Had two very recent technology interactions which surprised me and brought some issues of privacy and surveillance into sharper relief. Theory is one thing. Read popular and academic articles on the subject is another. Having what viscerally feels to be an intrusive experiences, even in an admittedly small way, stirs a whole new level of reflection.
Some context. I was returning (ironically) from a symposium at Loyola Chicago on digital ethics (http://digitalethics.org/events/third-annual-international-symposium-on-digital-ethics/). The first event was paying for my cab at O’Hare Airport. Did so by credit card and the driver wanted to send me the receipt by email. Accordingly she asked me to fill out my email address electronically into the form on her “Square” device. Was happy to do so – except that my email was already there (though partially blacked by the use of ****. However the only way my email address could have been there in any form would appear to be through the agency of my credit card. Had no idea my card could give out my email address, whether directly or through the cloud (obviously don’t know what the precise technical means was). It all felt weird, mostly because it took me by surprise.
The second strange and surprising moment was coming through Customs at YVR. The line was super long so for the first time at the airport I used my Nexus card (which is quite wonderful in a great many ways). What felt odd was that I never even had to use the card except to show it to a real person on entry and exit. When I interacted with the automated Nexus system the device only asked to take a picture of my face close up (presumably a retina scan). Was really quite taken aback to see that all my information was on a form of receipt provided. What shook me is that there had never been any interaction with my Nexus ID card whatsoever. Was pretty uncomfortable in feeling that my card was transformed into a form of a ruse creating an inaccurate assumption in my own mind of at least some control over my own information. In fact that is plainly not the case.
There is little to no doubt that I must have agreed to all this in some form of a contractual document. If memory serves the Nexus documents are quite clear and foreboding, so though the interaction felt very strange that was probably really about a new form of digital interaction that I had never experienced. That my credit card somehow gives out some form of my email address to a cab driver in Chicago was not something I ever saw coming…EULA or other form of contractual agreement, or not.
So perhaps it all ends up being about context and what constitutes a surprise. Which brings us back to video-games and specifically to the Kinect. Obviously Microsoft is alive to the issues as the following article illustrates:
Xbox One facial data from Kinect doesn’t leave the console
Thoughts?
jon
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I agree that the retina scanner concept is a little unnerving but I can’t put my finger on why. I agree that people are generally weary of the possibility of being identified by something out of their control. For example, whether or not the cab driver had access to your email address was out of your control as soon as you handed over your credit card. Similarly, if you were expecting to be able to control your information by presenting your nexus card to grant access to it, being surprised that it was accessed through a retina scan seems like a natural response. Now that you know you will grant access to your information if you allow a Nexus machine to take a picture of your face, does this knowledge provide some sense of control?
I have recently spoken to multiple people who refuse to get a new iPhone because of the fingerprint reader. Fingerprint readers have been around for years on laptops, so I’m not sure why it is such an issue to have them on smartphones. Perhaps it has to do with the sheer volume of information that Apple has access to (GPS location, internet history, credit card information, contacts, logins for endless apps and services, etc). Given that big names such as Sony and Adobe have been hacked recently, maybe some people are fearful of their information ending up in the wrong hands.
Ariel, your thoughtful comment led me to reflect a little more deeply on what was “freaking me out” (a bit) in both cases. Feels like maybe it was not the technology per se but what we might call the “network effect”. Technological improvements within devices can be magical and even somewhat shocking. I remember the transition from black and white to colour televisions. It was amazing, but it was essentially a linear progression. The horizontal networking of data is unseen, and anything but linear in its travels and impacts.
In both my examples it wasn’t the device I was dealing with that bothered me at all. The cabbie’s device was an iPhone with a “Square” add on that turned the phone into a credit card slider. The Nexus machine looked and acted like an ATM without a cash dispenser. So the shock was behind the physical – it literally was in the capabilities of the network. Network connectivity as the backbone of how we connect through video-games, Twitter, FaceBook etc. continues to grow, seemingly exponentially. With that it seems safe to predict that we are sure to see more frequent and more disturbing “surprises”.
jon