Catholics and Surveillance Capitalism
Ascending Bookstacks #4 - Thinking with "Privacy is Power" (2021) by Carissa Véliz
Tech privacy news is everywhere—and we may be numb to it.
Apple plans to spy on every iPhone? With nothing to hide, there’s nothing to fear!
An Israeli company hacks phones for authoritarian governments? If you’re not a journalist or activist, there’s probably nothing to worry about!
Spotify plans to record and analyze audio of your entire day? Alexa and Google Nest already do? Thank goodness you’ll have better ads.
In Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data (2021), ethicist Carissa Véliz warns that losing individual privacy constitutes a collective crisis. She argues that a humane future depends on restoring privacy—and that it’s not too late to do so.
The Privacy Problem
Véliz argues that each individual is “a source of power” in the form of data. Every day, most of us produce personal data—location pings, browsing behaviors, biometric prints, purchase histories, and so on—that corporations and governments turn into the “power to forecast and influence” how we use our bodies and voices, how we behave across relationships, and how we vote. This “power to forecast and influence” grows exponentially when combined with data from millions of other user-citizens. Privacy, by extension, cuts such power from corporations and governments and “gives power to the people.”
So, when do we lose privacy? Véliz opens Privacy is Power with a surveillance day-in-the-life—and boy, do we hemorrhage data: from toasters to TVs, location trackers in apps to facial recognition software at grocery stores. Surveillance is so prevalent that we don’t notice it anymore. Véliz observes how it’s now normal for our phones and speakers listen, for our doorbells to watch, for our watches to monitor, for our apps to spy—all by default. Yet this level of surveillance is usually reserved for criminals. Here’s Véliz:
. . . the level of intrusion, the geotracking as if you had an electronic bracelet attached to your ankle, the forcefulness of it all . . . At least when the police arrest you they allow you to remain silent . . . In the surveillance society, your data is used against you all the time.
Surveillance didn’t just happen. Véliz discusses three developments that, together, imperiled privacy: “the discovery that personal data resulting from our digital lives could be very profitable, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and the mistaken belief that privacy was an outdated value.”
Beginning in the early 2000s, Google forged a new business model—surveillance capitalism—that profited by surveilling and modifying users’ behaviors. Simultaneously, the United States government developed mass, dragnet surveillance programs in response to terrorism. These corporate and federal initiatives would have, at other times, sparked outrage—but they hit society at a moment when we no longer collectively valued privacy. Instead, we bought these measures as new conveniences and reassuring security.
Why We Need Privacy
In theory, one might still respond, does it matter? So what if Google, Facebook, or the government sees what I’m up to and shares it with their friends. I’m not that interesting!
Early pandemic, I got into a heated discussion with an acquaintance about masking. (This connects, I promise). I don’t have to wear a mask, they said, I’ll take responsibility for my own health, thank you, and I bear no responsibility for yours. Their logic fell short, however, when considering that a mask primarily filters what you exhale, not what you inhale. It only works when everyone is on-board because, when a majority of people mask, they collectively prevent themselves from infecting others. Mutual protection achieved.
Privacy functions similarly. “Since we are all intertwined in ways that make us vulnerable to each other,” Véliz explains, “we are partly responsible for others’ privacy.” If you take your privacy seriously, but I have the app or smart speaker that records every word, then we’re not having a private conversation. If I tag you in a Facebook photo—or even uploads the photo to a social platform—then Clearview AI and their clients have your face-print. If both of us are chill with corporate and government surveillance, then what happens to activists, journalists, and whistleblowers?
Outlining her case for privacy, Véliz writes:
We need you to protect your privacy so that we can regain our autonomy and freedom as a society. Even if you don't feel strongly about your own personal data, we—your family and friends, your fellow citizens, your fellow human beings around the world—need you to keep it safe, because privacy is a collective endeavor.
Finally, Véliz argues, our current “culture of exposure” primes us “for an authoritarian takeover.” To illustrate, Véliz points to the consequences of population data collected before World War II. Aided by IBM punch-card systems, the Dutch had kept meticulous records of citizens’ religious affiliations and other qualities. The French, in contrast, did not. After invading the Netherlands, the Nazis inherited extensive information about every Jew in the country—data they then weaponized with mass arrests, deportations, and exterminations. In France, however, the Nazis had to build this data from scratch. A few French bureaucrats refused to cooperate and, instead, poisoned the data to save lives.
That history, Véliz explains, lends moral gravity to personal data collection in the present:
To get a sense of just how dangerous personal data is, imagine a contemporary regime similar to the Nazis, having real-time data of your location, your face print, your gait, your heartbeat, your political beliefs, your religious background, and much more.
