Day THree - The Surveillance Shoe. ARR


Your workplace sends you a pair of smart shoes it would like you to wear as a condition of employment. Each shoe has sensors in it that track your location, activity, weight, and social proximity (who you are standing near or walking by). It also detects air quality and viruses like SARS-CoV-2.

If more relevant to you, imagine that your kid is given and asked to wear a similar smart shoe as a condition of attending their school. Or, that your local government is giving away the shoes for free as part of a public health strategy.

What actions do you take in the first 5 minutes after being informed of the new “Smart shoe” policy?

Read the policy in detail. Look for where and how the data will be stored, what the data is allowed to be used for. How long the policy lasts. Do i have to war the shoes even off-work hours?That should take five minutes.

How do you feel?

My usual reaction - annoyance at the idea of surveillance, mixed with some resignation to how things are. 

What motivation do you ascribe to your employers (or the school, or the government)?

Always to monitor people - it rarely has anything to do with safety or 'your own good'. It's almost always a convenient excuse for gathering data - which can then be used for a variety of purposes. It's usually all right as long as things are going well, but the minute there's a sticky situation it could be used to harrass an employee. 

What do you predict other people might do when asked to wear these shoes?

Many may actually like the idea. Most will just comply - some complaining a bit louder than others. People in these situations have little choice.

What is one real action you could take in the new few days or weeks to feel more prepared for the first 5 minutes of this scenario, if it were really to happen?

There's not much to prepare for, really. Maybe read up on how companies have used similar surveillance tools in the past - both the good and bad examples of it to try and understand the issue deeper.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two : The Leak - ARR

Image
  You wake up one day and discover that a searchable database of all private messages sent in the past 5 years on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tinder, Google Chat and many other social platforms has been leaked online. It is being shared, downloaded, re-uploaded and replicated faster than anyone can block or delete it. What actions do you take in the first five minutes after hearing this news? Take great, deliberate effort to calm my mind - sit through all the racing thoughts, feelings and impulses. Probably for a lot longer than five minutes - I will shut off all my communication channels, unplug all devices, and sit alone for a few hours BEFORE taking any action. How do you feel? Mainly worried if there is anything in there that will hurt other people - mainly a few loved ones. Other than that, I don't see any major problem - I would worry about a few very specific situations. What possible explanations do you come up with for what’s going on? Who is responsible for the leak, an
Read more

Day One: The Shutdown - BX

You’re at home. You realize that the Internet is out. You have no cell phone service. If you check, you notice nothing is broadcasting on TV or radio. Even though the electricity is working, it’s as if all telecommunications have suddenly stopped. What actions do you take in the first five minutes after discovering this? I look out of the window. I check to see if there's a riot, a fire, an explosion - some visible reason why nothing seems to work. If I'm in Bangalore, I go downstairs to my Aunt's house to see what's happening there (I have to double check the locks before I leave, of course). If I'm in Hyderabad, I go outside to check on my parents. Basically, I'd want to know whether it's only happening to *me.*  How do you feel? Annoyed. Insecure. Worried. Having my comms blanked out would make me feel incredibly vulnerable and alone (even though I'd definitely be with people in both scenarios). I wouldn't be able to call the folks I'd want to
Read more

Day One : The Shutdown - ARR

  You’re at home. You realize that the Internet is out. You have no cell phone service. If you check, you notice nothing is broadcasting on TV or radio. Even though the electricity is working, it’s as if all telecommunications have suddenly stopped. What actions do you take in the first five minutes after discovering this? I'd just wait. For five minutes - I would do nothing at all - just wait to see if things return to normal. Maybe look outside my balcony to look for reactions on the street. After a longer while, I might walk outside to see if other people are experiencing the same thing, walk down the street and observe. Walk up to my brother's place and then maybe chat with him. How do you feel? Mainly curious. Wondering what's going on. What possible explanations do you come up with for what’s going on? Some kind of gestalt disturbance in the airwaves can be the only possible explanation for ALL telecom going out simultaneously. I wouldn't speculate - but cosmic ac
Read more