"The dystopian bit is the corporation having this data."
I find data collection and tracking disconcerting not because I'm doing anything nefarious, unlawful or something I'm ashamed of—my life is pretty boring and uninteresting—but because it has the effect of reducing one's autonomy. If one knows one's data is monitored and one is being tracked then one acts differently. For some, they'll make minor changes in behavior, for others a lot. Even for those who've no idea about others tracking or collecting data about them there's the broader issue of how society ought to be conducted. That's a very big issue I can't address here.
Of course, the authoritarians amongst us would argue that monitoring is good thing as people won't be tempted to misbehave, commit crimes and such. I'd answer that by saying those who've nefarious intent will find ways of circumventing the surveillance so the net effect on society is negative as the 'innocent' are the onrs who are targeted without a good or just reason.
Right, pretty much everyone has a mobile phone. What has truly surprised me is how many people are prepared to trade data and being surveiled for convenience. I often wonder if they make such conscious decisions knowing the full implications of that surveillance. I suspect most do not.
Having a mobile phone it's inevitable I will be tracked by multiple entities from government to Google. My response is governed by how much I am prepared to trade privacy and autonomy for convenience and I reckon that's a large amount. Not having Google account and killing and or removing all Google services goes some considerable way but I'm under no illusion that Big Tech is still tracking me. That said, the info colllected wouldn't hold much value.
Right, I'm aware of that. In fact my phones are tighter than I mentioned. First, I've a number of phones, the one for calls is a feature/flip phone sans internet access. The others are internet-only smartphones and they're with a different ISP (I've multiple smartphones because I'm always mucking with the O/Ses and I must have at least one working). They're rooted and run either LineageOS or their native Android stripped of manufacturer bloatware and all Google stuff. Even then they always run with a firewall enabled, and the active apps are mostly from F-droid.
WiFi is set to only reconnect manually and mobile data is off until needed. There's lots of other protections too such as no Chrome browser and JS is turned off by default on the browsers (I've three different browsers set for different jobs, none keep cookies between sessions). With ad protection and JS off I never see ads. I've no social media accounts, HN is pretty much it—and you can hardly call it social media. YouTube is viewed through NewPipe and so on.
That's pretty tight. But it's easy for me because I've no need of social media and such. Right, my ISP can track me but I'm not in the drug trade or espionage so that's pretty irrelevant.
I've a box of older phones and GNU/Linux is a pending project for them. I'm watching Librem and I'll likely go that way eventually.
What I really want on my phones are manual click-type (air gap) off switches to switch the phone off in a split second, same with WiFi. Unfortunately, I've been spoiled forever. My ancient Nokia had a battery with a quick release button on the back. If say I was in a meeting and wanted to kill the phone quickly I could reach into my pocket and push the button and slide the battery abount 1cm which disconnected it—the phone was off in a fraction of a second, none of this nonsense waiting for the phone to shut down.
I miss that feature with a passion and I want it back.
Isn't this the point they were trying to make? The corporations already have that data, it comes with the platform.
The bit where you can use some of it for own purposes is not really the offending part.
It's offending because it's complicit with the dystopian mass surveillance. Encouraging of it even. "I can find my keys when I lose them, so it's fine that a single corporation knows where billions of people are and what they are doing"
Our family (my daughters, wife) has had Find My paired on our phones since, well 2010 when it was introduced. We like it.
I remember watching my sister and her husband calling each other frequently with, "How far are you away from home?" and just kind of scratched my head. (I think I have sinced talked them into enabling Find My.)
When my wife or I want to call a daughter we can see immediately if they are at work or at home... things like that are nice. There's also an indescribable sweetness to just looking longingly in on a daughter who is far away and wondering how her day is going. Empty nest blues? (Or maybe Miner at the Dial-A-View.)
Can you at least conceive that some people might find it deeply creepy that someone can follow their every step, and equally creepy to be able to 'spy' on another person 24/7?
Sure but those of us who have this sort of tracking for our loved ones enabled arent looking at that 24/7, and if you are referring to the corporations, well they already were. At least now they have made it useful to everyday people.
If you don't trust someone with your location, you don't have to give it to them. Personally I find the corporations angle more creepy. You cannot personally vet the people they hire, but you know who you give access to your address to. Outside of family, only one friend ever drops me his location information temporarily because he drives his truck and he uses it to give me a heads up when he's near him in town, in case we can hang out. I mostly ignore it though unless he tells me how close he is.
If your daughter or wife decided that she didn't want to be tracked by you any more, would you happily accept her wishes, or would you assume that she had "something to hide"?
