Imagine you’re using your phone or computer. You’re on social media, searching the web, or playing games. Big tech companies are like detectives, watching what you do. This is called mass surveillance.
What is Mass Surveillance?
It’s like secretly watching lots of people at once, without them knowing or saying it’s okay. Tech companies do this by collecting tons of information about you.
What Kind of Stuff Do They Collect?
- Personal Info: Your name, age, where you live.
- What You Do Online: What you search for, what you like, who you talk to.
- Where You Go: Using your phone’s location, they can see where you’ve been.
- Your Messages: Sometimes, even your private messages are looked at.
How Do They Do It?
- Through Cookies. Little files that track what websites you visit.
- Through Tracking Pixels.Tiny invisible images on websites that do the same thing as cookies.
- Through Facial Recognition. Technology that can identify you from photos or videos.
- Through Algorithms. Computer programs that analyze all this data to figure out what you like and what you might buy.
Why Do They Do It?
The first reason of course is to Make Money. By knowing what you like, they can show you ads you’re more likely to click on. For example, you and your friends are having a coffee at your favorite cafe. You are discussing your holiday purchases and sharing link with each other. The next moment, ads of such products populate your wall and you keep on seeing such ads over and over again.
The second reason may be for “Safety”. They say it helps them catch bad guys or prevent bad things from happening. But we are not really sure about that because that is just a one- sided argument.
Is It Okay?
That’s the big question. Governments, sovereigns, organizations, advocacy groups and judicial officials think it’s an invasion of privacy. Imagine someone reading your diary without asking!
Problems with Mass Surveillance:
It deprives you of your privacy. Privacy is protected by laws and it is a basic human rights. But with mass surveillance, you feel like you’re always being watched.You may be self-censored. You might stop saying or doing things online because you’re afraid someone is watching. Your data may be misused. Your information could be used for things you don’t agree with, like showing you unfair ads or even influencing elections. Remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal?
They use the data without your consent. Companies have long privacy policies, but most people don’t read them. So, are you really saying it’s okay for them to watch you?
What’s Being Done About It?
Some laws, like GDPR and CCPA, are trying to give people more control over their data. These laws say companies need to be more open about what they’re collecting and give you ways to stop them. In Asia, governments and legislators are yet to individually or collectively act on it unlike their European counterparts.
The Future
We need to figure out how to balance safety and privacy. It’s a tricky problem, but it’s important to make sure we have control over our own information. LAB News keeps watching on this issue very closely.
In short, mass surveillance is when tech companies watch what we do online, often without us fully realizing it. They do it to make money and for “safety,” but it raises big questions about privacy and freedom.
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