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Misdirected Outrage

Watched Citizenfour mesmerized and dismayed at the same time. There is no such thing as privacy in the digital world - just based on the reach the large technology companies have over our data. The idea that these sets of data when connected yield a picture (true or false) of  the target person is just a logical next step. 

Scaling this to cover everyone and all their data is indeed Orwellian but exactly what can be expected if there is both available data and technology to process it in enormous scale. There is certain inevitability to this. The private sector can do exactly this and is not being upbraided for wrong-doing.

Most of the outrage in the movie is directed at the invasion of privacy and the unfettered collection of data. That is probably the least of the problems. A great deal of fuss was made of the fact that there is an interface to query this data based on identifiers like name, email, passwords etc - does not sound wholesome but it is not such a radical thing to be able to query data once you have it. What is even the point of collection without the ability to query? 

In the private sector, very similar tactics are being used to hyper-target ads and content to us, influence our buying and consumption behaviors. Happens non-stop every day. These companies are not beholden to reveal the algorithms they use run their business. Perhaps, in the public sector there is an opportunity to inquire about algorithmic biases that can lead to unfortunate and unforeseen outcomes for regular people going about their ordinary lives. 

As I watched the movie and relived the public reaction at the time over the revelations, could not help wondering if there could have been better more meaningful outcomes for us all. To imagine the data collection and processing will stop is a bit naive - there are economies of scale for one thing. When it comes to tech companies offering us "free services" we the consumers are complicit in being the source of the data they need to do so. Even so there is an opportunity for transparency in how our identikits are being developed and it seems that's where energy should be expended.

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