Pervasive Tracking
In this section, we will see how companies track people even when they aren’t browsing the Internet. Instead, any Internet-connected device can be used to spy on people and transmit their personal information back to a central server, where it can be used for advertising purposes or sold to a data broker.
Surveillance Everywhere
Unfortunately, the Internet is not the only place where tracking by surveillance economy companies is occurring. Instead, companies are finding ways to collect data from unsuspecting people using just about every electronic device imaginable. Applications exist and are in use to track people across devices using audio and video signals collected from microphones and cameras. Mobile devices, televisions, video games, voice assistants, and even cars are now designed using a surveillance-first approach. As a consequence, it is becoming easier for both corporations and governments to track a person’s movements, analyze their behavior, and make inferences about their inner thoughts.
Minimizing pervasive tracking has been made intentionally difficult. People will have to be willing to alter their behaviors and possibly forego the use of certain “features” of products in order to regain their privacy. As usual, the companies profiting from the sale of personal information make it inconvenient to assert one’s privacy rights while making it especially easy to give up those same rights.
Ethics in Surveillance
As technology professionals, we are expected to behave ethically when we’re developing, implementing, or administering computer systems. The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct and IEEE Code of Ethics have been developed by computing-related professional organizations to guide us. In particular, the ACM Code of Ethics includes the following directives that relate to privacy:
- 1.2 Avoid harm.
- 1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.
- 1.4 Be fair and take action not to discriminate.
- 1.6 Respect privacy.
- 1.7 Honor confidentiality.
Keep these codes of ethics in mind as you read about the ways that companies are collecting data about unsuspecting users.