Did it ever happen to you that you had a conversation about a specific product or service, and the next time you opened your smartphone, this exact product or service showed up in an ad? The first few times I just thought this was a coincidence, but the more it happened, the more I got to think about it. Are our conversations really being recorded and listened to? But more questions like this come up when I think of current technologies. Are we constantly being watched?
This example especially made me think about the book 1984, written by George Orwell. Many of you probably read -or at least know the concept of- that book. The book was published in 1949, and in that time George Orwell wrote about an imaginary dystopian scenario of how the year 1984 would be. The book describes the totalitarian superstate named Oceania. This state is ruled by the “Party”, and the leader Big Brother. The main concept of the book is that everyone is constantly being watched due to mass surveillance, and it describes the consequences of this within the society.
Although in 1949 this was clearly an imaginary future perception, due to all the current technologies, it might be closer to reality than you would actually think. Almost everyone has at least a smartphone which is able to record your behaviour. But not only in your house, everywhere on the streets you can find cameras. These cameras are constantly recording, so you are constantly being watched.
And think about the current pandemic. It basically forces you to be even more online, which makes you even more exposed to situations in which technologies capture your behaviour. We work and study online, via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype etc. People buy their clothes, or even food online, and we hardly pay cash anymore. This even makes it easier to track what people are doing. In addition, a new COVID app arose, which tracks where you are, where you have been, and even who you sat next to in the train. It is designed to notify someone when they have been close to an infected person (“Hoe werkt CoronaMelder?”, 2020).
These are only a few examples among many others to name. Think about the face recognition in China, where even paying is possible by only showing your face (Ng, 2020).
All these new technologies are raising concerns about how this data is used. Are they only served for good purposes? Or is there some sort of underlying purpose for capturing all this data? Just like in the book 1984, that a totalitarian world is created and people’s behaviour is literally engineered.
What do you guys think about this topic? Are you concerned or do you think the capured data is only used for good purposes? Let me know!
Amanda
Hoe werkt CoronaMelder?. Rijksoverheid.nl. (2020). Retrieved 7 October 2020, from https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/coronavirus-app/vraag-en-antwoord/hoe-werkt-de-corona-app.
Ng, A. (2020). China tightens control with facial recognition, public shaming. CNET. Retrieved 7 October 2020, from https://www.cnet.com/news/in-china-facial-recognition-public-shaming-and-control-go-hand-in-hand/.
Hi Amanda,
Great title and interesting post. I often wonder how this “Big Brother” idea will develop further once the Internet of Things (IoT) has been more widly implemented into our lives. Autonomous cars, a house that activates functions based on voice command, AI controlled cameras that follow us everywhere, and Neuralink Link chips attached onto our brain. How will we be able to guarantee our right to privacy? Or will we have given up our privacy long before even reaching this point?
Maybe future developments in chips will allow humans to implant a form of adblockers under our skin. Technology has already advanced to a stage where implanted wireless chips are able to connect to devices and servers. We use them to order a coffee or open secured doors. Maybe it would be an idea if such chips could also help us in the prevention of these forms of connectivity. To give us more control over when we want the Internet of Things to use our data and when we do not.
This wont yet solve all our privacy challenges, but it could be a step in the right direction.
Hi Amanda,
Thank you for raising this interesting question.
I often think about this as well because the way technology develops, you only notice its impact after it has happened. I believe the increase in data collection can partially explained by companies capitalizing on that data, however when our privacy is concerned, there should be a clear line. In the light of this, I believe initiatives like GDPR greatly help to draw that line. In particular, I believe that many are concerned about this issue, and what calms me is that people who are developing and using these technologies are concerned about this as well – nobody wants an Orwellian future! Also, since they are mostly large transparent companies, every step is watched by regulators. Even though this path of technology might be of trial and error, I think our society has developed to a point where totalitarian future as Orwell described it is impossible.
Thank you Amanda for sharing this blog post!
This reminds me of a few years back where I had read the book and already thought about how visionary George Orwell was. I agree with you, I believe that our world due to its ever-growing interconnectedness is getting closer to the dystopian world described in the book. The worst part is that a lot of people are not aware of how much information and data they disclose on the internet and how much power only a little number of big tech companies have in their hands. It is also true that Covid has only worsen the situation as we spend now almost all of our times on our computers or phones. A lot of new app also made their apparition in order to track the virus but however this also collected a high amount of data. We should all be aware of that and try to limit the amount of information we blindly accept to give.