East Hampton Village’s installation last year of sophisticated vehicle-identity cameras on its roadways caused little more than a ripple of opposition despite a lack of clarity on how vehicle data would be used and how long it would be retained. This indifference is widespread.
Consider that the premiere short-video platform, TikTok, was banned then not banned over its data collection and the fact that it is owned by a Chinese company that may work with that rival nation’s government. There are vending machines capable of facial recognition. Car companies, most alarmingly, Tesla, are collecting data as drivers travel from place to place, including passers-by being captured on video.
Even air-fryers are listening; two manufacturers were found to be collecting audio via the microphones in fryers’ owners’ phones and sending it to servers in China. An ultra-popular children’s app, Pokemon Go, figures in the surveillance state, too. It is crazy enough that the game collects location data as players move around in the real world, but in recent news we learned that the company that owns it is being sold to a Saudi Arabian company that is controlled by that country’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.
What happens to our data when a company changes hands is a good question. In the 23andMe bankruptcy announced last month, millions of customers’ DNA records are considered an asset that could be sold to a third party that could use the highly personal data for its own purposes. Already, genetic databases intended for biomedical research have been repurposed for law enforcement.
Facebook users are being constantly monitored by thousands of companies, and the artificial intelligence boom will only intensify this. Google slurps up “. . . any content as it flows through our systems . . . [to] provide you with more relevant search results,” advertising, that is.
Public awareness has mostly been indifference. The minimal response is not surprising, though, because of Americans’ apparent comfort with living in a state of surveillance. Tech’s endemic spread into all facets of life means that something is always watching. It is worth reflecting on that fact.