Dataveillance

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Dataveillance is the practice of monitoring and collecting online data as well as metadata. [1] The word is a portmanteau of data and surveillance. [2] Dataveillance is concerned with the continuous monitoring of users' communications and actions across various platforms. [3] For instance, dataveillance refers to the monitoring of data resulting from credit card transactions, GPS coordinates, emails, social networks, etc. Using digital media often leaves traces of data and creates a digital footprint of our activity. [4] Unlike sousveillance, this type of surveillance is not often known and happens discreetly. [5] Dataveillance may involve the surveillance of groups of individuals. There exist three types of dataveillance: personal dataveillance, mass dataveillance, and facilitative mechanisms. [3]

Contents

Unlike computer and network surveillance, which collects data from computer networks and hard drives, dataveillance monitors and collects data (and metadata) through social networks and various other online platforms. Dataveillance is not to be confused with electronic surveillance. Electronic surveillance refers to the surveillance of oral and audio systems such as wire tapping. [3] Additionally, electronic surveillance depends on having suspects already presumed before surveillance can occur. [6] On the other hand, dataveillance can use data to identify an individual or a group. [6] Oftentimes, these individuals and groups have sparked some form of suspicion with their activity. [3]

Dataveillance has significant impacts on advertising theory and practice. These impacts particularly stem from recent infrastructure and technological advancements that increase the extent to which advertisers can gain data information about consumers and their behaviours. For example, collecting data can be extended into collecting consumers’ offline behaviors and to places that are considered private. [7]

Types

The types of dataveillance are separated by the way data is collected, as well as the number of individuals associated with it.

Personal Dataveillance: Personal dataveillance refers to the collection and monitoring of a person's personal data. Personal dataveillance can occur when an individual's data causes a suspicion or has attracted attention in some way. [3] Personal data can include information such as birth date, address, social security (or social insurance) number, as well as other unique identifiers.

Mass Dataveillance: Refers to the collection of data on groups of people. [3] The general distinction between mass dataveillance and personal dataveillance is the surveillance and collection of data as a group rather than an individual.

Facilitative Mechanisms: Unlike mass dataveillance a group is not targeted. An individual's data is placed into a system or database along with various others where computer matching can unveil distinct patterns. [3] An individual's data is never considered to part of a group in this instance.

Benefits and concerns

Pros

There are many concerns and benefits associated with dataveillance. Dataveillance can be useful for collecting and verifying data in ways that are beneficial. For instance, personal dataveillance can be utilized by financial institutions to track fraudulent purchases on credit card accounts. [3] This has the potential to prevent and regulate fraudulent financial claims and resolve the issue.

Compared to traditional methods of surveillance, dataveillance tends to be an economical approach, since it can monitor more information in a less time. In this case, the responsibility of monitoring is transferred to computers, therefore reducing time and human labor in the process of surveilling. [8]

Dataveillance has also been useful in assessing security threats associated with terrorism. Authorities have utilized dataveillance to help them understand and predict potential terrorist or criminal threats. [9] Dataveillance is very important to the concept of predictive policing. Since predictive policing requires a great deal of data to operate effectively and dataveillance can do just that. Predictive policing allows police to intervene in potential crimes to create safer communities and better understand potential threats.

Businesses also rely on dataveillance to help them understand the online activity for potential clients by tracking their online activity. [10] By tracking their online activity through cookies, as well as various other methods, businesses are able to better understand what sort of advertisements work with their existing and potential clients. [10] While making online transactions users often give away their information freely which is later used by the company for corporate or private interests. [11] For businesses this information can help boost sales and attract attention towards their products to help generate revenue.

