In the late 1990’s, the company I had long worked for upped-stakes and moved from Cambridge to the ‘burbs. This was bad enough in and of itself. The ‘burbs? Public transpo – as if!- meant subway-bus-and-hike. Lunch options? Say good-bye to Charlie Cheddar’s superb Greek salads. Say hello (and gag) to the Rainforest Cafe.
We were also moving from an all-private-office environment to an all-cubicle layout.
But the least-welcomed aspect of the move was the fact that the security system was now electronic. Sure, we still had Lena, our adored mother-to-all receptionist, but if you wanted to take the shortcut back from a trip to the restroom, you could swipe your ID at the nearest door. At first, most of us were so appalled by this incredible invasion of privacy that we continued to march around and exit and enter via the reception area. But after a while… If they wanted to record our jaunts to the loo, well, let ‘em.
After that, well, every place I worked had electronic security badges. That was just the way work worked.
And then there was the CVS card that I suppose entitles you to swell deals and super coupons, if you ever use them, but it’s mostly to spy on what type of toothpaste you buy. Sometimes to thwart them I refuse to use my card. And – worse – use cash. Double whammy on them!
Slowly, inexorably, privacy diminished.
Google and Bing hang onto every site we’ve ever visited, every search we’ve ever searched, however idly. Somewhere, out there in the cloud, something’s keeping track of my visits to the O’Connor Brothers Funeral Parlor obituary page, which I check on periodically to see who in the old ‘hood died. Something knows when I toss in the name of the sexiest boy in eighth grade to see where he’s at. (Okay. He had been held back a couple of times, so he was 16 to everyone else’s 13 or 14. So he was the only sexy boy in eighth grade. And, yes, I did find an article from a decade or so back. He’s an ex-con managing an SRO building.)
Then there are all those purchases, leaving us susceptible to all those further purchase suggestions.
And GPS keeping an eye on wherever we are. To add insult to that invasion injury, the other day I glanced at a headline that said that, even if you turn location off, “it” can still find you.
Not to mention Fitbit noting every step you take.
Slowly, inexorably, privacy diminishes.
Every time a crime’s committed, the immediate impulse is to ask whether there are security cameras that captured the moment.
Even when it’s for our own good, the vaunted security we all worry about – MS-13: coming for YOU! – nothing is private anymore.
That glance I made at the headline on location tracking? Turns out at some point, my laptop (traitor!) will no doubt be detecting that flicker of the old eyeball. It may not be here quite yet, but it’s coming:
When you’re browsing a website and the mouse cursor disappears, it might be a computer glitch — or it might be a deliberate test to find out who you are.
The way you press, scroll and type on a phone screen or keyboard can be as unique as your fingerprints or facial features. To fight fraud, a growing number of banks and merchants are tracking visitors’ physical movements as they use websites and apps.
Some use the technology only to weed out automated attacks and suspicious transactions, but others are going significantly further, amassing tens of millions of profiles that can identify customers by how they touch, hold and tap their devices. (Source: NY Times)
This is all well and good if it prevents some no goodnik from syphoning out my 401K or ordering two pairs of the same sneaker from Zappo. (Wait. That was me.) But:
Privacy advocates view the biometric tools as potentially troubling, partly because few companies disclose to users when and how their taps and swipes are being tracked.
Potentially troubling, I’d say.
“What we have seen across the board with technology is that the more data that’s collected by companies, the more they will try to find uses for that data,” said Jennifer Lynch, a senior lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It’s a very small leap from using this to detect fraud to using this to learn very private information about you.”
What sort of data are they capturing? How hard we press keys; which fingers we use to tap: the rhythm of our keystrokes; how we maneuver the mouse; how we type numbers in; etc.
Yes, indeed, please do keep fraudsters out of my bank account. Alert my doctor if my mouse maneuvering looks like I’m stroking out. But puh-leeze keep the big data marketing folks out of my body, myself. I don’t know quite what they’d do with information on the rhythm of my typing, but I’m sure all those big data big brains are trying to figure it out. Maybe they’ll figure out that if I type a bit faster, I’ll order more stuff I don’t need. So they’ll manipulate my keyboard to go faster, faster, faster.
Talk about the invasion of the body snatchers.
I’m just glad I’ll be dead and gone before they crack the code on mindreading.
At least I hope so.
Anyway, until further notice, I’ll be staying indoors, reading. And, oh yeah, wearing a tinfoil hat.
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