013 - Mass Surveillance
[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:11] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your host, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm here to share with you essential skills for innovators, designers, creators, builders, you name it, people building new products and services. And today we're reviewing the topic of mass surveillance. This is actually the second part of our [00:00:34] annual top five emerging technology picks.
[00:00:36] We've been doing this for four years now, and this one, mass surveillance is one of the trickiest. Now you might be thinking, what is mass surveillance? Well, I'm going to tell you everything, but if you want to go super deep into this topic and to many other emerging technologies and skills for innovators, head over to BottomUp.io and you can get a bunch of goodies. It's all free and you can grow as an innovator. All right let's talk about mass surveillance. Well, what do we mean by mass surveillance? Well, it's kind of two parts. The [00:01:08] online privacy world, you know, the classic, the cookies, they're being tracked online.
[00:01:12] And secondly, and equally as important is what happens in public spaces outside. That's the monitoring of civilians by video face recognition and so forth. Two big pillars, the on and the offline bit. No matter how you play it, this is a big, big topic. As emerging technology is put both online and, in our worlds, in our public spaces.
[00:01:35] There's never been a time where we've been under monitor and surveillance like we are today, [00:01:42] and that's why we've picked it as our second of five emerging technology trends that are essential to know about as a designer, as a creator, as an innovator. So, let's ask ourselves, what's all the hype around this?
[00:01:56] Well, there's probably three big things that I point out that make this topic du jour. Number one: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. This really exposed what happens with our personal data and how users really don't appreciate when they sign up for those privacy terms. [00:02:16] What companies turn around and do with that information and this whole expose around Cambridge Analytica really demonstrated to us that our data is not secure. In fact, it gets shared with many different other online companies who get to leverage, utilize, and exploit that information. Now, the next big thing that's been happening is not only in China but even in places like the UK we're seeing this explosion of surveillance [00:02:50] cameras. When we walk around those cities, you will be surprised that there are some cities.
[00:02:56] Both in China and in Western cities where there are over 100 cameras per 1000 people. It's exploding. It's a way of preventing terrorism. It's preventing crime monitoring the social and public spaces. But this is happening everywhere. And if you look at that in the online world, nearly 80% of all the sites you visit will be [00:03:24] tracking you.
[00:03:24] So no matter where we go, at home, on the internet or outside or to work, we are being watched. And that's why it's so important to understand. And if you want one number. That points to why we selected this as something that has to be on the table, has to be in the discussion, is that this amazing fact found by Deloitte, which is less than 5% of online users actually read the privacy policies that they accept and agree to.
[00:03:54] And what this means is we have no idea what's happening with [00:03:58] our personal data. And when we elect governments, we really have very little sense of what rights we've given them to have our data, to have our personal image. This is enormous. And this brings up this pressure cooker conversation about who owns our data, what are our rights?
[00:04:17] And this is why mass surveillance is critical to understand. And it's also, even if you're not in government, even if you're not an online publisher, if you have a product or service without doubt, at some point, there's going to be a transaction of data. And [00:04:32] what I encourage you to do is to be open, to be transparent and respect that data.
[00:04:37] And in turn, your customers we'll respect you. Okay, just to wrap up, what are the pros and cons around this whole mass surveillance discussion? Well, number one, without a doubt, this kind of surveillance both on and offline, it deters crime. It deters terrorism. I mean, it even improves safety and performance and delivery of public services and infrastructure.
[00:04:59] I got you there. But equally on the other hand, what's the big catch here? [00:05:06] It's our loss of privacy. So as citizens, we should be aware, but also as entrepreneurs, here's a chance for us to protect the data of our customers. And if we do the right thing by them, they'll do the right thing by us.
[00:05:20] Okay, so that's it, mass surveillance. That's number two of a five-part series looking at the top five emerging technologies for 2020. I'm still pumped. I got three more to go. I can't wait to share them with you. If you want to know anything about these top five emerging technologies or anything about [00:05:40] skills that will help you innovate, then you should just pop over to BottomUp.io and you'll find everything you need there. I've hope you've enjoyed this short conversation on mass surveillance. My name is Mike Parsons. I'm the host of the BottomUp podcast. I'll see you next time.
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