Written by: Sina Lack
Edited by: Margaux Smith
Surveillance infrastructure is increasingly being built into our environment and is becoming unavoidable part of our social, work and scholarly lives. Toronto’s Transit Commission is transferring over from a token and metro pass system, to one called “Presto” which allows for unprecedented collection of ridership data. The opening of a new hospital in Toronto’s west end (Humber River Hospital) was accompanied by similar claims that that patient experience would be improved by new digital infrastructure that allows administrators to analyze both stored and real-time data collected from individual patients and hospital employees. Our cities are changing in ways that will transform the way we move, study, work, date, and socialize. In each of these domains, it’s worth considering how information about us is being collected, organized and used by various parties. This reading guide introduces authors and filmmakers who examine data related issues from a variety of perspectives, drawing on various disciplines, including journalism, scholarship, fiction, film and popular essays.
In addition to a brief item description, each non-fiction entry in the reading guide contains a link to a curated selection of book reviews that provide readers with engaging perspectives allowing for informed reading decisions. Well written reviews by authors engaged and active in the relevant field are a great alternative or supplement to the good reads and amazon user reviews that are widely available.
For those who are living in Toronto, active links to Toronto Public library holdings are accessible through the highlighted titles. With the exception of three titles the rest are immediately available to be put on hold. Please follow the links embedded in the item titles.
Non-Fiction
| Author | Summary | Reviews |
| Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, and Kenneth Cukier (2014) | This book is written in the style of a popular essay. It provides a rough overview of big data initiatives and how increases in the magnitude of data available to researchers and business is going to significantly impact our lives | Review 1
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| The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information by Frank Pasquale (2015) | An important set of critical perspectives on the use of algorithms, Silicon valley corporate secrecy and the corresponding social, political and legal ramifications. Pasquale’s book introduces readers to some of the ways in which commerce, and especially advertising has transformed the ways that companies leverage user data. | Review 1
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| Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet by Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum,
Andy Muller-Maguhn, And Jeremie Zimmermann, (2012) |
This book is a conversational dialogue between Julian Assange and his fellow Cypherpunks about the future of the internet. The group discusses a variety of topics such as: the militarization of cyberspace, private sector spying, and mass-surveillance. | Review 1
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| No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald (2014) | The journalist Glenn Greenwald played an important role in the now infamous Snowden disclosures. “No Place to Hide” tells the story of how the documents were disclosed, distills the evidence of mass surveillance contained in the documents, and examines the media’s response in the aftermath. | Review 1
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| To Save Everything, Click here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, by Evgeny Morozov (2013) | Evgeny Morozov challenges the prevailing mindset, that the internet can fix everything and calls this internet centrism. His essays also elaborate on the follies of solutionism and instrumental thinking. In this regard he encourages his readers to scrutinize the way technological problems are presented and framed by tech companies. | Review 1
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| Weapons of Math Destruction by Kathy O’Neil (2016) | Kathy O’Neil identifies mathematical models and algorithms as increasingly important parts of everyday life and explores the risks of presenting computers and algorithms as neutral problem solving mechanisms. By using examples she illustrates the ways in which the technical systems of decision making we rely on are capable of reinforcing discrimination. Human flaws and biases are embedded into the design of algorithms. In language that is accessible, O’Neil examines how many important life-altering decisions are being made by algorithmically programmed systems, systems that unfortunately for a number of reasons people often do not have access to because they are most often proprietary and require a certain data-literacy to be understood | Review 1
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| The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (Forthcoming, August 2018) | Zuboff examines the ways that the institutional and corporate agents of the capitalist system are becoming increasingly concerned with tracking, monitoring and analyzing data with the aim to predict and modify human behavior as a means to produce revenue and market control. Zuboff is concerned with the ties between surveillance and economic accumulation that undermines trust and create the conditions for perpetual compliance | TBP August 2018 |
