Some believe total surveillance only exists in China. Some might even say their social credit system, facial tracking, and (dare I say it) Orwellian levels of monitoring could only exist in an authoritarian regime. Whilst it is comforting to entertain this thought, there does exist a similar system in our own green and pleasant lands. An omnipresent network of cameras operated by unseen operators. A surveillance state that never properly informed a soul the experiment it was conducting. So whilst China went ahead heavy handed, the UK used their tried and tested tactic of subtle coercion... and it worked... we still believe we have agency over our privacy. At least the Chinese knew that they were being watched.
Since the advent of the smartphone, privacy across the world has been tramped on, both subtly and with force. Through coercion and through law, via news and by armies for the dubious and publicly scrutinised reasons of 'national security'. What a lot of us may be asking is why every facet of our life is being recorded and stored in vast databases, like the GCHQ centre in Bude, one of several centres scattered across the UK. Why internet search providers are required- by law- to give users internet search histories to local authorities for up to a year. And why this information can be transferred between different intelligence agencies across the world. For a lot of Britons, these changes went largely unnoticed. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance state.
When the topic was raised in the Houses of Parliament three years ago, the smattering of MP's present passed the law as if it were a new traffic bylaw or technicality. When in reality, what they approved was the most invasive surveillance legislation in the Western world. The movements against omnipresence haven't been able to stop cyber securities meteoric ascent. As Hunter S. Thompson would say, "the paranoids were right!".
However, due to the nature of its secrecy, it would be unwise to jump to the conclusion that this technology will be used solely for unsavoury purposes. There simply isn't enough information to tell what is planned. For the moment it is still too abstract, and withheld information cannot be used as proven fact of malevolence. But if the European Union's criticism of Britain's surveillance program says anything it is that people at the top understand the implications of such power. And whether the EU was intervening for its own reputation, or for the citizens of Britain, is irrelevant now. We have left and are now at the mercy of a government that for the past 10 years has pushed for increased surveillance powers.
Now with coronavirus in the mix, it seems the UK government and beyond have resorted to tracing to stop the spread. And legislation to hold the data-collecters to account is being debated daily in a battle that, for a lot of securocratic critics, has already been lost. Like politicians, securocrats have a way of avoiding questions about their business. Which of course is highly hypocritical, as they demand to know everything about ours.
When the pandemic began, governments worldwide quickly turned to tracing. In fact, since the early days of epidemiology, tracing has been identified as the best way of tracking the source of a disease. In countries where it was implemented, robotic accuracy saved thousands of lives and 'slowed the curve', made law enforcement easier and strengthened the trust between individual and state. So a template for complete surveillance was then passed around the globe, each nation taking a greedy puff from the ceremonial pipe. Some fell, some got drunk and others strengthened their grip on the bowl. This efficient worldwide solution was met by applause and cheer on news broadcasts across the globe. Even historically liberal democracies questioned their own model in response to public health crises. In many ways, the Asian model was highly preferable. Because after all; 'if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about!'
Big data companies
The question is not whether this technology is effective in public health crises, this has proven to be highly useful. The question is how this technology will be used politically and socially following the pandemic. For at this very moment, the insatiably hungry CIA sharks are swarming around UK waters, fresh out of a failed attempt to gain intel in Venezuela with privately hired mercenaries. So in gentlemanly fashion, they are offering the U S of A's data mining company- Palantir- as tribute to their aging, decrepit father.
If Palantir's track record is anything to go by, it's not pretty reading. Palantir in the past has been known to be one of Silicon Valley's most beguiling and secretive operations. A data analysis system used by the American army to identify roadside bombs, hunt insurgents for assassination, and, most famously, track down Osama Bin Laden. Every facet of the US interior has used it for something or other. The FBI for criminal probes, Homeland Security for screening immigrants and police departments in LA and Chicago to identify anyone they see. In fact, Bloomberg states that Palantir's system can not only identify a person, but identify personal relationships and key life truths about that person. With a screen that identifies people on the street, the Palantir system inside roaming police cars can target a number plate, or face, and from that find out the person's lover, friends, colleagues, place of work and more. (Whilst Bloomberg's reporting was excellent, their owner-the billionaire and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg- is under his own scrutiny. Bloomberg and a group of billionaires are funding New York's coronavirus action plan, and he himself is in charge of the track and tracing program.)
And it doesn't end there. As data's choke hold of the internet tightens, so does its ability to predict. So like in 1984 where the Party arrests the people of Ingsoc for merely thinking a crime, Palantir is following this same dystopian logic. They are able to stop a crime before it's even happened. In south LA where it's being trialled, former gang members are being stopped by police because their data tells them this person is a threat. Not only that, but due to to Palantir being in its infancy, the technology is struggling to identify black and diaspora faces. Which further endangers the black community in America who have always been racially oppressed by the police. This is the true sign that this technology is dangerous and unsafe in irresponsible hands. It is being given lazily to police forces who have been repeatedly documented to enforce and monitor minority ghettos.
Whilst the ethnic minorities downfall in the inner city is perpetuated, the police continues to beefs up its muscle, using military grade technology to enslave its citizens economic depression.
For all it's connections and contacts and willingness to oppress, Palantir's wealth is relatively unknown. Articles across the web dispute their valuation, some saying $5billion, others say $20billion. Their unwillingness to divulge information suggests that not all is what it may seem. Their co-founder- Peter Thiel- runs the show and is one of the most connected people in Silicon Valley. He's as much embroiled in the tech universe as Warhol was to the art world. He's funded Facebook and Yelp and is a colleague of the likes of Elon Musk and Steve Chen (alligned with YouTube). He even co-founded PayPal and the FoundersFund, each multi-billion dollar companies. His presence in the technology community knows no bounds, and in fact isn't limited to the Silicon sphere. He goes right to the top of American politics. He is one of Trumps advisers.
