The Eye Among Us: The Surveillance of Technology and Social Media

Jiaqi Gao

2023032365

Yorkville University

ENGL101

Professor Dr. ED Shekari

June 16, 2023

“The Big Brother is watching you!” is a poster in George Orwell’s book “1984”. Throughout

the book, there isn’t a person called “Big Brother.” Instead it’s more of a symbol rather than a
real person, a symbol of dictatorship, a symbol of totalitarianism, and a symbol of endless

surveillance among the people. It is interesting that this was once used to describe the

Communist Bloc, more accurately the Soviet Union. However, nowadays we see more of this

surveillance in our daily life and no one talks about it. Some may argue that surveillance is

something that prevents crime before it even starts, but from my perspective, the harm of this

technological evolution is threatening the nobles like you and me, from face recognition,

personal information storage, and personalised advertisement.

Face recognition is something that isn’t new these days, these days the traffic cameras are all

linked to the Crime Division of the Department of Justices. The majority of the tasks of these

cameras are for traffic control or basic filmings, until something suspicious turns up.

According to the Interpol, “Almost 1,500 terrorists, criminals, fugitives, persons of interest or

missing persons have been identified since the launch of INTERPOL’s facial recognition

system at the end of 2016” (Facial Recognition, Interpol, n.d.). This is a stunning record in

any case, in which so many potential threats have been stopped in our daily life, but there is

something missing from here, the privacy of our own. Some may argue that this is more

important than our privacy, because we are only given out some of our facial details but

stopping so many crimes that could happen around us. This idea of giving up a small piece of

cost in exchange for a bigger cause isn’t wrong, but what if this becomes a normal thing? Just

imagine, what if in one day, all the cameras which are linked to the internet start cooperating

with the criminal department or other crime prevention units, isn’t that terrifying? “Innocent

people could be placed on secret watchlists without due process, meaning they could be spied

on, blacklisted in multiple stores, and even denied food shopping. This use of facial

recognition technology is deeply chilling and we urge the public to boycott the Southern Co-

op whilst it continues to spy on shoppers” (Madeleine Stone, 2022, [Is facial recognition a
threat to privacy? By Chloe Olivia Sladden] Para. 14) Live stream to the officer or other AI

which will definitely be saved and catalogued into your personal information storage. No

matter if you committed a crime or not, your facial data will always be there, letting the

government know where you’ve been and what you have done.

Personal information storage is something I mentioned earlier. It’s a digital or physical

storage of personal information, including health status, race, nationality, age, criminal

history, fingerprints, etc. These informations will be collected by the Privacy Department or

third party company in the use of setting up personal data catalogues, and will be used to

track down each individual. Well there are pros and cons to collecting these informations, the

good thing is when there is an incident which involves the death of civilians and no family

members can be reached out, the police department can track down the dead person’s

fingerprints and medical record in order to notify or mark the person is deceased. No matter

how convenient this database is, there are still threats to personal privacy, since first hand

personal data is collected by places like hospitals and other civilian used facilities, their

database might be a chance of leaking or being cyber attacked, which will result in the

leaking of personal health data and could be used on attacking individuals. Some may say

that isn't that government oversighting? Should we even worry about this? The answer is yes,

the government doesn't really have as much power as we thought. In fact, according to the

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, personal information retention and disposal

is more likely a cooperation between private groups and the government. Which sounds

promising when there is government oversight. The fact is, the government doesn't have

much power on regulating how long the private group can keep this information. The

Principle 5 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)

states and I quote that “personal information that is no longer required to fulfil the identified
purposes should be destroyed, erased, or made anonymous. Organisations shall develop

guidelines and implement procedures to govern the destruction of personal information”

(PIPEDA, 2000, S.C. c. 5). This article states that the guidelines are being developed and

regulated only by the private sectors, no regulation from the government is provided. Which

means, if there’s someone inside the company who wants to gain advantage on someone

within their database, the government won’t even notice until this victim filed a complaint.

