隱私權為何如此重要

Commercial mass surveillance

• The tech giants know everything about you – whether or not you use their services.

  The business model

  Your online behavior is the raw material from which one of the biggest economies in the history of the world has been built. But it isn’t the images you post, the comments you write or the messages you send that are the hard currency. It’s the data about the data that’s the true treasure. With what’s known as metadata, the tech giants aren’t satisfied with monitoring your life – they’ve decided to control it.

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• Part 1: Big tech – they’ve collected so much data about you that they’ve lost control.

  The actors behind the data collection

  You already know which big companies collect data for commercial purposes. But the question is whether you’re aware of the absurd extent of this data collection. You can take as long as you like to think about it, but the answer is still ‘No’. Not even the companies themselves know how much data they collect, where it goes and how they should control it.

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• Part 2: Data brokers – You've never even heard of them. They know almost everything about you.

  The actors behind the data collection

  It's not just the tech giants that carry out commercial mass surveillance. There are companies working in the shadows, with a single purpose: to collect, buy and sell data about your online activities. And the lists they offer for sale don't make pleasant reading.

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• How the commercial mass surveillance companies collect your data and map your life.

  The technology behind the data collection

  The tech giants follow every step you take regardless of whether or not you use their services. But how does it actually work when they steal your behavior and place it in huge AI and machine learning systems to build a profile of you? Here are the methods behind the surveillance.

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• Organizations that collect data often claim it’s anonymous. Research shows this is impossible.

  The collected data can’t be kept anonymous

  When the tech giants collect huge quantities of data about your internet behavior, they always hide behind defenses such as ‘it’s only metadata’ or ‘we’ve anonymized the information’. But if you collect big data, it’s impossible to keep it anonymous. It’s enough for your phone to reveal four places you’ve been to work out that it’s you.

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State mass surveillance

• Democratic and authoritarian countries are competing to see which of them can carry out mass surveillance most and best (worst).

  USA and their friends in the surveillance alliance Fourteen Eyes have demonstrated that they have the capacity, the desire and the experience to monitor who they want, when they want, anywhere in the world. China and other totalitarian countries use mass surveillance to control their inhabitants. It often feels like a dystopian arms race is going on around the world. But who is actually the best (worst) at making George Orwell’s 1984 a reality?

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• Going Dark：加密戰爭日益激烈，透過美國和歐盟之間秘密合作展開。

  2013 年史諾登爆料事件後，網際網路的大部分流量都開始加密，從而落實私人的安全通訊。然而，並非所有人都樂見這個轉變。最著名的莫過於 FBI 與其他美國政府機構，他們一直在進行所謂的「密碼戰爭」，對加密技術進行攻防。近年來，歐盟執委會也加入其中。他們以「兒童保護」為號召，試圖推行全面監控所有歐盟公民的法案；先是提出「聊天控制法案」接著是 Going Dark 與 ProtectEU 計畫。其目標是在法律上強制每一支歐洲智慧型手機與電腦都安裝監控工具。後來，這些行動背後的推手，都被證實是美國科技公司與情報機構。

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The consequences of mass surveillance

• Monitoring your internet behavior has consequences – you may just not be seeing them yet.

  How the collected data is used

  Commercial and state mass surveillance collects absurd quantities of data about people all over the world. But what is all the data used for? When your internet behavior has been mapped, what might it lead to?

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• Both state and commercial mass surveillance risk transforming free democracies into surveillance states

  How data collection threatens a free society

  Authoritarian states use mass surveillance to control the population. Even in democratic countries, we see direct consequences of collecting absurd amounts of data. But there are also less visible effects: both state and commercial mass surveillance show signs of being able to transform free societies into the complete opposite.

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• To those of you with nothing to hide: One day you might have. Because you don’t make the rules.

  大規模監控的後果：我們都有要隱藏的資訊。

  The most common argument used in defense of mass surveillance is ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’. Try saying that to women in the US states where abortion has suddenly become illegal. Say it to investigative journalists in authoritarian countries. Saying ‘I have nothing to hide’ means you stop caring about anyone fighting for their freedom. And one day, you might be one of them.

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