The privacy policy is forty-seven pages long. You clicked agree. So did everyone else.
This cluster maps the gap between privacy rhetoric and privacy practice — and the mechanisms through which surveillance and control are exercised, obscured, or resisted.
The question this cluster asks: what does “your data is safe with us” actually mean?
Terms in this cluster
Surveillance Capitalism
Zuboff 2019. Human experience as raw material for a new economic logic. Your behaviour, packaged and sold as prediction product.
Dataism
The ideology that data always outweighs human judgement. And that more data is always better.
Data Brokers
Companies you have never heard of know where you live, what you earn, and what your health conditions are. They are selling that information right now.
Privacy Washing
Privacy rhetoric as marketing. The statement is reassuring. The practice is unchanged.
Privacy as a Premium
Privacy as a paid feature. If you cannot afford it, surveillance is the default.
Security Theater
Schneier: security measures that create the appearance of protection without providing it. The shoes come off at the airport.
Vendor Lock-in
Private companies managing public infrastructure with no exit option. The contract that cannot be cancelled.
Algorithmic Violence
Harm caused by automated systems without any individual making a decision. Nobody is responsible. Everyone is affected.