As in “Court Gone Wrong,” this article touches on the infringement on people’s right to privacy, expanding on the abortion bans in which the use of private and personal data can be used to track and go after the act of getting an abortion. Such as period tracking apps collect telemetry data on the user to make the user the product, turning the consumer into the product they are selling. Data brokers are the ones who sell and divide up this information sold to them by these private entities, and in return, the end user gets an experience on a digital app to make their life more convenient. Privacy is protection from abuses of power being weakened by the digitalization of our lives; FaceBook knows when you are going to the restroom based on your GPS and contacts FaceBook. Twitter can recommend people you happen to cross paths with daily but know nothing about or people who happen to work with you. Creating that digital footprint means one’s life is made more accessible; look, “I found that air fryer I was talking about but never looked up.” Phones record the audio passively to know when you say the activation phrase to use the device remotely by voice. 

To be frank, Apple has gotten better at this, even if the platform is closed and not as open as Android, even being in the same family in its origins. They are the lock and key to the OS, so the company will not sell or release your information even if you are a criminal. But this privacy only extends to internal apps; third-party apps are open for information to be collected and sold according to the new owner of the information whims. Louis Rossman covered in “Apple SUED for privacy violations; iOS collects invasive analytics even if you opt out,” in which the information was collected even if you opted out. This does not release Android of this blame as well; it collects telemetry on everything; Google Maps and its years of tracking it does if you opt-in or use the location services on Android. Or the fact the auto finish would finish the sentence based on the audio it saved for training the activation phrase or best logical guess based on the spelling of the item one is looking for. 

The mere act of creating these records takes away the individual’s agency to the information that pertains. The owners or information brokers now hold the lock and key to your information. Most of it is useless information, but it can allow for curated feeds and suggestions, which is the plus side. Streamlining the user interface and experience and allowing people to potentially learn when you are or are not menstruating and see if one is trying to get an abortion. Track one searches for guns and accessories, with the recent ruling making arm braces illegal as people were using them as makeshift stocks. The proper use was to allow people missing an arm to fire firearms properly. Or the case where the man convicted Googled “Can you be charged with murder without a body?” and then went through with the murder. 

With the movement to digitalization in the modern world, and unlimited growth demanding constant innovation, the digital space offers unlimited space vs. the limited physical space. But this means incorporating more into their platforms, and FaceBook or Instagram’s influence on the standard user’s attention span limits people’s wanting to view videos for up to 15 minutes. This is where the author relates digitalization to colonialism as it expands their boundaries and means their new digital empire will or is primed to grow. Digitalizing analog records increases one’s ability to tell a doctor their name and have the information sent digitally vs. faxed or scanned; even there, the fax or scan creates new data to be used. This ease also holds risks if the system is swayed by the race to the bottom to maximize profit. 

The author promptly points uses as an example Google Maps, Chrome, and Android are not designed for you but to collect data on the user while providing an end-user experience. Facebook and Ray-Ban are working together to make new glasses to collect more data on you. Apple is releasing an augmented reality-based product. Microsoft aims to create avatars by scanning the user to create them. 

Or those freeware apps aim after kids with enticing games that launch ads that link to more interesting adware games, and then you have a phone full of apps from one app you took an interest in. 

As the author puts it:

“The tech titans assure us, of course, that their new inventions will respect our privacy. What they fail to mention is what I call the Iron Law of Digitization: to digitize is to surveil. There is no such thing as digitization without surveillance. The very act of turning what was not data into data is a form of surveillance. Digitizing involves creating a record, making things taggable and searchable. To digitize is to make trackable that which was beyond reach. And what is it to track if not to surveil?”

Airtags are good measuring stick in which the purpose of it is to keep track of lost items attached to the device. Scanning for Bluetooth and WiFi connections to alert Apple servers of its location and then inform the owner of the tag of the location with a speaker to ease the process of locating the tag. People have gone out of their way and used to tag cars. They wish to steal and stalk people. Some have even removed the speaker to limit the ability to find the tag. Apple implemented a security feature if, on an Apple device, the iOS will alert you that an airtag is following you, there is an android app, but its functionality is questionable. The process of digitizing a new age, “Marco Polo” or “Where’s Waldo,” to increase the ability to find things has opened up a new avenue for people to abuse technology and track people unknowingly. That is one end-user stalking and tracking another end-user. How much more does the private company have and own or sell about the end-user in the operation of the devices? Would you download an app to notify you of an Apple device tracking you? The eight hours or even 24 hours, as the author cites in the essay, is more than enough for those who wish to follow you and get what they want. 

Issue bought up with data collection on the personal devices we track ourselves with, known as phones.

• No informed consent in data collection, as to function, one must utilize modern-day advancements, but that allows for the collection of one’s data, so can we consent at a reasonable cost to daily living?
• It isn’t data collection; it creates data from the use of or input on the device, and the act of the creation can tell us many things, from divorcing, abortions, kids, or relating jobs or residents. 
• Can we use encrypted phones? Yes, but it is only encrypted on the device, but the phone records location on phone calls, in pictures taken, or, say, texting while driving.

Operating systems such as GraphoneOS have no links to Google; you can install google services and apps, but they are not rooted in the phone, can be restricted, and are not essential to the phone’s function. GrapheneOS offers privacy with flexibility, along with encrypted apps, but that is again only on the local device. 

Now present-day cameras on the devices we have and install can give videos linked to a crime to the police without your content, or the devices catch and record from distances farther than one’s house. Or our cameras allow for real-time surveillance and offer revenue for two-way operation with audio and video. 

Alexa and other assistants are always listening, and as the author cites, employees of Apple whistleblowing to listening to conversations about people with cancer or dead loved ones. Police officers get access to Amazon’s security camera recordings against the end-user’s permission or not even to the knowledge of the end-user. 

The incorporation of eye-tracking software is the way it tracks eye movement to capture when or where you are looking or if you will interact with the device. Where you are looking, and the general habits one has, such as pauses between actions and possible future actions. Most people are creatures of habit and only go against their passive mindless activities when someone points out their tendencies and makes them aware. So tracking these movements can pose a risk to the users. 

The surveillance of the journalist can impede such acts. This can jeopardize informants and the sources the journalist gets or can get. Reporting hostile on a sitting official, well, that same surveillance the companies have the government does as well as they manage the roads the technology operates on and in. Without reliable news, the threat to democracy can be seen, or at least the danger to our liberties.

The essay references Hitler and the tendency to visit the registry after invading to find out who was or wasn’t a Jew. Revealing the dangers of centralized information; as it has upsides, these downsides can not be disregarded. 

https://libertiesjournal.com/articles/digitization-surveillance-colonialism/