It was 1949 when the british writer George Orwell published his book "1984", which portrays a society without privacy, permanently guarded and controlled by a totalitarian government led by the “Big Brother".
70 years have passed and many changes have taken place in the world, but never has the book made so much sense as it does now…
The advent of mass media, the most relevant being the Internet, and new information technologies have made communication processes more agile and efficient. However, they have brought about some changes in contemporary society, known as the “Information Society”.
In the Internet Era, the main change is the blurring of borders and a new vision on the production and use of information.
The Internet offers a number of privacy risks due to the many existing control technologies. In fact, without us noticing, we are increasingly being observed, spied on, watched and controlled.
Since its inception, scholars, scientists and legislators have been addressing regulatory issues, as some of the most intimate fundamental rights, such as privacy, intimacy, data protection and security, are called into question!
The issue of personal data protection has gained new nuances with the advancement of the Internet, especially with the fluidity which this data circulates, and it is an enormous challenge to control its collection and transmission.
The major reason for collecting and storing our data is because it is seen as a commodity with economic value for the state, but also for almost all economic sectors, such as financial institutions and private companies, which want to benefit from this information.
And why is that? Because the possession of this data allows them to know everything about us: what we think, what we like, where we are, what we want and what we don’t want!
In addition to data collection, the digital revolution has developed an almost ubiquitous, immaterial, and often unnoticeable and undetectable surveillance.
As the new technologies change, they also become more refined in pursuing our trail and obtaining our personal data, online and offline!
But let’s recap a little…
“The Big Brother is watching you”
What is the Big Brother?
In George Orwell’s literary work “1984”, Big Brother is the leader of an abstract entity, which controls the inhabitants of the super-state of “Oceania”. In this dystopian world, society lives without privacy, permanently watched over and controlled by a totalitarian government through “tele screens”.
“Big Brother is Watching You.”― George Orwell, 1984
The Big Brother has the power to exercise complete control over citizens’ lives through various strategies.
One of these strategies is the elimination of the privacy of individuals through “tele screens”, which are connected uninterruptedly.
These “tele screens” capture all citizens’ movements and disseminate manipulated information and statistics on government success.
This technology was able to feel the heartbeat and control the emotions, feelings and thoughts of the inhabitants. They even created a new language to replace english, the “Novilingua”.
The idea of living under “total surveillance” served as inspiration to the dutchman John de Mol who in 1999 created the famous reality show, “The Big Brother”.
What is the tv show about?
The main objective of this reality show (currently on air on a portuguese tv channel) is to place several contestants inside the same house for many days, depending on their performance and the will of the viewers, cloistered and watched 24/7 by a so-called “Big Brother”. A perfect metaphor of how things worked in the book.
This chap, who may be singular or plural (we do not know his identity), is a part of a production that observes, manipulates and commands these individuals in the “most watched house in the country” aka “a casa mais vigiada do país” (translated to portuguese).
However, beyond the programme’s competitors, living with the presence of a “Big Brother” who controls us seems an imaginary reality. But is it?
Big Brother | Imagination or reality?
Some argue that it is all just a conspiracy theory. However, the current reality seems to imply that we are moving towards a future not very different from that written by George Orwell in his book “1984”.
The ability to capture, manipulate, store and transmit information is the dominant force of the 21st century, and that is where the problem comes in.
If we look closely, we are constantly being watched and controlled by various entities and means, often without realising it!
In offline, satellites and vision drones follow our trail through space. At airports, biometric scanners analyse our floor and our fingerprints, and infrared cameras measure our temperature. Security cameras installed in streets, hypermarkets, shops, buses, stadiums, lifts, malls and stations follow every step we take.
Yet online, among the many devices we have today, such as smartphones and smartwatches, they are all able to know our location, analyze our biometric data, record what we see and say (yes, I’m talking about Amazon Alexa) and know what we like.
And how do they know what we like?
This is where the concept of Algorithms comes in, the core of Big Data (which I will explain later).
A basic definition for algorithms is a sequence of reasoning, instructions or operations to achieve a certain goal.
These are programmed by researchers, engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians who search and classify all the information they find from users online for various purposes.
The algorithms are responsible for organizing users’ results on the news portals and social network feed, as a way to show the most important updates and content that align with the interests and opinions of Internet users.
Notice this example. How many times have you searched for something on Google, such as trainers from a specific brand, and shortly after, an ad for that brand appeared in your Facebook news feed? This is a recurring situation caused by algorithms.
