Amazon and the Surveillance State

tl;dr: It’s bad enough when governments operate vast surveillance networks. Now, private companies are in the game as well. There are plenty of risks about which to be concerned.

The ‘Social Credit’ score that China now has is straight out of the Black Mirror episode, Nosedive, only more nefarious.

It is the means by which the Chinese government can monitor behavior of its citizens, punishing those whose views and actions fall outside of the standard orthodoxy.

Speak negatively about the Communist Party? Or, heaven forbid, jaywalk? You’re going to get dinged.

The consequences can be serious. Over 12 million rides on airplanes and trains have been denied to people whose social credit score was too low.

The Age of Surveillance
I’m not ready to go to the “privacy is dead, get over it” extreme.

However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that privacy is something that is not guaranteed and should not be assumed.

Governments, like China and the UK, have strong state-imposed surveillance mechanisms.

The US and other countries may not be as invested (or perhaps less forthright), but we all live in an era of ‘surveillance capitalism.’

Private Surveillance Companies
Perhaps that is why a recent article entitled ‘Social Credit’ May Come to America caught my eye.

In a new service made available by Ring (owned by Amazon), 405 local police forces can now tap into the camera and video footage provided by the doorbells of residents.

On the one hand, you can see the obvious usage of such a network. Track criminals. Observe suspicious behavior.

On the other hand, there is a centralized entity that records when people enter your house, what cars are driving down your street, and knows who else is home at the same time.

When this system gets hacked, either from the inside or the outside, an evildoer could have a pretty strong data about activity in your neighborhood. Use that to train a neural network and you can start predicting when the area is emptiest. Perfect time to do break-ins, if you want. Plus, you know where the cameras are.

Not only is all of this data centralized, it’s also under the control of a private company that has no transparency requirements to citizens. It may as well be the Chinese government.

I have a Ring doorbell and I like the features. In part, I am contributing to the problem. At the same time, I’ve also started making some choices that are lower tech.

For example, I just put some new locks on the doors. Instead of the smart locks which I originally wanted to buy, I got a standard mechanical lock. The reason is simple. By connecting the smart lock to the Internet, the vulnerability is increased. In short, our front doors can be more easily hacked. [ A smart contract lock might help, but those aren’t ready for prime time yet.]

It’s the eternal question: do people really care about privacy? They understand many of the benefits of digital connectivity. But do they understand the risks and costs?

My belief is that most people do not.

I’m just not sure what it will take to help people understand the stakes.