Cons

On the other hand, there are many concerns that arise with dataveillance. Dataveillance assumes that our technologies and data are a true reflection of ourselves. [3] This presents itself as a potential concern. [9] This becomes a critical concern when associated with the surveillance of criminal suspects and terrorist groups. Authorities who monitor these suspects would then assume that the data they have collected reflects their actions. [9] This helps to understand potential or past threats for criminals as well. [9]

There is also the lack of transparency and privacy regarding companies who collect and share their user's data. [3] This is a critical issue with both the trust and belief of the data and its uses. [1] Many social networks have argued that their users forfeit part of their privacy in order to provide their service for free. [1] Several of these companies choose not to fully disclose what data is collected and who it is shared with. When data is volunteered to companies it is difficult to know what companies have gained data about you and your online activity. [9] Much of an individual's data is shared with websites and social networks in order to provide a more customized marketing experience. Many of those social networks may share your information with intelligence agencies and authorities, without a user's knowledge. [1] Since the recent scandal involving Edward Snowden and National Security Agency, it has been revealed that authorities may have access to more data from various devices and platforms. [1] It has become very difficult to know what will happen with your data or what specifically has been collected. It is also important to recognize that while online users are worried about their information, many of those same worries are not always applied to their activities or behavior. [12] With social networks collecting a large amount of personal data such as birth date, legal name, sex, and photos there is an issue of dataveillance compromising confidentiality. Ultimately, dataveillance can compromise online anonymity.

Despite dataveillance compromising anonymity, anonymity itself presents a crucial issue. Online criminals who steal users' data and information may exploit it for their own gain. Tactics used by online users to conceal their identity, make it difficult for others to track the criminal behavior and identify those responsible. Having unique identifiers such as IP addresses allows for the identification of users actions, which are often used to track illegal online activity such as piracy.

While dataveillance may help businesses market their products to existing and potential clients, there are concerns over how and who has access to customer data. When visiting a business's website, cookies are often installed onto users' devices. Cookies have been a new way for businesses to obtain data on potential customers, since it allows them to track their online activities. [10] Companies may also look to sell information they have collected on their clients to third parties. [10] Since clients are not notified about these transactions it becomes difficult to know where your data has been sold. Furthermore, since dataveillance is discrete, clients are very unlikely to know the exact nature of the data that has been either collected or sold. [10] Education on tracking tools (such as cookies) presents a critical issue. If businesses or online services are unwilling to define cookies, or educate their users as to why they are being used, many may unwillingly accept them. [13]

The issue stemming from companies and other agencies which collect personal data and information is that they have now engaged in the practices of data brokering. Data brokers, such as Acxiom, collect users' information, and are known for often selling that information to third parties. While companies may disclose that they are collecting data or online activity from their users, it is usually not comprehensible by everyday users. [11] It is difficult for everyday people to spot this disclosure, since it is hidden by jargon and writing most often understood by lawyers. [11] This is now becoming a new source of revenue for companies.

In terms of predictive policing, the proper use of crime data and the combination of offline practices and technology have also become the challenges for police institutions. Too much reliance on results brought up by big data may lead to the subjective judgement of police. It also may reduce the amount of real-time on site communication between local police officers and residents in particular areas, thus decreasing the opportunity for the police to investigate and cruise in local communities at a frequent basis. [14] Secondly, data security still remains to be a huge dilemma, considering the access to crime data and the potential use of these data for negative purposes. Last but not least, discrimination towards certain community might be developed due to the findings of data analysis, which could lead to improper behaviours or over-reaction of surveillance.

One of the major issues with dataveillance is the removal of a human actors from the loop. Computer systems which oversee data and construct representations. [4] This can allow for greater risk of false representations being created, as they are based on the data that has been surveilled. Computer systems can only use the data they have, wand if this is not an accurate depiction of individuals or their situations then false representations can be created. Dataveillance is highly automated through computer systems which observe our interactions and activities. [4] Highly automated systems and technology eliminates human understanding of our activities.

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Resistance

With such an increase in data collection and surveillance, many individuals are now attempting to reduce the concerns which have risen alongside it. Countersurveillance is perhaps the most significant concept focused on the tactics to prevent dataveillance. There are various tools associated with the concept of countersurveillance, which disrupt the effectiveness and possibilities of dataveillance.

Privacy-enhancing technologies, otherwise known as PETs, have been utilized by individuals to reduce data collection and decrease the possibility for dataveillance. [15] PETs, such as adblocker, attempt to prevent other actors from collecting users data. In the case of adblock, the web browser extension is able to prevent the display of advertisements, which disrupts data collection about users online interactions. [15] For businesses that may limit their opportunity to provide online users with tailored advertisements.

