When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things
As a baby geek in my teens, I started off naively believing that tech companies were forces for good now, maybe some of them actually set out with that mission. Now that I’ve grown up and discovered that Santa Claus isn’t real; I’ve revised my beliefs about tech platform/companies too.
One area that I’ve been saddened and deeply worried by is privacy.
Things that changed
- We generally did not develop regulations around privacy; this is just the misfortune of being alive when a technology is new. At this point, it’s harms are poorly understood, even language to articulate harm doesn’t exist, and safety/regulation mechanisms are yet to be invented. When it comes to computers and the internet, cheap data storage enabled constant user surveillance and undisclosed creation of user profiles with data brokers.
- The above point meant that even run of the mill non-tech companies started collecting and/or sharing your data with the ad tech/surveillance ecosystem.
- Some companies got so big that they inevitably and effectively merged with the state. Google used to say “Don’t be evil”, but they conveniently dropped that slogan altogether and should be looked at no differently than say the East India company. It prints too much money for it’s investors and management to take a stance, they’d rather comply with the state to preserve the profitable status quo, they’re aware of their monopoly stance and lack of options for users and advertisers.
Taken together this meant that everyday interactions with any tech product are being stored, mined, potentially sold and available for governments.
10 years ago, this seemed liked an fringe concern. “Hey! I’m not some crazy activist! I’m just a normal guy”. The claim was that only “someone crazy” should be worried. This is oft stated as “Why are you worried about tracking if you’ve done nothing wrong”
This is the wrong standard to apply because we have normalized extreme surveillance. With these statements, you are defending the right to surveil by default! Absurd! Would you be ok if your grocer, a policeman, and the local restaurant owner followed you around all day. Probably not. In the physical world, the standards are quite high to conduct surveillance. At least in theory, you need some sort of cause, and often a warrant. In the digital world, its the reverse! Your location, your browsing history, and all sorts information and activity is beamed out from your devices unceasingly.
Well I’m worried about tracking because
- Governments can be malicious
- Governments can be error prone / silly
- Systems can be error prone
Put simply, I don’t want to make it easy for the government to be evil.
To give some examples of governments being malicious
- The Indian government planted malware on the phones of activists to create fake evidence. <1>, <2>
- Commercial surveillance data (euphemistically referred to as “targeting information”) is increasing available for use or purchase by government agencies. Police departments can’t get court orders for your data so they buy it from commercial vendors who will happily sell it!
To give some examples of governments being error prone / silly
- Government agencies arrest people based on their social media posts citing stuff like “causing communal tensions”, “unrest”, or misinterpreting silly gestures as “gang signs”.
- People are being blanket banned or targeted if they are even in the vicinity of a protest the goverment doesn’t like.
With AI, we are moving to a world of high scale subjective decision-making by machines. In this world, your life is a just one error (or technically, one false positive) away from being ruined. To give a concrete example, a group of protesters could just be walking past you while you were buying groceries; the local police department will blanket tag everyone in the camera frame as protesters and start going after them. This is not a made up scenario, this has happened.
Overall this radically changes how I would interact with these platforms. Two decades ago it felt innocent and silly to upload photos on Facebook or send private information using Gmail. Today I know that any data I provide to any vendor, will get used for targeting, or sold or leaked in a data breach or given to some government agency. Completely different game!
Two examples of how I would rethink my interactions:
| Platform/Service | Risks | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Used by authorities for surveillance and profiling. Complies with government requests so even things marked “private” are available to governments. | Delete Facebook account. If you need it for stuff like Marketplace, Groups, etc: (1) Register with a proxy email to prevent targeting (2) Delete all posts but keep basic obvious info like location (3) Use a pet name or abbreviation so finding you becomes hard (E.g. John Smith -> Jhn Smth) Do not use on mobile as mobile apps have stronger data collection capabilities. | |
| Google searches are often pulled up as evidence Gmail inbox which is linked with everything becomes a single point of failure. Google is giving your entire life’s details (like associated credit cards and bank account numbers) when requested. | Switch to a private service like Proton Mail or buy your own domain and use a email provider from a different legal domain. Create a separate Gmail inbox for all commercial crap and needed sign-ups; and for appearing normie where needed. Use a different search engine or search in non-Google browser like Edge or Firefox. |
Whenever a system gets bad, participants of that system have two choices: reform or revolution. You choose reform when the status quo is hard to wrangle out of; reform is slow but revolution is bloody, confusing, and messy. In my case, I am in too deep. Using the internet with gay abandon since the past 2 decades, my name, phone, and email are linked with every damn account, allowing anyone and everyone to track me at their convenience. I have the honour of appearing in 24 data breaches! From banks to food delivery apps, everyone has my details. Revolution is too hard given the deep entanglements between my online and offline life.
But I have a daughter who is just starting her life and effectively has a chance to make right choices one by one! For her, revolution or rather evolution it is. I’m going to take this opportunity to learn things as we go along, experiment with new services, put in safeguards, cloak what’s possible, and generally give her maximum privacy and safety.
The chidings in this post should not be seen as an apocalytic call to action. Thankfully, the vast majority of us are safe. Most people, in most countries are not targets. But we shouldn’t make it easy to be. Instead, we should think of this as long term project to improve our digital hygiene. I’ve read somewhere that people have analogized online spaces to the crowded housing of the early industrial revolution. With poor plumbing and other hygienec issues, diesease outbreaks were rampant. Today, centuries later we live in urban areas with much higher densities but without the ensuing cholera outbreaks. Sanitation systems and standards enable much better lives by default. Inshallah, we’ll reach a similar state with our digital spaces too.
For the short term, this should be thought of an exercise in creativity. How can I continue living my life with same convenience but without making myself vulnerable? The Netflix film Ek Chatur Naar starts off with the hilarious scene of a family closing their home doors and pretending to be on vacation to hide from their debtors. Not everyone is running away their debtors, but no one wants to run into trouble!