Our lives have been monitored by companies since we’ve entered this digital age. It is not that this surveillance has emerged, and become known to the public, it is just that we just never realized its capacity and scale.
Here’s something to consider: if you use your credit card or ATM card to pay for a metrocard, you can be tracked through your metrocard. Because your credit or ATM card is linked to that purchase of metrocard fares, and you’d be using your fare to get around, people can see where you’ve been and what you’ve bought. But the real question is “who would be tracking me?” I bet this guy didn’t expect anything when the Metro Transit Police tracked him through his metrocard for a sexual assault case back in December.
Source: MTA, Flickr Creative Commons
(P.S that picture is appropriately placed)
Basically, we do not see the complexity of technology and the levels of tracking attached to what we do, because we are deceived by convenience. That case can be connected to this quote “An unprecedented level of convenience is enabled by a network of complex and costly information technology whose increasing functionality is inversely proportional to to the typical user’s knowledge about how the system works. (Andrejevic, p.4)” The nature of surveillance ends up becoming rationalized, institutionalized, normalized — whatever you can call it. “Finally, its operation becomes diffused throughout the social structure, enabling mutual surveillance on a mass scale. (Athique, p.210)” And that is how we either fail to recognize this tracing, or ignore that it is happening.
Just last night, I had sold this concert ticket I had to someone using Paypal and Ticketmaster. I retrieved his email, first and last name then requested payment, then he sent it over and Paypal sent me an email of the money transfer, which also connected his address incase I needed to ship the tickets. But I didn’t need it because Ticketmaster allows electronic transfers of tickets (P.S not endorsing them). It makes me consider what information he received on his end of the transaction.
I think as long as we consent to use of stored information, even if the terms and conditions are extremely boring to read, it is acceptable for the market to use our “consumer profile,” it is until the third parties try to do anything, like bombard me with unnecessary emails or mail me ads, that it becomes unacceptable.
While we’re aware that watching an online movie for free or illegally downloading a song is bad, it is also a mass reaction to ignore such doubts and continue with it anyways. It can be extremely hard to track down every single person who downloaded a certain song, or consider how much of a movie people saw to create a punishment equal to the crime. I admit I actually do not download songs illegally if they come in albums (I like albums and concerts if it’s not apparent in this blog), but I would download a song where you can’t get a physical copy of an album with the song in it. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few songs in my playlists that come from talent shows, you can think of shows like American Idol, where people cover songs. Even admitting it here does not bother me, because it doesn’t bother a big fraction of the mass who also does the same thing.
Now I ask:
- At what point did you guys realize that surveillance has become increasingly common in our lives?
- Do you guys ever look around and consider “what if there’s someone watching me right now?” and how would we react to it if it was a person staring at you versus a camera being pointed at you?
Very interesting blog post. I like your thought about capacity and scale of surveillance. I did not realize how increasingly common this surveillance has become. I moved from Russia to the U.S around six years ago, and this experience of living in the country where everybody and everything are constantly watching you is very interesting. Like for example my dad doesn’t even own a credit card (he lives in small Russian town). He says, “well first of all, I do not want to owe any money to the bank or anybody else. Also I do not want government or any corporation to know where I am located and what I am doing”. Make sense for me, but in America it’s not possible to live like that. I don’t have time to always buy books and clothes online, neither do you. I guess its part of our modern digital lives and I am sure it’s only gonna get worse.
It was really astounding to learn that metrocards can actually give away your location via your credit card. It seems that the methods of surveillance are advancing day by day and it incorporates things that are seen as a necessity in everybody’s life. Even though such a method of surveillance was used or good, it calls into question the damage it could do when it falls into the wrong hands. Your second question is also interesting since I never though about it in such a way. The presence, or lack thereof, of a physical body monitoring your every move can very well distinguish your level of comfort in such an environment.
For me, the moment where I realized that surveillance has became increasingly common in our lives was during class. I always knew that as consumers we are always being surveilled but until I forced to think about it I hadn’t realized the intensity at which we are being surveillance and the new creative ways the government and marketing agencies are surveilling us. In your example of Metrocards, a common NYC item consumers are constantly purchasing with credit cards, is a city regulated item and it’s off putting that there’s a chance your location where you purchased the Metrocard can be sold to agencies.
I had no idea that your metro card could personally track us due to purchasing the metro card with a credit card. I purchase my monthly metro card with my credit card, not realizing that I am giving up my location privacy. For the second question, If I ever realized there was a camera watching me, I would probably filmier awkward than if a regular person was watching me. Because at least you can physically see who is watching you when it is a person. We never know who is on the other side of the camera.