Recently, the European Union demanded companies to indicate that their website uses cookies. [13] This law has become basic practice by many online services and companies, however, education on tracking tools with the general public differs and therefore can prevent the effectiveness of this sort of ruling. [13] However, many companies are launching new PETs initiatives within their products. For example, Mozilla's Firefox Focus in pre-enabled with customizable privacy features, which allows for better online privacy. [16] A few of the tools featured in Firefox Focus are also mimicked by other web browsers such as Apple's Safari. Some of the various tools featured with these web browsers are the capabilities to block ads and remove cookie data and history. Private browsing, otherwise known as Incognito for Google Chrome users, allows users to browse the web with having their history or cookies saved. These tools, aid in curbing dataveillance, by disrupting the collection and analysis of users' data. While several other web browsers may not pre-enable these PETs within their software users can download the same tools, like adblocker, through their browser's web store such as the Google Chrome Web Store. Many of these extensions help enable better privacy tools.

Social networks, such as Facebook, have introduced new [ when? ] security measures to help users protect their online data. Users can block their posts and other information on their account other than their name and profile picture. While this doesn't necessarily prevent data tracking these tools have helped to keep users data more private and less accessible for online criminals to exploit.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Privacy</span> Seclusion from unwanted attention

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveillance</span> Monitoring something for the purposes of influencing, protecting, or suppressing it

Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.

Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.

Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance.

Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for business and market research and assess and improve website effectiveness. Web analytics applications can also help companies measure the results of traditional print or broadcast advertising campaigns. It can be used to estimate how traffic to a website changes after launching a new advertising campaign. Web analytics provides information about the number of visitors to a website and the number of page views, or creates user behavior profiles. It helps gauge traffic and popularity trends, which is useful for market research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Analytics</span> Web analytics service from Google

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and also mobile app traffic & events, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin.

A click path or clickstream is the sequence of hyperlinks one or more website visitors follows on a given site, presented in the order viewed. A visitor's click path may start within the website or at a separate third party website, often a search engine results page, and it continues as a sequence of successive webpages visited by the user. Click paths take call data and can match it to ad sources, keywords, and/or referring domains, in order to capture data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital footprint</span> Ones unique set of traceable digital activities

Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions, and communications manifested on the Internet or digital devices. Digital footprints can be classified as either passive or active. The former is composed of a user's web-browsing activity and information stored as cookies. The latter is often released deliberately by a user to share information on websites or social media. While the term usually applies to a person, a digital footprint can also refer to a business, organization or corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Targeted advertising</span> Form of advertising

Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.

Employee monitoring is the surveillance of workers' activity. Organizations engage in employee monitoring for different reasons such as to track performance, to avoid legal liability, to protect trade secrets, and to address other security concerns. This practice may impact employee satisfaction due to its impact on the employee's privacy. Among organizations, the extent and methods of employee monitoring differ.

Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors' activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the operator to infer their preferences and may be of interest to various parties, such as advertisers. Web tracking can be part of visitor management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evercookie</span> JavaScript application programming interface

Evercookie is a JavaScript application programming interface (API) that identifies and reproduces intentionally deleted cookies on the clients' browser storage. It was created by Samy Kamkar in 2010 to demonstrate the possible infiltration from the websites that use respawning. Websites that have adopted this mechanism can identify users even if they attempt to delete the previously stored cookies.

Computer surveillance in the workplace is the use of computers to monitor activity in a workplace. Computer monitoring is a method of collecting performance data which employers obtain through digitalised employee monitoring. Computer surveillance may nowadays be used alongside traditional security applications, such as closed-circuit television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital privacy</span>

Digital privacy is often used in contexts that promote advocacy on behalf of individual and consumer privacy rights in e-services and is typically used in opposition to the business practices of many e-marketers, businesses, and companies to collect and use such information and data. Digital privacy, a crucial aspect of modern online interactions and services, can be defined under three sub-related categories: information privacy, communication privacy, and individual privacy.

Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, with the biggest names in social media in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.

Corporate surveillance describes the practice of businesses monitoring and extracting information from their users, clients, or staff. This information may consist of online browsing history, email correspondence, phone calls, location data, and other private details. Acts of corporate surveillance frequently look to boost results, detect potential security problems, or adjust advertising strategies. These practices have been criticized for violating ethical standards and invading personal privacy. Critics and privacy activists have called for businesses to incorporate rules and transparency surrounding their monitoring methods to ensure they are not misusing their position of authority or breaching regulatory standards.

