Week 4

 "Seeing Ourselves Through Technology"

One thing I couldn't look over in this reading is how Rettberg illustrates how seamlessly surveillance has threaded itself into everyday life. She traces surveillance all the way back to when it was used as a tool of social order, such as early identification documents, and how that has turned into something far more invasive with digital technology's rising power. What may appear as simple data collection, quickly turns into a method of control. This ties back to Foucault's idea of panopticism, Rettberg highlights the idea that even if we don't know when or if we are being watched, the possibility of us being monitored shapes our behaviors. Our phones, social media accounts, and even platforms we use for work or school remind us that our actions leave a trace, and that trace can be easily accessed.

Rettberg mentions the troubling reality of data rights. Some countries have stronger protections, but in North American users often trade away their privacy without realizing it. Just with downloading an app and using it, we agree to terms that give organizations a concerning amount of power over our personal information. But what is even more concerning is the permanence of this data. Rettberg warns that children today will graduate with a digital footprint larger than any generation that came before them. Even though there is a chance that laws evolve, there is little people can do to truly erase this data.

I found Rettbergs description of "dataveillance" especially striking. In contrast to traditional surveillance that relied on visual observation like cameras, guards, etc, dataveillance works invisibly. When users click, post, or swipe we are feeding into systems that collect this information and build detailed profiles of who we are. While it can be argued that these profiles are useful for improving platforms or catching fraud, Rettberg emphasizes the dark side. The idea that companies are primarily using them to predict and influence consumer behavior. Very similar to Marwick's idea, we are not just being watched, but are being shaped and sold back to ourselves.

It seems everyone knows that companies take information from us, and no one seems to care. As the shift from visual surveillance to dataveillance increases, and the systems become more invisible, the less it gets questioned.