Do Not Track is an interactive documentary series available for free online. In addition to being something to be viewed, we viewers provide Do Not Track with our own personal information as part of an ongoing experiment. We give Do Not Track information in order for us to better understand ourselves. The creators of the documentary series claim to collect data in order to personalize your viewing experience. Sure, that's true, but I think the bigger reason is so that they can learn more about their viewers. The site asks you to enter you email address and it also uses cookies to track your information. It also asks you for access to one of your social network sites for the sake of personalization. Truthfully, I felt uncomfortable giving all of my information to Do Not Track, but I did it anyway to see how it would personalize the experience for me.
There are 7 interactive episodes, and each episode has a specific theme and aim. Each episode goes through how our information is tracked online, what is done with those data, and how these data can affect us both individually and as a society. The interactive nature of the episodes keep viewers engaged and make you feel like your experience is truly being personalized for you and the data you are providing. Within each episode, you are given prompts in which you either answer questions or click on various parts of a graphic to learn more.
This was all fine and good until it asked me for my Facebook login information. I begrudgingly gave it, and then was "rewarded" by not having sufficient information to make any assumptions about my character and personality, which algorithms and mathematical modeling based on our "likes" on Facebook should be able to do. Part of me was relieved that they couldn't find enough info online about me to personalize the assumptions made about what type of person I am, since that probably means that I am not that active on social media. But another part of me was annoyed because now they had my Facebook profile information but there was no real "reward" for giving them my log in information. Since there wasn't enough information from my profile to make any assumptions or show me how my data could be used to figure out general personality characteristics of mine, they gave me information based on a 42-year-old male.
The example above llustrates how our "likes" on Facebook tell data scientists about our personality and can be used by companies to evaluate the risk in either giving us a mortgage, a life insurance policy or healthcare plan. Being married to a data scientist, this is not news to me, but I can see this as being eye-opening to many viewers. Computer modeling, experts tell us, does a way better job than we do at making predictions about ourselves. Algorithms of how you behave online tell businesses about your character and how likely you are to use/spend money, whether or not you are obese, if you are a smoker, and what your level of sexual promiscuity is, for example.
The series does a good job of bringing in experts and evaluating the pros and cons of all of this information being collected on us. Yes, there are pros.
But of course, there are also cons.
And there are many factors that drive the continued tracking of all of us online. I don't want to give too much away, since I think it is worth it for all of you to view the episodes for yourself. You have the option of viewing the episodes anonymously. Whether or not you want to give your information up to Do Not Track is up to you. Most of these data are used as statistics at the end of the documentary series.
It is an interesting time we live in when most of us get our news and information from our social networks, which contributes to a filtered version of our news that goes along with our "likes", the people we follow, and the types of posts we interact with. The news we get from social media backs up and justifies our beliefs instead of challenging them, and this puts us in an echo chamber where we end up having conversations online with like-minded people. What's more, the methods used by various companies and social media outlets to collect and analyze our information are also used by the National Security Agency (NSA) to track, profile and make assumptions about all of us. Edward Snowden brought to light just how much information our government collects on us and how, and allowed us to question whether or not that surveillance is constitutional. Following the Patriot Act, The USA Freedom Act was passed, which addressed the phone tapping concerns raised by Snowden's whistleblowing but didn't address the NSA’s collection of foreign internet content from U.S. tech companies or the NSA's exploitation of technology for the benefit of U.S. intelligence. Our government watches us under the guise of better safety and protection. Yet currently there is no evidence to support the notion that all this extra surveillance has made us any safer. Based on how viewers of Do Not Track have answered, we are faced with 3 possible ways our future could go.
Based on how I answered, it categorized me as someone who finds internet governance and digital privacy important.
And at the end of the series, we are given ways to take action and various websites and organizations to check out.
Also, with each episode, there are links to a blog and other online resources that go along with the particular topic of that episode.
Overall, I thought this documentary series was highly informative, and I thought the interactive nature of the website and each episode was great. I still was a little creeped out about sharing my information with Do Not Track (ironic, I know, given the name of the series), but thought it wasn't too big a price to pay. Otherwise I would have stayed anonymous. And I guess that's what it is really all about. How much of our data are we really willing to give up? If we are truthful with ourselves, the answer is "a lot." We use lots of free online services, and we pay for that with our personal data. Do Not Track makes you really think about that. At what point are we going to push for more privacy and be willing to pay for services out of our own pocket instead of with our data? At what point will we say that government surveillance has gone too far?
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