Google's changes to its privacy policy on March 16, 2012, enabled the company to share data across a wide variety of services. These embedded services include millions of third-party websites that use AdSense and Analytics. The policy was widely criticized for creating an environment that discourages Internet innovation by making Internet users more fearful and wary of what they do online.

Cross-device tracking is technology that enables the tracking of users across multiple devices such as smartphones, television sets, smart TVs, and personal computers.

Data shadows refer to the information that a person leaves behind unintentionally while taking part in daily activities such as checking their e-mails, scrolling through social media or even by using their debit or credit card.

Search engine privacy is a subset of internet privacy that deals with user data being collected by search engines. Both types of privacy fall under the umbrella of information privacy. Privacy concerns regarding search engines can take many forms, such as the ability for search engines to log individual search queries, browsing history, IP addresses, and cookies of users, and conducting user profiling in general. The collection of personally identifiable information (PII) of users by search engines is referred to as tracking.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 van Dijck, José (2014). "Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big Data between scientific paradigm and ideology". Surveillance & Society. 12 (2). ISSN   1477-7487.
  2. ↑ Resources, Management Association, Information (August 30, 2016). Biometrics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. IGI Global. ISBN   978-1-5225-0984-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Clarke, Roger A. (1988). "Information Technology and Dataveillance". Communications of the ACM. 31 (5): 498–511. doi: 10.1145/42411.42413 . S2CID   6826824.
  4. 1 2 3 Selwyn, Neil (2014). "Data entry: towards the critical study of digital data and education". Learning, Media and Technology. 40 (1): 64–82. doi:10.1080/17439884.2014.921628. S2CID   143752752.
  5. ↑ Clarke, Roger (1996). "Privacy and dataveillance, and organizational strategy". Proceedings of the IS Audit & Control Associate Conference.
  6. 1 2 Frikken, Keith B.; Atallah, Mikhail J. (2003). "Privacy preserving electronic surveillance". Proceedings of the 2003 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society. p. 45. doi:10.1145/1005140.1005148. ISBN   1581137761. S2CID   17634545.
  7. ↑ Strycharz, Joanna; Segijn, Claire M. (2022). "The Future of Dataveillance in Advertising Theory and Practice". Journal of Advertising. 51 (5): 574–591. doi:10.1080/00913367.2022.2109781.
  8. ↑ Clarke, Roger (May 1988). "Information technology and dataveillance". Communications of the ACM. 31 (5): 498–512. doi: 10.1145/42411.42413 . ISSN   0001-0782. S2CID   6826824.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Amoore, Louise; Goede, Marieke De (2005). "Governance, risk and dataveillance in the war on terror". Crime, Law and Social Change. 43 (2–3): 149–173. doi:10.1007/s10611-005-1717-8. ISSN   0925-4994. S2CID   144284539.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Ashworth, Laurence; Free, Clinton (August 26, 2006). "Marketing Dataveillance and Digital Privacy: Using Theories of Justice to Understand Consumers' Online Privacy Concerns". Journal of Business Ethics. 67 (2): 107–123. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9007-7. ISSN   0167-4544. S2CID   143800212.
  11. 1 2 3 Tsesis, Alexander (2014). "The Right to Erasure: Privacy, Data Brokers, and the Indefinite Retention of Data". Scientific American. 49: 433–484 – via HeinOnline.
  12. ↑ Ragnedda, Massimo (January 1, 2015). "Electronic surveillance on Social Networking Sites. A critical case study of the usage of SNSs by students in Sassari, Italy". Studies in Communication Sciences. 15 (2): 221–228. doi:10.1016/j.scoms.2015.05.001.
  13. 1 2 3 Gomer, R.C. (2014). The Grey Web: Dataveillance Vision Fulfilled Through the Evolving Web.
  14. ↑ IBM Center for The Business of Government (October 25, 2013). "Predictive Policing—Preventing Crime with Data and Analyticcs". Slideshare. Retrieved October 10, 2017.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  15. 1 2 Clarke, Roger (2003). "Dataveillance - 15 years on". Privacy Issues Forum. 28.
  16. ↑ Peers, Nick. "Firefox Focus 2.0 - Internet Tools - Downloads". PC Advisor. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
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