MargaretCaison's Journal

As COVID19 has forced society deeper into the digital space, we must question to what extent our current conceptions of privacy will remain relevant. Certainly, some might argue that the move is a temporary one and that society will return to the pre-virus status quo when a vaccine is developed or an effective therapeutic is discovered. I am not as hopeful. Now, more than ever, I rely on my personal tracking device, as well as other devices, to complete almost any task, mundane or extraordinary. I now live in cyberspace where I order groceries, communicate with family, see a doctor, and even obtain a legal degree. While all of these things could have been done online prior to the virus and in fact, would have been seen as a luxury, now there is no other way to accomplish these tasks and as such, my own autonomy as viewed through my ability to decide with whom I share personal data is essentially terminated. Technology has a way of expanding to meet needs and desires. But once it fills those needs, it rarely, if ever, contracts.

And yet, as you are more likely to be in a fixed location, probably with some form of wired network access, you can also massively increase your privacy, while using the necessary services you describe, by ditching the portable surveillance device and using a general purpose computer like a desktop or laptop, running safer software and lacking all the sensor hardware whose job is to rat you out. Services like Zoom may be inherently malicious about data-mining you and breaking your privacy, which makes it very unsatisfactory for a school to be enforcing their use on students, but—as the technical exercises are intended to help demonstrate and prepare you to harness—there are measures you can take to increase as well as decrease your privacy under these conditions.

Reflecting on my previous post, I have no more hope for my future autonomy and yet for the first time since I embarked on my journey concerning digital freedom, I have at least begun to question to the extent I would be willing to comply with demands for its abridgement. This is due in no small part to my own fears of mortality, fears that I did not anticipate surfacing in my late 20s. And yet the virus has ushered in a new reality and the idea that I could be made "safe" by a surveillance system that executes effective contact tracing is, at a minimum, appealing. Before this moment in history, I could imagine very few instances in which the collection and storage of my personal data would be acceptable. My data's use as a commodity was not among them and yet, facing a global pandemic, its use in this new light has become increasingly attractive, even it is by the very powers greedy to capture it for corporate gain. My hope is that I will be brought back from the precipice and that fear will no longer cloud my judgment. Relief couldn't come fast enough.

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