Concerns of Privacy from Surveillance
Privacy does not need to be sacrificed to resolve a global crisis. Applying Foucault’s concept of panopticon, supervisor stakeholders are government organizations and technology companies that intervene during a global issue such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and assist in amelioration at the cost of public privacy. As discussed in the article, “Government and corporate entities are using the crisis to ratchet up biometric surveillance infrastructures that, once the crisis subsides, will become permanent fixtures used for invasive purposes far outside their original public health mandate” [1]. The supervisor stakeholders use global crises as a means to gather information, manipulate data and deduct elements to operate on specific individuals accordingly.
Similarly, the inmate stakeholders according to Foucault’s concept of panopticon are the general public whose daily lives are affected by the crisis and, action from them is required for salvation. As Foucault describes his observation that those who are subjected to a field of visibility as in the current situation of Covid-19, citizens of their nations are expected to update their health status on a tracker app to control the spread of the virus.
The nature of the data collected from applications covers a wide range of information about its users under the claim of mitigating the crisis. As with the attempt to stop the on-going pandemic, “Governments are turning to tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Palantir to track outbreaks, provide contact tracing, and study mobility patterns” [1]. Breached privacy measures and wide range of collected information are assisting in the improvement of the crisis is unsubstantiated. Additional data such as performing a study and analysis on mobility patterns are past the intended purposes that users have consented. As an example, provided in the article, “The Trump administration has purchased cell phone app data about people’s movement — in order to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants” [1].
Furthermore, by gathering information on mobility patterns, companies can increase advertising in the selected locations. For example, if mobility patterns show hangout areas of certain community groups, the according advertisements through posters and billboards can be set up. Depending on the health conditions of individuals provided in the app, specific ads can be targeted for those viewers promoting for a better health. This idea of creating capital from the analysis of these additional data is further reinstated with, “Services such as Whatsapp in Australia and Zoom in Britain, have been shown to monetize user information through ad targeting and data sharing” [1]. Stakeholders that profit from this information are the tech companies who own the application and collects information from its users. As well as other companies and organizations who purchase these analyzed data to perform targeted advertising for their own products. Some key concerns that arise from this process are abusive and illicit surveillance which in turn is used by corporate companies and governments to have higher control over the general public.
The two approaches of collecting data and allowing tech corporations and governments to establish dominance over the general public creates a controlled society. Individuals are targeted with advertisements based on the data collected of their interests and all smaller communities are managed by the governments. Citizens are expected to sacrifice their privacy to help resolve a global crisis instead of building a proper form of collective control over data.
References
[1] Ord, Cindy. 2020. Privacy Versus Health is a False Trade-Off (April, 2020). Retrieved on February 2021 from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SN90cccYH3sH9kjlH1kXF1dOeo8WXXi2/view?usp=s haring
[2] Simon, Bart. “The return of panopticism: Supervision, subjection and the new surveillance.” Surveillance & Society 3.1 (2005).
[3] Zuboff, Shoshana. “Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization.” Journal of Information Technology 30.1 (2015): 75–89.
