Behind the scenes of everyday surveillance: who is watching you and how

From your smart home to the streets, Cybernews explores how everyday surveillance is quietly shaping our lives, raising crucial questions about privacy, technology, and personal freedom.

Nearly four years have passed since the European Parliament opposed automated recognition behavioral policing and scoring of its citizens. However, the constant tracking from our devices, websites, social media platforms, CCTV, and even your employer might be leaving you feeling like you are trapped inside a personalized version of the Truman Show.

As you sleep, your preferred voice-activated assistant quietly waits for your next word. Siri, Alexa, Google, and Cortana are just a few digital assistants that must be permanently listening out for keywords so they can immediately provide you with the information you need. But have you ever stopped to think about the scale of who else is watching or listening to you?

Surveillance starts at home

A Ring Doorbell packed with third-party trackers will let you know when anyone enters or leaves your home. But it has also been known to expand its surveillance capabilities by partnering with 400 police forces.

Elsewhere, your home's smart appliances will gather data about every move you make inside your home.

What the sales blurb doesn't tell you about the best smart home gadgets is that information captured by everything from the heart rate monitor on your watch to your washing machine could be used against you by digital forensics teams should you ever find yourself accused of a crime.

The workplace is always watching

As a law-abiding and hard-working citizen, you don't need to worry about anything. From the moment you login to your corporate laptop when working from home, productivity tools might be monitoring every keystroke and mouse movement while taking screenshots to ensure you are working when you are supposed to be.

Analysts predict this trend will continue, with at least seven out of ten American companies expected to use surveillance tools by 2025. Assuming your partner is not using AirTags to monitor your every move or installed stalkerware on your phone, you can go rogue and get out outdoors and take a walk to the coffee shop for lunch.

Cameras and biometrics

While walking along the streets thinking about whether AI will take your job, you will be watched by dozens of CCTV cameras. According to the Streets Are Watching You report, advertisers are also analyzing pedestrians' biometrics, location, gender, and age demographics to create personalized ads on physical billboards.

Rather than taking your job, AI is much more likely to be used by your government to automate surveillance of its citizens on a massive scale. Whether this makes you feel safer or uneasy depends on your viewpoint and where this technology takes us.

In a world of chaos, you could be forgiven for thinking that ensuring that the bad guys take responsibility for their actions is a good thing. You might even repeat the classic line: if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear, which ironically sounds incredibly Orwellian in an age where every step of our digital footprint is tracked.

The risks of facial recognition

Worryingly, data from the Met and South Wales reveals more than 85% inaccuracies and that over 3,000+ people have been wrongly identified by police facial recognition in the UK. When the sci-fi tales from Philip K. Dick about predictive policing and pre-crime algorithms go from science fiction to reality, maybe we should fear what could happen if we mistakingly became a person of interest.

There have been increasing examples of men, women, and people of color being arrested after being mistakingly identified by facial recognition for crimes such as shoplifting. How would you react if Big Tech pointed the finger of blame in your direction?

Still, life is good right now, and you find yourself flying to New York to see your favorite band at the weekend. Whether it's boarding your plane or clearing passport control, facial recognition will be the ticket taking you to your destination. Behind the scenes, a DHS Biometric Identity Management System can retain your image for up to 75 years.

Last year, Madison Square Gardens hit the headlines for using face algorithms to deny entry to people on its exclusion list. This included people it classed as its enemies, such as a lawyer who represented people suing the group.

Everyday surveillance

While you are away, your bank will be monitoring your account and every transaction to monitor for fraud or money laundering. From the purchases you make, the data you hand over at the checkout will probably be shared and sold to businesses you've never dealt with.

Unfortunately, there is a good chance that even your favorite brands are monitoring everything you do, everywhere you go, and everyone you communicate with. Rather than rewarding your loyalty, this data could be used against you to make you pay more rather than less for your next purchase.

Surveillance pricing allows retailers to charge different prices for the same product to customers based on data from their browsing history, location data, and credit scores. This means that a group of shoppers could all be charged different prices for the same item depending on the data they have from watching them online.

After you finally return home and collapse in your favorite chair to unwind, you are not necessarily paranoid if you question whether you’re watching your TV or if it’s watching you. Some new smart TVs have cameras typically hidden in a bezel at the top of the TV screen, leaving many to think there is nowhere to hide from the watchful eye of cameras and algorithms.

If it increasingly feels like you are constantly being watched, there is probably a good reason. But as a good citizen, rest assured it's all for your safety and convenience.