Digital Policy
Your Data is More Important Than Your House Key
Every day there is an asset strip of your mobile phone
Data collection is no longer just about displaying ads
The more data someone has on you, the more they can control you
William Priestley
Your house key is not valuable on account of the metal from which it is made but rather the purposes to which it can be put. Similarly, your data does not have any intrinsic value on its own. Its worth is only unlocked by complex algorithms. Losing control over either item, however, immediately compromise one’s privacy and wealth. Despite this, it remains inconceivable to give away one’s house key to a stranger but common practice to do so with one’s data. While the reasons for this are complex, the consequences are increasingly important.
The starting point for any debate on data must be a realisation that almost all your digital content - messages, emails, photos, contacts, notes, documents, purchases, journeys, browsing - is also enjoyed by hundreds of commercial entities. Every day, there is an asset strip of your smartphone and to imagine it to be anything else is, unfortunately, somewhat naive. The next frontier of data collection is not the time you spend online, but rather time itself. This month both Apple and Google made moves into the world of biometrics: our awake time, our sleep time, our exercising, resting and breathing time are all fair game.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The ‘Internet of Things (IoT)’, which will be facilitated by 5G, is also on the horizon. This ‘Big Tech’ evolution will effectively connect our physical world to the internet. Depressingly, many of the first iterations of the ‘Internet of Things’ have been marred by data abuse. In this new reality, the value of your data will exceed that of your house key.
From robot vacuum cleaners, such as Roomba, that furtively sell on the floor plan of your home to the ‘My Friend Cayla’ toy doll that was banned in Germany as an illegal surveillance device, the scope and depth of data being pursued is without limit. It is entirely conceivable that without active intervention at legislative level, we will see a metamorphosis of the digital infrastructure from a thing that we have to a thing that has us. This, of course, is without even mentioning Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Control
To think that data is collected solely to display ads on your favourite website is still to understand the internet in black and white. Data is now used to move beyond this concept of choice. You may be offered a more expensive flight or made to wait longer on a hotline if the data shows that you are likely to accept that. Your credit rating may be affected for reasons you don’t recognise or understand. These techniques are not immediately perceptible and cannot be ignored or dismissed in the way pop-up banners can. Often you don’t even realise you are being manipulated. To date, all this has been possible with the data derived from your online presence. The new world being opened up with access to our time offline and biometrics is without boundary.
Of all the progress and creativity data facilities, its most salient aspect is still control. The more data someone has about you, the more they can control you. Corporations, investment funds and national governments are currently caught up in a frenzied rush to capitalise on this new source of capital and power. Aside from the terrifying consequences this holds for democracy, ‘Big Tech’ companies are not disguising their intentions. The internet is run by just a handful of people, ‘The Silicon Six’, who shape the lives of over half the planet to their will. Their use of data is shrouded in secrecy they often pay more money in fines than they do in taxes. Their aim is not to contribute to the common good but rather to become it. It is imperative to understand that on the eve of data capture moving offline, this proposition is not just the key to the house, it is the key to the future.