If you haven’t already, you may want to read part 1 of this series first.
In the first part of this series, we discussed the ways in which people experiencing poverty are subjected to higher levels of surveillance, especially in a work context. We also explored the idea that wealth, while not necessarily decreasing how much one is surveilled, impacts the control one has over their surveillance.
This section stays with the theme of poverty’s intersections with surveillance—but this time we take a look at online forms of surveillance. People experiencing poverty face numerous kinds of online surveillance, varying from brand loyalty programs to free wifi with less protections against hacking. Students who are seeking scholarships may be vulnerable to having their data collected from third-party websites, and the high price of home internet pushes people to use less-secure public wifi hotspots.
Loyalty Programs
If you’re Canadian, chances are you have a PC Optimum card. For our non-Canadian readers, this is a loyalty program that allows customers to collect ‘points’ when they make purchases at a variety of different stores across Canada, owned by Loblaws. Similar programs exist across the world—both for in-person and online retailers. While they may vary in the setup of the program (do you receive points or stars? Does accumulating points get you a discount, in-store cash, or a free item?) One thing remains similar to all: they’re “free”.
While these programs are technically free, brands have another motivation for offering discounts and points. And no, it’s not to increase customer loyalty, as they want us to believe. These programs are essentially a trade program—exchanging consumer data for lowered costs. There are two main issues with this: customers are not made aware of this exchange, and people experiencing poverty are more vulnerable to this form of mundane surveillance.
I have signed up for loyalty programs on a number of occasions. As a university student with a part-time job (and cost of living prices that are skyrocketing!), the allure of free stuff is often too good to turn down. As someone who is aware of the pervasiveness of mundane surveillance, I’ll admit that I don’t read the terms and conditions of the programs I sign up for. Many people are not aware of the fact that our data is being harvested through these programs—and signing up is giving them a green light to access our information, whether we read the T&C or not.
These programs have the potential to target lower-income populations. When the choice is between mundane surveillance but getting cheaper food, or not being surveilled and higher food costs, many will choose the loyalty program. Many more will not even have the option to choose—the difference could mean going hungry. On top of this, a Pew Research study found that lower-income households are more likely to find this arrangement acceptable.
Public Wifi
Wifi is expensive, and Canada has some of the most expensive internet prices in the world. Due to this, many are forced to turn to free public wifi in order to complete necessary tasks. Tasks like paying bills have largely shifted to online platforms. However, these are some of the riskiest online activities to do when using public wifi. For example, the US National Security Agency warns employees to not access any sensitive information when using public wifi. There are two main risks when using public wifi: data collection and hacking
Public wifi networks are available in stores, stations, and restaurants. However, many of these are owned by brands who can track your browsing history when using this public wifi. This data is useful for brands to collect on their customers. Knowing browsing habits is like peering into the mind of a person, and this is exactly what brands want in order to targets ads more effectively. Data collection is often a trade off that customers make (knowingly or otherwise) when they use free wifi.
There are also security issues that come with using public wifi. Unlike home wifi, the security of public networks is much more dubious. This means that if accessing sensitive information like online banking, bad agents can intercept this information and use it to gain access to things like financial information. If someone is only able to complete important tasks over public wifi, this increases the risk of their personal information being stolen.
Scholarship Websites
With the rising cost of tuition and living, more and more students are turning to scholarships to support them financially through their studies. While scholarships are generally good at not collecting and sharing personal data, the same cannot be said about privately-run websites that act as an index of available scholarships. Many of these websites collect student data and sell it to third parties, such as colleges and brands wanting to target ads to students.
Not only does this target an already-vulnerable population—young students—but it also has the potential to disproportionately affect students from low-income backgrounds, as scholarship websites offer access to needs-based bursaries. Many students rely partially or completely on financial support to fund their studies, and these predatory websites leverage this to collect their data. Similarly to loyalty programs, these websites often view this as a worthy trade off. However, we must question how this sort of surveillance and data collection targets historically surveilled populations, and how it encourages this surveillance to endure in the digital age.
Whether it be loyalty programs, unsecured public wifi, or scholarship websites, there is less privacy for populations experiencing poverty. This is not the only group that experiences these forms of surveillance, though. As we have seen, students are also more vulnerable to these forms of surveillance. Interestingly, surveillance is becoming more of the norm for everyone. We are now seeing the rise of “luxury surveillance“—pricey devices that collect data in exchange for an (often merely small) improvement in daily life. The era we are in marks a shift from the surveillance of the oppressed, to the surveillance of all. While people could once buy their way out of surveillance (which to an extent is still possible), we are now all inextricably tied to our devices. Devices which, because of their design, do not allow us to buy privacy.
Written by: Eden Solarik
Edited by: Lucas Wright
Featured Image: Created with Open AI’s DALL-E 2
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