Risk zone 5: Surveillance state

(upbeat music) - So risk zone number five is surveillance state. Social media information gathering, location data, and facial recognition technologies are allowing for the creation of detailed records of individual behavior. We're already seeing authoritarian governments use technology to surveil citizens and quell dissent. But an authoritarian regime isn't necessary to imagine how the surveillance state could impact all of us. Here's a scenario. Facial recognition technology is a mainstream tool available to any individual or organization. Subscribers can tap into a database with hundreds of millions of faces, indexed, and clearly recognizable. Cameras are installed in most public and private spaces to take advantage of this technology and a new ecosystem of apps emerges that integrates facial recognition across all product categories. Dating apps, shopping apps, neighborhood apps, gaming. Rachel, what are you doing? - Oh, I am just foiling (chuckles) facial detection. Okay? I don't want anybody to know where I am at all times. No, thank you. - Rachel, I think it's a little too late for that. - Why? - You have a tracking device on you at all times. - What? Where? - Your phone. (shouting) (exhales loudly) - Rina, I am just a user. What can I do? - Let's talk to digital detox expert Baratunde Thurston. I'm sure he'll have some good tips for you and for you. (air whooshing) - My name is Baratunde Thurston. I'm a comedian, activist, writer and apparently a bit of a data detox expert. With all of the data that's being collected on us out there. The bad news is, it's a lot, and it's going to take a lot of effort to kind of reign that in. Some regulatory, some business practices, probably some lawsuits, but the good news is there are some things we as individuals can do to lower our risk. And I like to think of it in layers. The first layer is focused on the big platforms where we are all spending most of our time and let's tune our settings there. So, and ask yourself, are you comfortable with them sitting on that forever or do you want to purge that or kind of turn the volume down on the collection? The next layer is really about the network connections that we're riding on and being able to secure those connections with a virtual private network known as a VPN for anyone who's hopping on and off of public wifi in coffee shops or transit hubs especially, that is an area rife for all kinds of scams. And so there are a number of rating systems that you can go by, but find a journalistic outlet you trust and see you, who they determine the top VPNs are. I don't have a specific endorsement necessarily for your course. And the other area, I think it's a good exercise, but don't go too far with it. Practice reading a terms of service. I think many of us have assumed that the companies we're giving our data to are doing all the right things and nothing more than they need to. And that's just not the right assumption. So while it would require the time of a professional lawyer to actually read every single term of service of every product or service that we're using, I do think it's helpful to look at one as an example, just to get an understanding of what's at stake and what rights they're claiming for the use of your, my, and all of our data. Lastly, this area is changing a lot. And so there are resources and organizations who spend full time trying to help us all protect ourselves. I would highly recommend an organization called Tactical Tech. You can find them at tacticaltech.org and they will have the latest and greatest in terms of vulnerabilities, in terms of tools, and in terms of approaches we can all take. The goal is not to feel like any one of us individually can or needs to batten down every hatch constantly. This system is set up to make that nearly impossible, but I think with more education, with a bit more awareness with focusing on the large areas, the network connections and those outlets, whose job it is to help keep us safe and stay on top of these latest things, we can make a bit of a dent. One thing we should all be careful about are our phones, these walking, super computers slash snitches that we carry around in our pockets and bags. There's a great app that has been endorsed by a number of journalistic outlets I've been using for many months now. It's called Jumbo. And what Jumbo does is it kind of watches out for you, it's your protector. And it will find out through Facebook, through Google. I think they just added Amazon as we're recording this, the data leaks that are happening in there. I've been getting alerts about the amount of search history that Facebook is keeping for my activity on that platform. And with one tap, I can erase it. They also proactively tell me how many locations, Google Maps has saved from my history on that platform. In that case, as with my messages on Facebook, I decided to keep them because I actually want to preserve that message history in the same way I preserve letters from friends over time, back when we wrote letters to each other. So I think, it's very important that this mobile device, which is where we actually do most of this and where some of the most sensitive data is 'cause it's about where we are and who we communicate with largely from this phone. That's a great tool to help secure that surface. To summarize, there's a lot of nefarious people out there and organizations trying to grab our data and do things we don't necessarily want with it. But the good news is there are also powerful organizations working on our behalf, to make that playing field more fair. And there's things that each of us can do individually to secure our data. So I went through this torturous process of data detox in part, so you don't have to. If you want to read about that experience, please check out this URL and learn from my mistakes and also some of my successes. (air whooshing) - Thanks, Baratunde Thurston. Those are all tips that we can use. - Hmm. - Oh, Rachel (exhaling). - What? What? Oh, can I get my phone back? Anyone? And wait. Is anyone else hearing that or is... Can you.. (upbeat music)