Palantir is not only working with the FBI, CIA, Canadian Police, GCHQ (UK intelligence agency) and Australian defence but has been an active player in America's war on terror and war on immigrants. Though Palantir has said in numerous occasions, even on their website, that "preserving the fundamental principles of privacy are essential", their own reluctance to talk to reporters leaves an acrid taste in the mouth. The question we should be asking, as 'free citizens', is whether we shall be complicit whilst our data is given to such secretive forces. We cannot continue to comply when we are not informed of the true nature of these operations.
If there is no transparency with big data companies then how can our legislation catch up with them? We could be in a position, like China is in now, in about 10 years, where the government can track everything you are doing, all the time, without repercussion, because there are no laws against it! Currently, the laws passed three years ago in UK parliament are still in use, but for the police who's access to data has been denied. The foundations have been laid for complete surveillance in Britain. It's a race against time, and we've just been lapped.
The prospect of surveillance doesn't worry a lot people however. They don't mind being snooped in on. They think that the real world and the virtual don't interlink. Rather, they are bound by the hip, and in today's age almost all we do is online. Therefore, what you do on the computer, is information about yourself. So if information about yourself is online and accessible to data mining companies like Palantir, who work for big governmental organisations, then the state knows everything about you. Your likes, your dislikes, your mood, your bowel movements, even your own physical health is reduced to data. This data is then sold to advertisers by the likes of Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and beyond. This has been shown time and time again, without widespread public outcry.
The ramifications of complete surveillance are insane. Not only for investigative journalism and human rights but for our very self-expression. It's not outside the realm of possibility that our already reactionary discourse could morph into a Stazi-like neighbourhood watch society where people essentially police themselves. Even a world where political dissenters are tracked down and put into internment camps is realistic. It's already being done to the Ughyurs in China. Historians will look back at this era as the time where surveillance overstepped the barrier or, perhaps, historians in the future will neglect this unflattering fact as it would be damaging to the stability of the state. Ultimately, the future is unknown, but marred with danger. Snowden must be clambering at the walls from his Russian cell, knowing that we didn't act when we had the chance.
The current level of surveillance is stripping power away from traditional political strongholds and ushering us into a new epoch, where data companies and search engines hold more sway in political elections than any thought tank has before. Whether this is positive is yet to be seen. In China's case this new technology has been used to further reinforce their image as the all seeing eye of the east.
So whilst the Chinese contend with Sauron, we battle with our own mythical architect-Palantir- whose name is based on the seven seeing stones that Saruman uses to watch over Middle Earth. Whether Christopher Lee saw this coming is yet to be confirmed. One thing is for sure... we should be taking fiction more seriously!
Cameras and totalitarian regimes
After China, Britain has the highest number of CCTV cameras per capita. London alone has 627,707 per 9 million people, and, if you've ever been, no one is smiling... For every 11 Britons there is one CCTV camera. If the invasive law that passed three years ago, the use of Palantir technology and recent events around the world suggest anything it is that we are in a perfect position to be turned into a securocratic nation where crime stopping infringes on basic human expression. The greatest threat we face today in Britain is not coronavirus, it is the spectre of coerced totalitarianism. Though it may be comfy, it's still enforced. In Hungary, you can already feel the gusts of wind that swept across the Gobi, over the Urals and into the hallowed turf of Judeo-Christian Europe.
Asides from Britain, where the measures have been comparatively weak, the rest of the world is racing ahead into the bleak future of voluntary slavery. Hong Kong citizens who have returned from danger centres of Wuhan+ Heibei have been forced to wear geo-tracking wristbands, which alert the authorities of their whereabouts. Whilst in Netanyahu's Israel, the surveillance company NSO, normally associated with targeting journalists and activists, has pledged its services. For Putin, who managed to sneak in a life term presidency whilst everyone was fighting for bog roll, has deployed networks of facial recognition during quarantine.
There is a scramble for power currently happening, and those courageous enough to take it are reaping the rewards.
Edin Omanovic, Advocacy Director at Privacy International and former researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, says this;
"These gadgets might be temporarily useful. But they’re also an indictment: the result of an approach that has been held victim to a narrow and self-interested view which sees security as a priority only when it makes headlines. The wars on terrorism, drugs, and migration have demanded seemingly endless amounts of airtime, funding, wars, research, ‘emergency’ laws, and hi-tech gadgets. This has spawned a lucrative security industry that has sucked up limited resources from public services and other sectors and left us unprepared for a crisis we knew was coming. "
To me, what Omanovic suggests is that surveillance security has been at the forefront of Britain's (and the rest of the worlds) agenda for years, and not pandemic response. It is no surprise that this is being touted so heavily as the cure-all solution. It is what billions of investors money have been geared towards since the advent of the webcam. Whilst we bicker over the failures of this governments incompetency, it's important not to forget that the virus is merely the first trial of the many battles we face. We may be nearing the end of lock down, but we are blindly waltzing into an anti-privacy cage. I would research heavily into Britain's surveillance history before downloading the Covid19 app, due to come out in the UK within the next few weeks.
What you can do
Add an extension such as DuckDuckGo to your browser. This ensures that your data isn't been sold to third parties.
Invest in a reliable VPN. These encrypted firewalls prevent outsiders from harvesting your data.
Download Gener8. This makes you money from your own personal data. The more you search the more you gain. Thus taking back some of the profits that big-tech is making from you.
Raise awareness and support whistle blowers. The more people that understand what is going on, the greater the opposition big tech has in front of them. Resist!
I'll leave you with this;
"By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and the rest- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit."
-Aldous Huxley