Bye bye privacy

I’ve just finished reading (listening to the audiobook) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, which is a superb explanation of how large tech corporations, such as Google and Facebook, have turned the data they obtain from us into a tool of predictive behaviour.

Our ubiquitous smartphone usage means that tech companies know much more about us than we realise. Nobody reads the T&Cs before we click on ‘I Agree’ - even US Supreme Court judges (although that’s less of a surprise when you look at the morons who just overturned Roe v Wade). Even if we did, studies have found that they take about 45 minutes to read and, to understand all the underpinning laws governing these user agreements, you’d need to read for another 100,000 hours. These agreements give away all our rights to privacy: they also bind us in contracts that allow the app or service to mine as much data as they like, irrespective of whether that data is required for the app or service to work effectively.

In short, we’re not users of these services: we’re the raw material.

Yes, we get real benefits from using a map app, the ability to book tickets or appointments and having a camera to hand at all times. But those benefits are far outweighed by the value of the ‘behavioural surplus’ that the tech companies accrue from having access to our daily movements, what happens inside our homes, any expressions of political beliefs, etc. We’ve all signed away unfettered access to our private lives - and access to the cameras, microphones and sensors in our phones, digital assistants, smart home devices and cars.

The tech companies are therefore able to monitor what we do and think - and then make money from it. This is what gives birth to the concept of surveillance capitalism, defined as ‘a new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and sales’. Zuboff explores in her book how tech corporations have been able to get away with this extraordinary feat of daylight robbery and what the implications are for us as individuals and as societies. It’s pretty chilling stuff, but if you own a smartphone, you should read this book.

Now some of you might be thinking that I’ve fallen for one of the many conspiracy theories that seem to be flying around the world. Fair point. But this is a well-researched, learned book by a Harvard-educated social scientist who has been examining how technology affects human behaviour and society since the 1970s. She knows her stuff - which is why it’s an international bestseller.

But if you still have any doubts, here’s something that happened to me just yesterday. My wife and I were talking the brother-in-law of a friend, who had recently gone on holiday to Turkey and had a hair transplant while he was there. We joked about it for a couple of minutes, after my wife asked me whether I’d have a hair transplant if I was going bald (if you’ve seen the current state of my thick, shoulder-length hair, you’d know how funny that is).

I was sitting in my office, my wife was standing by the door and my phone was on my desk, switched off.

I use a Solitaire app that I like to play in idle moments. I don’t pay for an ad-free version, so I get an advert served after each game. I played the game yesterday evening, a couple of hours after the conversation with my wife. Lo and behold, the ad I got served after the first games I played was… for hair transplants in Turkey.

We’ve all joked about how spooky it is to see adverts that are targeted at something we’ve posted or searched for. The reality is, however, that these ads are not a coincidence: they are very specifically targeted at us, by advertisers that have bought the data we give away every day to the tech companies.

And if you think that this is scary, the ultimate aims of surveillance capitalism - changing our behaviour to make it more predictable for marketers - could lead you to tear your hair out.

Then again, if you do that, I know a clinic in Turkey that could help.