You Are Now Remotely Controlled – Shoshana Zuboff, NYT
Trust and Digital Rights in Learned Systems – Sarah Gold
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Shoshana Zuboff wrote about private surveillance capital and the epistemic inequality currently abound in our daily lives. There is a large divide between what we know and what is known about us. Zuboff insists that our private human experience is free raw material for translation into behavior data by power hungry tech companies. The materials and resources in this class make it clear that transparency in terms and conditions and a need for data literacy are necessities to right the course of surveillance capitalism. We could implement learned systems to help us understand and consent to privacy policies as Sarah Gold suggests, but I still think a disconnect exists. Users can opt-in, may or may not understand the ins and outs of their data, but more importantly, do users truly understand how powerful and consequential their data is? Aspects of data collection can be easy to explain, like tracking a user’s shopping pattern across the internet to better target ads towards that user. Other data collection patterns become more complex like emotional tracking from facial recognition software and from this I agree with Gold that consent needs to be given throughout the process. Yes, we need to encourage users to learn and understand the quantitative aspect of their data, but how do we design educational tools to teach users how powerful their data is?
Dollars for Data – Rose Evelth, Flash Forward Podcast
Trust and Digital Rights in Learned Systems – Sarah Gold
In an episode of Flash Forward, host Rose Evelth sits down with guests to discuss the decolonization of data, data rights, and whether a monetary value should be placed on our data. One guest, Richie Etwaru of Hu-manity.co, specifically advocates for explicit data rights and ownership for users. He suggests that services and companies should pay us for our data. The legal complexities of data ownership aside, even if I envision a world where we are paid for what could be ours, I still see some underlying issues with placing a monetary value on our data. How will we prevent identity thieves from exploiting this and making money off our stolen data? What about the data of children or those who are not of the right state to take ownership of their data? Who will collect the money in those cases? Also, it seems suspicious to me to use blockchain as a solution to implement this currency system. Users can barely begin to understand the complexities of their data let alone take the time to learn blockchain. As Sarah Gold points out in her lecture around learned systems – people don’t have time and can’t or won’t necessarily take the time to learn. Nor should they have to learn these insane systems just to be able to say “no” or even “not now” to their data being pirated. Some other financial issues that come to mind as an individual citizen – would the money be considered income? Can it be considered a deductible? Would it be taxed at the state level, federal level, or both? Would corporations own the data of their employees that is tracked on company time? If I change my name after marriage, do I have to re-apply for ownership? So many questions, so little time. I think it’s a noble concept but the real life execution is currently incredibly daunting.