk through state surveillance across the world.
Note: I take exception to the choice of photo and headline for this article so I’m choosing to link their subtitle instead.
…and now what?
Control and creativity. Do you see any connection between these two concepts? In what way? I believe both to be antithetic, mostly because one comes from or for order, the other one from or for chaos.
Our societies thrive on creativity: new ideas, new tools, new ways of organising… all of those progress, all these evolutions are a product of our creativity. And very often, creativity comes from facing a specific issue: scarcity, inability, resistance…
I do not find the future from Amazon appealing. Because too much comfort ends up making life boring. Admittedly, we are all very often grumpy when things don’t go as planned: the bus should have come on time, the screw should have come out easily, my appointment shouldn’t have gone that way.
Very often we wish to have a magic wand that could guarantee the end result of everything we do. Be honest. How often do you think about a magic wand that will get all the lights green or clear all carts out of your way at the supermarket?
We all want control.
But that’s the problem with control: it comes from one perspective. Control is a leash that restricts our will to the pole of a single perception — because the world should be as such then everything should run in that direction, my direction. But how do we manage control when we have such diverse perspectives and views?
It’s no coincidence that control freaks in the world of politics are usually close to exclusive ideologies. Control doesn't work in diversity.
So no, surveillance is not the key to a better world and the “techno kings” or a “Mr Tweet” do not have a single solution for our future. Because if there was, then that would mean the future is singular, unique, which it’s not.
I remember one day hearing one of those “visionaries” saying our end-goal should be to end all suffering. In theory that sounds like a great idea. But how would you grow as an individual if you don’t suffer? Maybe you’ll tell me I can allow myself to say it because I haven’t seen too much suffering in my life? I have been privileged, of course.
But there’s the trick here. Why should we use surveillance to control the life of everyone, at the expense of some, when we could help more efficiently some for the benefit of everyone?
As tech allows use to refine data in a very short amount of time, this should allow us humans to be creative and find solutions better shaped to every single situation. A short inquiry on a huge database can allow an immigration officer to clear out very quickly someone’s profile and decide whether or not to grant them a visa.
Data should be used to serve not the implementation of individual comfort but of collective efficiency. And by doing so, we should have them managed, framed and limited in their usage by the people we elect to be in charge of the collective good under shared values.
Because, let’s be honest, many “free” and “democratic” countries today are already managed by non-transparent private actors of the likes of Palantir and others, but often the outrage is reserved for China alone.
The question is not all data, or no data. The question is for what? And to answer this one we should first answer the what if. What if we finally take a stand to protect what is our shared patrimony?
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury