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< | Paper Title: Our Desires May Not Be Our Own | >
> | Paper Title: How Location Tracking Compromises Safety for Women | | | | |
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< | -- By SabrinaInoue - 01 Mar 2024 | >
> | -- By SabrinaInoue - 06 May 2024 | | |
Section I - Introduction | |
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< | In our current times, the fact that we are being surveilled through our devices all the time actually does not come as much of a surprise. We know about how social media algorithms are specifically designed to keep us scrolling and how they are tailored to show users exactly what they want to see. We know that the advertisements we see are targeted towards us, and it is no shock to see an advertisement for the handbag that we had just been looking at on an online shopping site. Sometimes we joke about how our phones are “listening to us” because we’ll start getting advertisements for things we had just discussed with friends but had never searched for on the Internet. The issue with modern surveillance is not necessarily that people are not aware of it. We know that companies are watching us, that the government is watching us. In fact, some of us have even made arguments for why this might be better for us. Isn’t it better to have a social media feed that specifically interests us? Or to get ads for something we already want? The real issue is not that we do not know we are being watched, but that we believe despite all this, we are still in control. But maybe that is the trap, that we are given the illusion of control when in fact we have given up this control without us knowing. | >
> | For many people, location tracking has become an ever present technology that has found its way to engrain itself in our lives. Find My Friends is a built-in Apple app that allows users to see where their friends or family are at all times, with their permission. Women often use location tracking for safety reasons by sending their location to a trusted friend when they are alone or meeting someone new in case something goes wrong. However, reports have increasingly started to show the negative repercussions of location tracking, specifically as it relates to women. Two examples below demonstrate the significant gaps in privacy protection for women who are attempting to separate from abusive partners, and women seeking abortions. | | | | |
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< | Section II - Surveillance Capitalism | >
> | Section II - Smart Cars and Abusive Relationships | | | | |
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< | The concept that our personal data has been commodified and exploited by companies has been dubbed “surveillance capitalism.” Shoshana Zuboff, who popularized the term, explained that “surveillance capitalism begins by unilaterally staking a claim to private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.” This data is in turn used by companies to make predictions about us through artificial intelligence and machine learning. But these companies have also discovered they can take this a step further, so they are not only predicting what we will do, but also controlling what we do. This is called “economies of action.” Companies who have access to this technology are able to, among other disturbing things, “psychologically target communications”, “trigger social comparison dynamics,” and “levy rewards and punishments.” In other words, we no longer control our devices. They control us, and we have no idea. And, most astoundingly, it seems to be completely legal. Zuboff writes how, even though the Federal Trade Commission had considered the issue of the commodification of data in 1997, “the line was never drawn, and the [tech company] executives got their way.” Currently, there are still no comprehensive federal privacy laws that target private companies. | >
> | Reports on location tracking in new “smart” cars have shown that they can compromise the safety of women attempting to flee their abusive partners. The New York Times reported that a woman who had obtained a restraining order against her husband was still able to be tracked by him through the connected app because his name was on the loan and title, even though the woman was the one making payments and had been granted sole use of the car during divorce proceedings. She contacted the car company, Mercedes, and explained her situation, but they told her that there was nothing they could do because technically her husband was the customer. Another woman reported that her abusive husband was able to track her through the Tesla app and sued them for negligence for continuing to provide her husband with the location data. Due to these reports, some action has been taken at the state and federal level. California lawmakers have proposed several bills that include ending tracking for domestic violence survivors, and the FCC has also been investigating this issue. However, these proposals still need to be passed into law. Although car companies appear to be open to changing their location tracking policies, the only way to ensure that these changes will occur is to pass laws in order to hold these companies accountable. | | | | |
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< | Section III - Legal Rights | | | | |
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< | Our country was founded on the notions of freedom, individuality, and autonomy. Inherent in a democracy is the idea that its citizens are able to make their own choices. The Supreme Court has held in several contexts that there is a right to personal autonomy, but almost all decisions are centered around government, not private intrusion. In a First Amendment case, the Court has suggested that freedom of thought is protected in Stanley v. Georgia. Justice Marshall, writing for the majority, stated that the government “cannot constitutionally premise legislation on the desirability of controlling a person's private thoughts.” Additionally, the Court established in Katz v. United States that the Fourth Amendment protects “reasonable expectations of privacy.” However, the First and Fourth Amendments have been held to apply only to the government. There may be some possibility of expanding the Fourth Amendment to encompass surveillance capitalism. In Kyllo v. United States, the Court stated that “[i]t would be foolish to contend that the degree of privacy secured to citizens by the Fourth Amendment has been entirely unaffected by the advance of technology.” In holding that using a new thermal imaging device constituted a warrantless search, the Court implied that the Fourth Amendment must evolve with new technologies. While Kyllo is still within the government intrusion context, the decision suggests that the Court may be open to expansion of Fourth Amendment protections. After all, the Fourth Amendment does not actually mention the government, but rather states that “the right of the people to be secure against their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” In the case of surveillance capitalism, private companies are violating our rights to be secure. They do this not only by constantly surveilling us and using our data without our knowledge or consent to predict our desires, but by actively influencing our decisions. | >
> | Section III - Smart Phones and Abortion Criminalization | | | | |
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< | Section IV - Conclusion | >
> | Location tracking has also allowed law enforcement to discover when someone gets an abortion, which has become increasingly relevant as more states pass anti-abortion laws after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Law enforcement agencies are now utilizing location tracking data in order to determine if someone gets an abortion and are frequently able to do this without a warrant by buying the data from data brokers. An Oregon senator recently disclosed that vendor Near Intelligence “allegedly gathered location data of people’s visits to nearly 600 Planned Parenthood locations across 48 states, without consent” and then “sold that data to an anti-abortion group, which used it in a massive anti-abortion ad campaign.” Law enforcement can also obtain the data through subpoenaing the tech company, which only requires “reasonable suspicion” as opposed to the more demanding “probable cause” required for a warrant. Some states have taken action to better protect people seeking abortions. California has enacted several laws that prevent California companies from sharing abortion data with out of state entities, as well as disclosing patients’ private communication regarding healthcare that is legally protected in the state. Massachusetts lawmakers have also proposed a similar law. However, this still leaves those who are in states where abortion has been banned with little protection, unless they travel to California to get the abortion. | | | | |
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< | While this technology may seem unprecedented, Congress and the courts are familiar with adapting the law to account for changes in technology, and the Court has indicated that the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted to account for these changes. If the government does not find a way to actively combat surveillance capitalism, then every person will be at the mercy of a few powerful companies. The United States is known to be the land of the free. Without more protection from surveillance capitalism, we will instead become the land of the controlled. | >
> | Section IV - Conclusion | | | | |
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> | Location tracking is a double edged sword for women. On one hand, it can help women feel safe by allowing their friends and family to see their location in case of an emergency or they are put in a dangerous situation. On the other hand, location tracking can also compromise women’s safety, as demonstrated in the above examples. As long as people continue to use devices with location tracking, which is increasingly becoming more pervasive, these issues will also continue to grow. Opting out of using such technology may be the most effective solution, but it is likely the least realistic. While in some cases, women seeking abortions can leave their phone at home in order to avoid being tracked to an abortion clinic, this is not a feasible solution for people who travel out of state. Women could choose to buy older cars that do not have location tracking technology, but this is not a sustainable solution because eventually older cars will be phased out by newer cars containing this technology. Additionally, although companies have indicated concern about these issues, they cannot be relied upon to change their policies and actually implement them. It is in technology companies’ favor to continue to sell location data to make a higher profit no matter the consequences, and car companies will continue to sell cars even if some customers’ safety are jeopardized. Therefore, comprehensive laws need to be passed in order to ensure that domestic violence victims and people seeking abortions are adequately protected. | | | | |
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This draft relies too heavily on generic statements and tangential reference to the Fourth Amendment, as though our lives were primarily spent in or anticipating criminal prosecution, which is not a particularly wide-ranging form of social control. The route to improvement, I think, is to get specific about something: to learn some facts about technology, policy and law in an area that interests you, so that all the general rhetoric can be replaced by material the reader actually learns from.
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> | Section V - Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/technology/car-trackers-gps-abuse.html
https://sites.suffolk.edu/jhtl/2024/03/08/your-car-could-let-your-abuser-track-you/
https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/04/car-tracking-domestic-violence/#:~:text=Abusive%20partners%20increasingly%20use%20technology,has%20been%20in%20the%20past.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/28/24085723/fcc-domestic-abuse-survivors-connected-cars-proposed-rule
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/yes-phones-can-reveal-if-someone-gets-an-abortion/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/location-data-tracks-abortion-clinic-visits-heres-what-know | | |
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