Although some decisions that algorithms make in our lives are acceptable, such as “suggestions to see” in Netflix, they can become more complicated when artificial intelligence and machine learning are used by companies and governments to make decisions that have a direct impact on our lives without us knowing.
Big Data | The weapon of the 21st century
There are those who call it the weapon of the 21st century, the oil of the new millennium or simply, Big Data.
“Big data is high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight, decision making, and process automation” - Gartner
In other words, Big Data is characterized by:
- Large amount of data analyzed in real time;
- Consultation of external sources, such as social networks;
- Cost-effective and innovative forms of information.
In the digital age, social networks are indispensable in the lives of 3.96 billion people on any of the social media platforms, according to the “Digital 2020 July Global Statshot”.
The report, prepared by We Are Social in partnership with Hootsuite, also reveals that today there are 4.57 billion people using the Internet, nearly 60% of the world’s population.
Every minute are generated petabytes of data about the world population in applications and devices.
Every “like”, every search, every purchase, every video, every activity that we perform online is monitorized and analyzed by companies that sell the data to other entities.
The truth is that the high volume of data produced daily in virtual socialisation environments is a real gold mine for states, financial institutions and companies that are prepared to benefit from users’ data.
Let’s take a look at real life examples…
Have you heard of Data Brokers? So, they are entities that compile and sell information from Internet consumers and then sell that information to other organisations.
For instance, have you ever wondered how does a free weather application sustains? It is very simple, this application buys the services of a satellite company to know how the weather is, ok. However, its main business is to install itself on our mobile phones and know where we are, what other type of applications we use and how long we use them, to sell to other companies.
Do you have children´s games installed on your mobile phone? Well, they’re not as harmless as they look. For example, a car game. In addition to providing information to the game developers, they also share this data with other servers.
Through a free and totally legal platform, anyone can access information from our devices on their computer while we are playing. From the moment we access that game, the other person’s computer is bombarded with our information.
These applications can also provide our exact location!
How? By sharing our location. They only need to insert our coordinates in Google Maps and bamn… They find us!
These are just a few examples that prove that our permanent contact with the Internet allows people to constantly monitorize our personal information such as age, gender, preferences and personal tastes.
Were you curious? You can see more examples in the report “Big Data, Big Brother” by the Spanish channel TV3.
Social Credit | The new technology
It is no longer new that the collection of data from users is used to build a profile that will later be used by other entities, public or private, for the most diverse purposes, such as Marketing.
But are they being used for something else?
Are you familiar with Nosedive, that Black Mirror episode in which an entire town was governed by a mobile application?
Oh well! China is developing a social scoring system to classify its inhabitants!
The system is very simple: “good actions” give points and “bad actions” take points, subjecting citizens and companies to these new rules. Citizens with low score will face penalties such as being banned from leaving the country, banned from buying airline/train tickets, denied access to state infrastructure and buying bank credit, and seeing their name on a national public blacklist.
Now you are wondering: “But how do they do it?”. The answer is big data and Artificial Intelligence. In addition to using 200 million surveillance cameras with artificial facial recognition algorithms, the Chinese government has been collecting information from its inhabitants, such as bank statements, social network activities, hospital records, among others.
In this scenario, the greatest concern is precisely the issue of data protection and the citizens’ right to privacy and intimacy.
Tips | How can we protect our privacy online?
After reading the article you may be thinking… “So what can we do?”. To answer your question, I’ll give you some tips you should do to try to protect your privacy online:
- Don´t overshare your personal information on social media;
- Browse in incognito or private mode to avoid your computer to save your browsing history, temporary internet files or cookies;
- Use a virtual private network because gives you online privacy and anonymity;
- Be careful where you click;
- Try to secure your mobile devices to have your online privacy protected;
- Use quality antivirus software.
“1984 is now”
The truth is that we are not in a reality very far from that described by Orwell in his book.
The hypnotic state of the inhabitants of Oceania in the face of Big Brother is approaching if we continue to accept in an ignorant way the vigilance and permanent control of the various entities.
This intention of total control represents an unprecedented danger for democratic societies. The world’s population needs to know where we are heading and to be aware of the cause-effect relationships of new technologies and how we see our fundamental rights, such as privacy and intimacy, put at risk.
1984 is now!
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
― George Orwell, 1984
