Happy “Data Privacy Day” – Now Read The New York Times Privacy Project About Total Surveillance; Forbes, January 28, 2020

Steve Andriole, Forbes; Happy “Data Privacy Day” – Now Read The New York Times Privacy Project About Total Surveillance

"It’s worth saying again:  every time we blog, tweet, post, rideshare, order from Amazon, rent an Airbnb – or anything that leaves a digital trail – we feed what Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism,” which is the monetization of data captured through monitoring people's movements and behaviors online and in the physical world, and which is summarized in the New York Times.  Countless digital systems now track where we are, where we go, what we eat, what we think, who we like, who we love, where we bank, what we know and who we hate – among lots of other things they know all too well because we remind them over and over again.  

Just in time for Data Privacy Day, the New York Times described just how pervasive surveillance really is. On Sunday, January 26, 2020, in a special section titled “One Nation, Tracked,” the Times presented some frightening stories...

Part of the ongoing “Privacy Project,” the Times analyzes every aspect of surveillance."

This App Is a Dangerous Invasion of Your Privacy—and the FBI Uses It; Popular Mechanics, January 22, 2020

Courtney Linder, Popular Mechanics; This App Is a Dangerous Invasion of Your Privacy—and the FBI Uses It

"Even Google Wouldn't Build This

When companies like Google—which has received a ton of flack for taking government contracts to work on artificial intelligence solutions—won't even build an app, you know it's going to cause a stir. Back in 2011, former Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said a tool like Clearview AI's app was one of the few pieces of tech that the company wouldn't develop because it could be used "in a very bad way."

Facebook, for its part, developed something pretty similar to what Clearview AI offers, but at least had the foresight not to publicly release it. That application, developed between 2015 and 2016, allowed employees to identify colleagues and friends who had enabled facial recognition by pointing their phone cameras at their faces. Since then, the app has been discontinued.

Meanwhile, Clearview AI is nowhere near finished. Hidden in the app's code, which the New York Times evaluated, is programming language that could pair the app to augmented reality glasses, meaning that in the future, it's possible we could identify every person we see in real time.

Early Pushback

Perhaps the silver lining is that we found out about Clearview AI at all. Its public discovery—and accompanying criticism—have led to well-known organizations coming out as staunchly opposed to this kind of tech.

Fight for the Future tweeted that "an outright ban" on these AI tools is the only way to fix this privacy issue—not quirky jewelry or sunglasses that can help to protect your identity by confusing surveillance systems."

UK Government Plans To Open Public Transport Data To Third Parties; Forbes, December 31, 2019

Simon Chandler, Forbes; UK Government Plans To Open Public Transport Data To Third Parties

"The launch is a significant victory for big data. Occasionally derided as a faddish megatrend or empty buzzword, the announcement of the Bus Open Data Service shows that national governments are willing to harness masses of data and use them to create new services and economic opportunities. Similarly, it's also a victory for the internet of things, insofar as real-time data from buses will be involved in providing users with up-to-date travel info.

That said, the involvement of big data inevitably invites fears surrounding privacy and surveillance."

Warning! Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’; The New York Times, January 29, 2019

Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times; Warning! Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’


[Kip Currier: I just posted this Thomas L. Friedman New York Times piece as a MUST read for the students in my Information Ethics course. The "money quote" regarding the crux of the issue: 

"Unfortunately, we have not developed the regulations or governance, or scaled the ethics, to manage a world of such deep powers, deep interactions and deep potential abuses."

And the call to action for all those who care and can do something, even if it is solely to raise awareness of the promise AND perils of these "deep" technologies:

"This has created an opening and burgeoning demand for political, social and religious leaders, government institutions and businesses that can go deep — that can validate what is real and offer the public deep truths, deep privacy protections and deep trust."

Friedman leaves out another important "opening"--EDUCATION--and a critically important stakeholder group that is uniquely positioned and which must be ready and able to help prepare citizenry to critically evaluate "deep" technologies and information of all kinds--EDUCATORS.]
 

"Well, even though it’s early, I’m ready to declare the word of the year for 2019.

The word is “deep.”

Why? Because recent advances in the speed and scope of digitization, connectivity, big data and artificial intelligence are now taking us “deep” into places and into powers that we’ve never experienced before — and that governments have never had to regulate before. I’m talking about deep learning, deep insights, deep surveillance, deep facial recognition, deep voice recognition, deep automation and deep artificial minds.

Some of these technologies offer unprecedented promise and some unprecedented peril — but they’re all now part of our lives. Everything is going deep...

Unfortunately, we have not developed the regulations or governance, or scaled the ethics, to manage a world of such deep powers, deep interactions and deep potential abuses...

This has created an opening and burgeoning demand for political, social and religious leaders, government institutions and businesses that can go deep — that can validate what is real and offer the public deep truths, deep privacy protections and deep trust.

But deep trust and deep loyalty cannot be forged overnight. They take time. That’s one reason this old newspaper I work for — the Gray Lady — is doing so well today. Not all, but many people, are desperate for trusted navigators.

Many will also look for that attribute in our next president, because they sense that deep changes are afoot. It is unsettling, and yet, there’s no swimming back. We are, indeed, far from the shallow now."