Privacy in the present empowers our unknown future to be humane.
The Privacy Action Plan
After summarizing recent data abuses by corporations and governments, Véliz concludes her book by sharing concrete tactics and strategies for regaining privacy. I loved this section—partly because it was personally affirming, but also because these tangible measures are doable.
Véliz suggests individuals adopt an array of privacy methods and tools. There are behavioral methods, like avoiding online over-sharing and being conscientious about others’ privacy, as well as digital applications and services. Rather than using Gmail or Yahoo, for example, you could encrypt your emails with Tutanota or Protonmail. Rather than messaging over text, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger, you could easily encrypt messages with Signal. You could browse the web with Brave, Firefox (with some bonus tweaks), Vivaldi, or Tor instead of just gifting Google data with Chrome. You could secure your passwords with a password manager, use a VPN, refuse to share unnecessary information, and so on.
In 2014, technology scholar Shoshana Zuboff called these kinds of individual measures “counter-declarations” that create “friction.” We cannot individually deconstruct Google or single-handedly dismantle NSA mass surveillance—we need new laws and norms for that. Yet we can shed light on privacy transgressors by refusing to cooperate. In Zuboff’s words:
When we encrypt, we acknowledge the reality of the thing we are trying to evade. Rather than undoing that reality, encryption ignites an arms race with the very thing it disputes . . . I am not critical of counter-declarations. They are necessary and vital. We need more of them. But the point I do want to make is that counter-declarations alone will not stop this train. They run a race that they can never win. They may lead to a balance of power, but they will not in and of themselves construct an alternative to surveillance capitalism.
To that end, Véliz also addresses collective strategies toward durable privacy. She primarily suggests political activity. We should pressure governments to: end personalized advertising; regulate data collection (not just data use); ban certain surveillance technologies; redesign antitrust frameworks; impose data fiduciary duties on companies; and adopt new cybersecurity standards.
Finally, Véliz admonishes her readers to maintain a critical awareness about privacy during crises. Speaking directly to the coronavirus pandemic, she suggests that “no app can be a substitute for our medical needs.” Rather, Véliz recommends that governments focus on mass testing and health services over digital tracking programs. Emergencies should not abolish privacy standards. Indeed, “One of the dangers of appealing to threats such as terrorism and epidemics to justify privacy invasions,” Véliz warns, “is that those threats are never going away.”
Privacy is Power exemplifies defiance before overwhelming odds. In closing the book, Véliz commends us to “Refuse the unacceptable.” I couldn’t agree more.
So Why Does The Church Care, Again?
In my reading, Catholics can approach digital privacy from two angles. Firstly, the Church calls Catholics to responsible stewardship. Secondly, Popes Benedict and Francis have written about how internet attention-economies deadens us to our neighbors’ needs, our own souls, and our relationship with Christ in the world. I think both of these points tie into how Véliz defines and defends privacy.
Technological Stewardship
Véliz distinguishes between natural and digital worlds—casting the latter as artificial and “unnatural.” Yet environmental historians would argue the contrary—that nature exists in our devices’ electrons, circuit-boards, and screens. We need to naturalize the technological world. And in a Catholic reading, stewarding nature covers servers and forests alike.
In Laudato Si, Pope Francis writes that good stewardship is an act of co-creation with God:
Developing the created world in a prudent way is the best way of caring for it, as this means that we ourselves become the instrument used by God to bring out the potential which he himself inscribed in things: “The Lord created medicines out of the earth, and sensible man will not despise them” (Sir 38:4).
The computer I’m writing on is just an assembly of metals and minerals extracted from the earth (as well as chemicals derived from pigs). The Lord created that computer “out of the earth,” and we co-create the “medicines” of online counseling and streaming Sunday Masses.
We also abuse digital gifts. Companies addict people to screens, manipulate fundamental decision-making processes, and drive social polarization for profit. Cultural scholar Raymond Williams once wrote that, when people say “the conquest of nature,” they really mean “the conquest, the domination or the exploitation of some men by others.” When tech companies like Google claim to conquer inconvenience, or surveillance agencies like the NSA claim to conquer fear—through technology—they really are using a form of nature, which we are called to steward, to dominate people. Rather than stewarding technology toward human flourishing, surveillance corporations and governments turn us into subjects of technological profit and power.
