Roger’s $0.02 - The Surveillance State is Everywhere

In the novel 1984, George Orwell presented a world where the citizenry was ruled by an oppressive totalitarian government. The key to the state’s power was information. A surveillance network made up of hidden security cameras, secret police, and informants helped the regime control and cajole people into the “correct” behavior. But, unlike Orwell’s fictional dystopian world, the threat of surveillance for modern societies comes not just from the state but from society at large.

When we think of the surveillance state, we quickly shift our focus to places like North Korea or organizations like the infamous Stasi of East Germany. What we don’t think of are things like a recent Coldplay concert where the lead singer, Chris Martin, made a tongue-in-cheek reference to infidelity when a couple was caught on the big screen during the show. Both the man, Andy Byron, former CEO of Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the woman, have since quit their jobs at the startup. That moment has gone viral, and both Byron and Cabot will have to live with that aspect of their lives made public to millions of people around the world. And it doesn’t need to have a very public event like a concert or a game night for you to be surrounded by a sea of smartphone cameras. Any public area with people in it could very well be a privacy no-go zone. 

Of course, expectations of privacy in public places are limited as they should be. Yet as we drown in a culture where being the nail that sticks up or the face that stands out from the sea of humanity is celebrated with hashtags and news coverage, many actively place themselves in front of a camera to share their private lives. Is it really a surveillance state, or are we living in a busybody state where everyone needs to know what’s happening in your life? Home insurance coverage typically requires, at least in my experience, not only information about the home but also the people living there. Kids, adults, pets, etc. Of course, some of it may be pertinent to see where my premium should be in their actuarial tables, but it also comes off as a little too nosy. Purchase data about you is tied to any membership you have, be it a supermarket, club warehouse like Costco, online retailer like Amazon, or even McDonald's, which loves it when you use their app to get your next Happy Meal free. We leave so many footprints and fingerprints across our new digital lifestyles; it’s not hard to cobble together what a day in your life looks like. Take my Pixel 6a phone. It logs where I’ve physically been over the day. Being so kind as to include it on a handy map so I can see where I’ve been throughout the day. Of course, it has its benefits. When my dad left his phone at a store, I was able to access his account and see where he had been to locate his phone for him to get it. But at the end of the day, it's still another data point. 

If privacy is considered dead and we are all at the mercy of big data and tech, we would do well to understand that we’ve all had a hand in making that possible. In the past, kiss cams and crowd shots at concerts and ball games were an ephemeral way of telling friends and family you mattered enough to be on the Big Screen, and we welcomed it. Now, however, so much of our lives are made by ensuring we scrub our tracks and delete personal information lest it make its way to the wider world without our permission, we look at sharing moments like those with more skepticism. 

The world that Orwell painted was indeed very hideous. Filled with self-important people and sycophants who fed the machine of their oppression because it made their small lives slightly bigger. In the same way, we feed the machines that we use to reveal much about ourselves. Maybe we’ve been so used to trying to be seen online that we forgot the natural inclination to be discreet.