In Preparation of a Post-Privacy Society

Photo Credit: EFF Photos/FlickrCC

In a world where cameras are everywhere you look and don’t look, where social media is far more than just a social setting, and every event is likely being recorded, it will be interesting to see how society reacts to this change. Even in this day and age, cameras are more a part of daily surveillance than meets the eye, but I for one believe that’s a good thing.

People mistake, again and again, that the government is spying on them and is trying to steal their privacy to feed some god forsaken agenda. When really, constant surveillance, when used in accordance with complicated cyber security systems and moral codes, will do nothing but better the human condition. From cracking down on crime, to understanding how our society works from the inside out, our economy and our public lives will experience a revolution in the way it can be ran.

As for the rise in the manufacturing of smart drones, however, I do understand the need for laws governing their use. On one hand, it’s fair to say that proper government surveillance with no influence of the private sector can benefit us immensely. But on the other hand, when the freedom to record and capture content is so widely praised, it can be easy to get carried away and not respect other’s wishes to simply not be posted online or made into a video. These are strict and, sometimes when pondered further, complex issues to address, but I for one agree, in a post-privacy society, people will be safer and monitored more accurately to maintain order.

Perhaps even AI can be a benefit towards unbiased surveillance and can more accurately monitor daily activities and abnormalities quicker than we can. For example, when a video is posted of someone, who wished this experience had maintained it’s privacy, can easily request the AI to shut down the source as long as the content in the video is not depicting the person as a criminal, which would therefore lead to an investigation.

However, when it comes to videos involving criminal acts, the AI and the police should work side by side to come to the best conclusion on how the situation should be interpreted and acted upon. The AI should be in these cases of special use with new technologies to see if the video is, in fact, not a fraud in the first place before it’s even brought to the police’s attention.