In that sense, the Second Vatican Council’s slightly-dated guidance on social social communications still holds true. Big tech wasn’t a problem during the council’s early 1960s sessions, but they did issue a statement on the media—Inter Mirifica (1963). The document commended that Catholics “instill a human and Christian spirit into [television, radio, and newspapers], so that they may fully measure up to the great expectations of mankind and to God’s design.” By extension, Catholics are called to labor in digital fields.
In Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote—and I’m paraphrasing here because my copy is back home—that our technological capacity has outpaced our ethical capacity. We develop technologies according to can, not should. Ratzinger called Catholics to enter that breach, to stir society’s conscience about technological ethics. Company X or government Y could use technology for Z, but being good stewards means deliberating on the should.
Divine Attention
Modern technology also has the tendency to steal attention from Christ and the poor. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis observes that:
We are living in an information-driven society which bombards us indiscriminately with data – all treated as being of equal importance – and which leads to remarkable superficiality in the area of moral discernment. In response, we need to provide an education which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.
Instead of forming tangible relationships with our neighbors and environments, we often hit refresh. Yet rather than doomscrolling for newsfeed-dopamine-hits, Francis argues that Christian attention should seek and manifest Christ’s presence among vulnerable people and endangered places.
In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI recognized that “technological society has succeeded in multiplying occasions of pleasure, yet has found it very difficult to engender joy.” Compulsive pleasure-seeking is innately entangled with what Véliz calls a “culture of exposure.” Surveillance capital firms use personal data to manipulate our brains’ pleasure and reward circuits. If we can restore privacy and deny surveillance capitalists access to personal data, then (ideally) we also reduce their ability to hijack our attention. In that sense, restoring digital privacy is arguably necessary to what Francis terms a “culture of care.”
I think Christians may be called to digital asceticism—which could, as a result, repair privacy. Near the beginning of Laudato Si, Pope Francis considers Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople’s analysis of consumerism. Bartholomew calls for “asceticism” that “entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what God’s world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion.” I think the patriarch’s words translate directly to the digital world. Giving up Twitter, trimming down our data footprints, and learning to protect privacy takes work. Yet rather than stranding us in a digital desert (what even is a milk-crate challenge?), I think that practicing digital privacy is a hopeful act of love.
If we reorient our attention from our screens, perhaps we can meditate with Thomas Merton, a mid-twentieth century Trappist monk:
. . . it is God’s love that warms me in the sun and God’s love that sends the cold rain. It is God’s love that feeds me in the bread I eat and God that feeds me also by hunger and fasting. It is the love of God that sends the winter days when I am cold and sick, and the hot summer when I labor and my clothes are full of sweat: but it is God Who breathes on me with light winds off the river and in the breezes out of the wood.
Hopeful Coda
One last thing.
In recent posts I’ve thought a lot about large economic and environmental problems. They can be overwhelming, especially if paths to change seem unlikely. What if we don’t fix them? What does success even look like?
I think it’s important to note that, as Catholics, we shouldn’t measure ourselves by conquering problems. We are called to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, yes, but we don’t control the outcomes.
No environmental condition, economic system, or digital platform can keep us from becoming saints. Whether we are free or disenfranchised, whether we live amid famine or plenty, we can always respond to Christ’s call to relationship. “No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful,” Francis reassures us in Laudato Si, “or our God-given ability to respond to his grace at work deep in our hearts.”
So take heart. Pray. Maybe encrypt more. And don’t worry.
Per usual, I really liked writing this week’s post. I hope you enjoyed the journey too.
Let me know your thoughts about privacy and technology in the comments!
See you tomorrow.
Non-exhaustive bibliography of recent privacy books:
Maria Eriksson, Rasmus Fleischer, Anna Johansson, Pelle Snickars, and Patrick Vonderau, Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music (2019)
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (2019)
Jill Lepore, If / Then: How the Simumatics Corporation Invented the Future (2020)
Jessica Bruder and Dale Maharidge, Snowden’s Box: Trust in the Age of Surveillance (2020)
Joseph Turow, The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet (2021)
Jillian York, Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism (2021)
Alec MacGillis, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America (2021)
If you prefer movies instead, The Social Dilemma is available on YouTube until the end of September. Check it here.
And, if you prefer podcasts, I would 10/10 recommend Your Undivided Attention, Under CTRL, and Lock and Code.
I didn’t know that the book of Sirach was catholic canon. I love the article! As you know I’m a Luddite and believe that we, as a species, we’re not mature enough to attain the technological achievement of the internet. When corporations and governments utilize the laziness or ignorance of its customers and citizens to gain profit or control, it’s time to quit all connections and gain personal control of our overstimulated brains! I wish I had the strength to be a true ascetic and a natural steward!