surveillance

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surveillance is the monitoring of behavior usually unbeknownst to those being monitored, on the web with 3rd party cookies, and possibly even on some IndieWeb sites with analytics trackers like Google Analytics.

Service Examples

Amazon Ring

• https://twitter.com/carolineha_/status/1191794940491243520
  • "Ring is thrilled about having filmed millions of small children on Halloween, according to its Instagram story" @carolineha_ November 5, 2019
• https://mashable.com/article/ring-halloween-surveillance/
• https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/07/amazon-ring-doorbells-wifi-hackers/

Articles

• 2019-11-20 The Atlantic: The Most Useful App Is Find My Friends / In defense of location sharing, the best way to make life into a movie

  …valid criticisms around the big tech companies harvesting our personal data, and the governments creating smart cities that function to surveil us…

• 2019-11-15 Pew Research : Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information

  Majorities think their personal data is less secure now, that data collection poses more risks than benefits, and believe it is not possible to go through daily life without being tracked

• 2019-11-21 Amnesty International: Facebook and Google’s pervasive surveillance poses an unprecedented danger to human rights

  …the surveillance-based business model of Facebook and Google is inherently incompatible with the right to privacy and poses a systemic threat to a range of other rights including freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, and the right to equality and non-discrimination.

  though ironically that Amnesty International article itself places cookies by default without individual consent:
  • Full report: Surveillance giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights (PDF)

Brainstorming

Minimize data collection

IndieWeb sites and services should seek to collect and hold a minimum (if any at all) data about visitors and users. The less data that is kept, the less you have to be responsible for, or could be intercepted or otherwise accessed by others for surveillance purposes.

See Also

• privacy
• smart speaker
• website-analytics
• 2019-12-11 Bloomberg: Silicon Valley Is Listening to Your Most Intimate Moments

  How the world’s biggest companies got millions of people to let temps analyze some very sensitive recordings.

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-uncovers-global-abuse-of-cyber-surveillance-weapon-nso-group-pegasus
• Countermeasures: 2021-06-28 NYT: How a Burner Identity Protects Your Inbox, Phone, and Credit Cards
• 2021-07-06 Chatcontrol: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communications
• Celebveillance? https://twitter.com/i/events/1471500109984649221 https://twitter.com/cher/status/1470887413841117185
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WTpO9y2Dh4

  We gave up our privacy to fight Covid-19, can we get it back? An FT film starring Lydia West and Arthur Darvill in collaboration with Sonia Friedman Productions and supported by Luminate. An interrogation scene explores how Covid-19 has exposed the tension between the need for data to track and trace, and the right to privacy and justice.

• Criticism of Amazon Ring: 2023-03-07 POLITICO: The privacy loophole in your doorbell

  … it’s common to see warrants for data asking for swaths of digital records that would be considered an overreach by judges if it were for a physical search.