Social media is a very useful tool rather than entertainment in

current daily life, countless trades have been made in Facebook

Marketplace, number of families talk to each other across

continents with Whatsapp, innumerable photos related to recent

incidents are shared in Instagram and Twitter. People often say

that technology changed the way of our life, but from what I see,

the technology not only changed the way of life, it also changed

the way people see their privacy when using social media. There’s

something that people might not notice that their browsing data is

being shared between these apps, and maybe some other apps that

they haven’t used yet. For example, when people are watching a

Tik-tok video or a YouTube Short video, when they scroll down the

screen there is a great chance the video that pops up is related to

the topic from above or from the same video maker. People might

say that this is what media should do or meant to do, but this is

also a less harmful way of violating personal privacy without

telling the users. First, what is eye tracking? Eye tracking was

first introduced in the early 1900s, but that was just an attempt to
study reading back then. The modern eye tracking was first being

used by researchers in the 1980s, it was meant to test the

efficiency of the advertisement. For several years now, many

internet companies have invented their own facial/eye tracking

system in order to assess user’s behaviour when using their

product. But how they do that, according to research, “The

autonomic nervous system triggers various involuntary responses

during emotions, such as fear or arousal. Some research suggests

that pupil dilation is one of these involuntary responses to

arousal or attraction” （MedicalNewsToday, April 30, 2018 [Dilated

pupils meaning: Is it a sign of love?] Para.16). This means when the

social media has access to the camera, they can easily use the

cameras to track down the movements of the pupils then the

artificial intelligence will automatically calculate if the current

video is attractive to the viewer or not, if so the video platform

will send out more videos alike. In this case, it seems that both the

company and viewers are gained from this technology, but this

gives the companies that share information or sell people’s

personal favourites for profits. The browser we used in our daily

life also shares the history with other cooperative companies,

“Cookies” is how they call them, it’s more like a digital trace that

leads the companies to find where have you been and what have you

purchased, even with incognito mode, we are still exposed to

companies like Google and other website provider companies.

Is there no benefit at all with all these technologies that are watching what we are doing? The

answer is no, after all the pros and cons are balanced in people’s daily life. The facial

recognition system provides security in people’s daily life, the crime is being prevented even

before it starts. “It’s of obvious value for these police officers to know that person is there so

that if another bomb threat is made they can deal with it accordingly. We say a fair balance

has been struck.” said by the barrister. (The Guardian, May 22, 2019 [Facial recognition tech

prevents crime, police tell UK privacy case] Para.19) If people are missing it will be much

easier to find with the traffic cameras on the street. The personal database provides the

government with a more efficient working environment which allows agents to check up each

individual’s status with only one click. Nevertheless, the eye-tracking in social media and

other shopping platforms provides more interesting items which might be related to the

previous item that people purchased, saves time from browsing and finding the one that

people are looking for. Customised videos can entertain people to the next level.

As we evolve, we must be proactive in protecting our privacy. Balancing the benefits of

technological advancement with the freedom to protect individual privacy requires policy

innovation. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that protecting individual privacy is not

only the responsibility of policymakers and industry players, but also requires societal

attitudes and behaviours. collective transformation. Educating individuals about potential

risks and empowering them with the knowledge and tools to make informed decisions about

their privacy is critical. Through legislation to regulate the collection of personal information

by third-party companies, and conduct open and transparent government speech to ensure the

use of personal information and how the government will not abuse and protect personal

privacy.
 Reference

1) Facial recognition. INTERPOL. (n.d.).

https://www.interpol.int/How-we-work/Forensics/Facial-Recognition

2) Sladden, C. O. (2022, August 10). Is facial recognition a threat to privacy?. Verdict.

https://www.verdict.co.uk/is-facial-recognition-a-threat-to-privacy/

3) Principle 5 – Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention. Schedule 1, clause 4.5.3,

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, 2000, S.C. c. 5

[PIPEDA].

4) MediLexicon International. (2018, April 30). Dilated pupils meaning: Attraction and

mood. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/dilated-

pupils-meaning#attraction

5) Guardian News and Media. (2019, May 22). Facial Recognition Tech prevents crime,

police tell UK privacy case. The Guardian.

 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/22/facial-recognition-prevents-

crime-police-tell-uk-privacy-case

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