| Surveillance after snowden by David Lyon (2015) | Lyon explores the impact of Snowden’s disclosures as well presenting dimensions of surveillance that are usually ignored. For instance he explores the way that we, the so-called users of social media often underemphasize our own role in being surveilled and surveilling others, in what he calls a “culture of surveillance.” | Review 1 |
| Becoming Digital: Towards a Post-Internet Society by Vincent Mosco (2017) | Vincent Mosco considers the possible social and political ramifications of the convergence of Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, and the Internet of Things – what he calls the Next Internet. He considers what the increasingly digital world make look like if economic power is further concentrated in the hands of few. He contrasts these dystopic prospects wtih a more optimistic alternative which sees the possibility of a new-kind of internet, where global connectivity is used to expand democracy, and empower people everywhere | Unavailable |
| Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security by Daniel J. Solove (2012) |
In Nothing to Hide, Daniel Solove scrutinizes some of the common assumptions that are made in the public debate about the respective weights of privacy and security. |
Review 1 |
| The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise of CCTV by Norris Clive, and Gary Armstrong (1999) | Today the term surveillance has become almost synonymous with the tracking of user activity online. Maximum Surveillance society, was published almost two decades ago, however, more than being a relic from the past, the book is a reminder of a system of surveillance that is still being used and some of its flaws | Review 1 |
| The Daily You: How the Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth. By Joseph Turow, , 2012. | Joseph Turow surveys the ways that online advertisers track internet users online and develop targeted advertising in response that shape user behavior. He looks specifically at the way that reduces the range of information to which consumer-citizens are exposed. | Review 1
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| Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. by Mayer-Schönberger, viktor. 2009. | Viktor Mayer-Schöberger, examines the complex problem of online data perpetuity and some of the consequences for individual indentity and social memory and politics | Review 1
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| No Place to Hide by
Robert O’Harrow Jr. (2005)
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The Washington post report Robert O’Harrow explores the nexus of government and corporate surveillance post 9/11. | Review 1
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Fiction
| The Machine Stops by E.M Forster (1909) | In The Machine Stops, in-person interaction rarely occurs, and people live underground in isolated rooms where all of their bodily and social needs are met through response by a machine. In Forester’s imagined future, existing outside of “the machine” is nearly impossible, and those who aspire to a different reality that doesn’t involve machine mediation are considered suspicious and are even criminalized. Given our current reality, this short novel now serves as a rich social commentary |
| Brave New World by Aldous Huxley’s (1932) | Huxley’s classic work presents a world where an oppressive regime controls a largely compliant population. Huxley anticipates the political malaise activated by hyper-stimulation and consumption, a world where where the population is distracted and consumed by perpetual rounds of entertainment. |
| Minority report by Philip K. Dick(1954) | Phillip K. Dick story about mutants that can foresee crime is evocative of.the predictive analytics that are now used to affect people’s life chances and classify individuals based on social markers. |
| Walkaway by Cory Doctorow (2017) | Walkaway is a science fiction story of a couple who go into a self-imposed exile from a surveillance state ruled by mega-rich elites. The novel imagines a near future where some of the most pressing issues of our time such as climate change and the consolidation of power are imagined in fairly relatable terms. |
| The Foundation Trilogy
By Isaac Asimov. (1951–53). |
Asimov’s classic science fiction trilogy explores the power of prediction. |
Feature Film and Documentary
| Citizenfour – Laura Poitras | The American Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras was ultimately the figure in which Snowden was able to entrust his disclosures. In Citizenfour we see the Snowden story from the inside, as it happens. |
| Risk – Laura Poitras | Under the auspices of Julian Assange Wikileaks has grown to be a powerful organization that exerts international influence. In Risk, Poitras gives us a portrait of both Assange and the Organization of Wikileaks. |
| Brazil by Terry Gilliam (1985) | Brazil tells the story of a man who works in a suffocating technological bureaucracy during the reign of an oppressive regime. This film offers an imaginative and nightmarish perspective on a dystopian future that is brought on by an over-reliance on machines |
| Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock (1954) | Hitchcock’s classic thriller about a injured and housebound news reporter touches on themes of surveillance and privacy as well as voyeurism |
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