The Normalisation of Personal Surveillance in the Digital Age
In a world where invasive actions that would have once shocked society now barely register, the creeping surveillance age is increasingly driven by everyday individuals. While governments and corporations are often seen as the primary architects of this culture, civilians are now keen participants, monitoring friends, neighbours, partners, and even children with growing comfort.
From Corporate Data Hoarding to Personal Intrusion
As entities like Meta and OpenAI delve deeper into our digital existences, collecting details on shopping habits, social connections, and beliefs, people have become accustomed to demanding similar access in their private spheres. For instance, while apps continuously log locations, many insist that friends share real-time movements via Apple's Find My feature. Similarly, as Palantir analyses social media to aid agencies like ICE, individuals record strangers in public without consent, blurring the lines between corporate and personal surveillance.
Examples abound of this shift: a young man was asked by a co-worker to share his location indefinitely simply because the colleague "liked to know where people are," and a woman parked outside her boyfriend's house to hack his texts using her car's Bluetooth. These oversteps, while seeming like personal failures, are deeply rooted in a societal context where mass data collection has desensitised consumers.
Eroding Privacy Norms in Relationships and Family Life
Romantic partnerships have become a clear battleground for eroding privacy, with tracking and monitoring often replacing direct communication. A 2021 study in Children and Youth Services Review found that nearly 60% of young adults experienced digital monitoring or control while dating, defined as using technology to track, intrude on privacy, or control a partner's activities. It's now common to scrutinise social media for signs of disloyalty, such as an Instagram like or a tagged photo, with some even paying online sleuths for a full audit of a partner's digital footprint.
Family life mirrors this trend, as many young people grow from childhood to adulthood without the typical expansions in privacy. Parents routinely track children's locations, read messages, and stalk social media accounts well into young adulthood, often without considering the impact on self-respect and autonomy. This behaviour is compounded when parents themselves engage in digital snooping on each other, creating a cycle of surveillance.
Community Surveillance and Public Shaming
Beyond the home, neighbourhoods and communities exhibit similar patterns. A public faux pas, humiliation, or health crisis can lead to one's name and face being blasted to millions on TikTok. Actions like talking to another adult on a plane while wearing a wedding ring, dancing at a party, or complaining to a restaurant employee can result in becoming the internet's villain of the day, with onlookers contacting employers and flooding families with hate messages.
The Consequences and Resistance to Surveillance Culture
Despite the prevalence of tracking, it often fails to strengthen relationships. Instead of building trust over time, technology is used to short-circuit the process, leading to shallower connections or, worse, control and abuse. Organisations advocating for domestic violence victims have urged tech companies to rethink features like Apple's AirTags, which facilitate spying by abusers. Cases of sextortion and non-consensual image sharing frequently begin when young people feel pressured to share online logins with controlling partners.
Occasionally, public outcry emerges, as seen when Ring's Super Bowl ad about using AI to scan front gardens sparked backlash, leading to the cancellation of a partnership with Flock Safety. However, such reactions are anomalies; more often, invasive tech is met with apathy. A leaked internal document revealed Meta's plans to add facial recognition to Ray-Ban smart glasses, suggesting political turmoil in the US could distract critics from privacy concerns.
Yet, political unrest might also highlight these issues, especially as agencies like ICE and the UK's NHS deepen ties with surveillance tech firms. This could renew appetite for resistance in both public and private spheres. By declining to monitor and be monitored, individuals can reclaim sovereignty from tech companies and rediscover the quiet spaces where love and trust truly flourish.
