Betrayals to privacy through daily technological conveniences and the surveillance therein is becoming a major issue society will have to face.

March 18, 2024

By: Bobby Casey, Managing Director GWP

I once spoke to an employment lawyer who was working on a wrongful termination case on behalf of a pregnant woman. Aside from the optics being poor, he said there’s always the Department of Labor, but he doesn’t resort to that out the gate. I asked why, and he responded that once you get that agency involved, there’s no control over where things go.

In a mediation, each side can tailor the settlement that best suits them. But once you get the Department of Labor involved, it’s anyone’s guess how that will shake out. It’s like a scud missile: very poor aim, with a lot of collateral damage.

That is government in general, though, isn’t it? I mean, in the US you have the Constitution. It’s very clear on what the federal government can and cannot do… and yet, somehow despite the 4th Amendment, we have the TSA and sobriety checkpoints. Despite the effort to rein in the government, it always finds a way to spill into areas it doesn’t belong. Think of a toddler who doesn’t want to be held, wriggling around until you lose the grip and he’s off to the races.

Despite the broad use of fascism, it is a particular thing. It is the unholy alliance between government and private enterprise. And if you accept that definition, a lot of things come into clearer focus.

Today’s fascism isn’t much different from yesterday’s fascism.

The nice music playing as individuals loaded themselves on trains compared to the reactions, images, and videos seen online while all your personal information is loaded into a cloud?

Driving people into camps compared to driving people into 15 minute cities?

Similar claims have been made when talking about slavery. We went from human chattel working fields for 2% of the population to nationalization of the institution where everyone works for the state.

As it turns out you attract more flies with honey than vinegar. So while the brutality (the vinegar) is greatly assuaged, the control mechanisms and core institutions are nearly identical because the core tenet of fascism isn’t brutality.

All that said, it’s important to know your digital devices that conveniently predict everything you want or need in real time and make life easier, are also telling on you.

Remember the man whose Amazon SMART home shut down for two weeks on accusations of racism? It’s not just Amazon or SMART Homes.

Apple was recently granted a patent for AirPods (i.e. wireless headphones) with brainwave detecting sensors. According to $ Time of India$ :

This system can measure various biosignals, including brain activity, muscle movement, eye movement, heart function, and blood volume pulse. It also detects changes to skin conductance and perspiration. Multiple electrodes ensure accurate data collection despite variations in ear canal size and shape. The algorithm detects the best sensors based on factors such as impedance levels and ambient noise.

When you try to search for this, you get a really lean list of chat groups and media covering it. Maybe if this patent was only just granted, that would make sense. But this rolled out in July 2023, and still the media coverage is scarce?

One explanation I found was through LinkedIn, believe it or not. Indrajeet Singh did a full write up on it here. He even addresses the issue of the difference between bio-signal detection and Neuralink.

This isn’t quite Neuralink, but it’s related. The difference between bio-signal detection and Neuralink would be the difference between metadata and infradata respectively. The bio-signal technology is far less invasive, as Neuralink is implanted.

And yes, we have bio-signal technology already through SMART watches and Fitbit. And those readings similar to the headphones could be anonymized in a cloud as metadata. Certainly plenty of people see this as benign. But what would happen if this data got into the hands of pharmaceutical companies? Or your insurance provider? Or your employer? Is it a HIPAA violation? Sure. So was demanding proof of vaccination. But if you consent to the device, and aren’t reading the terms of service, then what?

Why do I bring this up? Because something similar is already happening in cars:

Drivers who own cars from top manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford and Honda are experiencing a rise as high as 50% in their auto insurance rates.

Unbeknownst to the car owners, these companies have been transmitting driving behavior data directly to insurance issuers, according to a new report.

While some of these are opt-in/opt-out, some are not. And the monitoring and submission of findings to insurance companies certainly isn’t the headline of the product. The headlining feature is safety, road-side assistance, and becoming a smarter and safer driver.

The problem is, drivers are being blindsided by higher premiums not understanding that their driving habits are reported to their insurance companies. The behavior that triggers the higher premiums? “Rapid Acceleration” and “Hard Breaking”. The customers speaking out on this don’t recall peeling out of full stops or stopping short enough to insure anyone in the car. But even so, there are life and death circumstances that certainly would warrant both when driving on the roads.

Jacking up premiums based solely on those activities out of context is outrageous. Especially if at the end of the day, the insurance company received no claims. I could see a situation where if a claim was filed, then that information is gathered as part of the investigation on coverage as well as future coverage and premiums.

Worse yet, no one knows what constitutes “rapid acceleration” or “hard breaking”. That seems to be a secret metric with very costly penalties.

Here’s the thing: Would I want someone to be able to find me if I was ever stranded in the middle of a desert? Sure. Is having that safety net worth consenting to a tattle tail technology? Not really.

Would I want to be able to come home with arms full of groceries and say, “Lights on!” and have the lights come on? Or go on vacation and monitor my home? Sure. Is it worth putting the entire functionality of my home in the hands of one provider who could shut my house down because they don’t like me? No.

Would it be nice to monitor my vitals if I’m either sickly or trying to get on an exercise regimen? Sure. Would I want my device to be able to transmit that information to anyone but me without my consent? Hell no.

Going back to the government analogy earlier… These are all package deals. You can’t have the benefit without signing the waiver to the infringements. And the unholy alliance between tech and government is counting on the fact that people won’t have a red line when it comes to the conveniences.