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by heavyset_go 2157 days ago
> Your data and life are not special in any way. The government will never be interested in finding out about you, and if they really wanted to they could do it with ease, and definitely don't need an app to do it

And yet your data is valuable enough for multiple billion and trillion dollar companies to build massive infrastructure and markets to siphon your data away from you and sell it to the highest bidder.

We live in an unprecedented time where true mass surveillance is not only nearly free, it turns a profit. It costs a fraction of cent to record, transcribe and store the data you produce, so why not collect it? It's just a rounding error on some government agency's balance sheet.

The infrastructure is there. The data markets are there. The value of your data is there.

But most importantly, the evidence is there. In the last 20 years, governments have been caught using technology and private data to propagandize, suppress, persecute, blackmail, kill and even round people up into camps, like China does with its Uygher population[1].

Yes, you don't need an app to do this if you're a domestic government collecting your own citizens' data. But you might want an app if you're a government or business collecting data on foreign users.

Economic and military espionage and sabotage are incredibly valuable. If I was a nation-state, yes, I would like to have my app on foreign government workers' phones, the phones of foreign military members, the phones of professionals in competitive industries, the phones of family of friends of all of those people, and so on.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...

1 comments

That is in aggregate. Your data alone is worth maybe 0.1 cents. I just want people to know that they don't have to feel forced to make any personal choices about the apps they use, because they will not come after an average individual. It is your government's responsibility to protect the country from mass surveillance, not silly individualistic boycotts (at least, it should be that way).
Data might be bought and sold in aggregate when it comes to advertisers, but the data itself is rarely anonymized. There is ample evidence of, and case law that points to, governments using personal data and technology to spy, gather evidence, entrap, blackmail, etc.

Also, "don't worry, your personal data is being mined among millions of others' data to destabilize your society" isn't exactly comforting, either.