Surveillance capitalism and DCIM

In her book “Surveillance Capitalism,” Harvard scholar Shoshana Zuboff describes how some software and service providers have been collecting vast amounts of data, with the goal of tracking, anticipating, shaping and even controlling the behavior of individuals. She sees it as a threat to individual freedom, to business and to democracy.

Zuboff outlines the actions, strategies and excesses of Facebook, Google and Microsoft in some detail. Much of this is well-known, and many legislators have been grappling with how they might limit the activities of some of these powerful companies. But the intense level of this surveillance extends far beyond these giants to many other suppliers, serving many markets. The emergence of the internet of things (IoT) accelerates the process dramatically.