To what extent is personal information being collected through technological means and to what end?

The growth in demand and production of cheap tech. hardware and the widespread availability and use of social media has spawned a new age of “smart technologies” that are capable of collecting data about the usage of and interaction with everyday objects, and in turn, can provide information to us and influence our behavior. The increasing and perhaps excessive presence of technology in our everyday lives has brought—and continues to bring—transformation to our society, culture, and our way of life.

To what extent is personal information being collected through technological means—knowingly or not on the user’s end; by whom, and for what reasons? What are the various channels of data collection?

 

How is technology transforming our society, and how do we know whether it is or will be for “better” or for “worse”? 

 

Whether this change is for better or for worse may only be determinable in retrospect, for this inquiry is not just an analysis of past events and their consequences; it is an observation of an ontological shift that has a past, a present, and a future. This future has yet-to-be seen consequences, good or bad. We cannot determine the future based solely on the emergence of technology because technology itself is not a “good,” “bad,” or “neutral” thing. It is the consequences, or effects of how humans use technology that can be perceived as “good” or “bad.” It is human interaction that shapes this paradigm, and thus human players who mold its future. But who are these players? It is not exactly the type of thing that is advertised, rather, it is kept secret. The National Security Agency’s (NSA) invasive spying practices towards American citizens was not publicly known until Edward Snowden leaked classified information to the mainstream media. There has since been a wider debate over government secrecy, mass surveillance, and the balance between national security and information privacy.

As big data and smart technology reshape our society, I ask if is there is a larger, systematic effort aimed at engineering society and applying social and economic policy. How this might affect us? Is it “bad”, or not?

There seems to be a similar pattern to all of this: the government surveillance, the technological ubiquity, the various behavioral economic models, the companies profiting from personal data, all stem from a desire to acquire and utilize mass amounts of data; but at the same time I have to ask whether or not much of this is just consequence of the technological revolution as it reveals new ways and understandings of how we interact as human beings. We must consider both subjective and objective views of humanity, and be willing to ask fundamental questions about the nature of such.