By Neil Patrick
In my last post I described the rise of surveillance capitalism. I also promised to provide some thoughts about how we can protect and grow our career prospects in an age where big data is deciding what we get to see, what sort of people we are and what we want.
The terrifying thing about this is that without our consent, algorithms are deciding on behalf of others what we deserve. It’s an Orwellian universe in which we are pawns, valued, categorised and ranked according to our digital footprints.
If you think I am being sensationalist, then I present Google founder, Larry Page’s disclosure of the corporation’s totalitarian ambitions as reported in Harvard Professor, Shoshana Zuboff’s earth-shattering new book, ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism; the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power’.
As Zuboff says, “Page portrays Google’s totalistic ambitions as a logical consequence of its perfection of society. From his point of view, we should all welcome the opportunity…to willingly subordinate all knowledge and decisions to Google’s plan.”
And people are at the centre of this bid for god-like power. Page said, “…we have to understand the things you could buy, and…we have to understand anything you might search for. And people are a big thing you might search for. We’re going to have people as a first-class object in search…”
In other words, Google sees its collection of data about people, including you and I, as central to its mission to change the world into a shape of its liking. I don’t know about you, but I consider this a very poor deal – I provide every piece of information about myself to a corporation over which I have no influence in exchange for some digital apps and services. Thanks Larry, but no thanks.
If like me, you’d rather not submit to this assumption of control over your essential human rights to privacy, then what follows are my initial thoughts on reasserting some sort of control rather than sleepwalking into enslavement.
I cannot provide a bullet proof set of rules which guarantee results. At best, what follows is what I consider to be sensible practices for damage limitation. Any thoughts and additions others can provide will be extremely welcome in the comments section. Or contact me through LinkedIn or Twitter and I’ll do my best to add any contributions by means of updates to this post.
My thoughts and recommendations:
Assume everything you do online will be stored insecurely and shared
Plenty of data collectors and users will argue that they never share data. The truth is that even if they do not, there are so many loopholes within current data protection rules that the only safe assumption is that everything we do which involves an internet connection is visible to someone somewhere and those people likely don’t care much about our privacy.
Assume that you are a brand
Personal branding has been around for a while now. And it generally sucks in my opinion. It’s a spin off from social media culture in which individuals seek to market themselves with a view to securing fame and fortune. So I’m not talking about that. What I mean is that if you think of yourself as a brand, you’ll be less likely to do something which devalues your brand. Examples are easy and obvious – putting pictures of yourself onto social media which present you in a dubious light; expressing political opinions online; attacking others online – all these are brand damaging and will consequently have adverse career impacts.
Don’t let your rights to free speech work against you
On the one hand I place high value on free speech, on the other, what price am I personally prepared to pay to exercise my rights to say what I think without restraint? Each person must make that decision for themselves, it’s not for me to say what you can and cannot do. My belief is that we should never say or do anything online which others could perceive negatively.
Align yourselves with others online who will reflect well on you
I am the first to admit I am especially interested in what less likeable people think and say. It’s the social media equivalent of watching horror movies. But if you choose to follow a load of people online who have less than admirable credentials, you can safely assume this will do your career prospects no favours. So choose your online friends carefully.
Support your online community and put others first
Whatever field you are in, it pays to show that you care about the other people who are in it. As Dale Carnegie said, 'You can make more friends in two months by being interested in other people than in two years of trying to get people interested in you.' In the social media age, this means investing more effort in sharing, liking and commenting on others' content than pushing your own.
Give your apps and subscriptions a makeover
Assume that every social media platform you are on and every app you use will be discoverable. Anything which a professional contact might consider shows you in a negative light should be unsubscribed or removed.
Check the permission settings on your mobile phone and turn off location tracking
One of latest revelations is that Google Android phones track location even when this is turned off, they claim to enable core phone functionality. My guess is that even when our phones are turned off, location tracking is working at some level. So turning this off, won’t completely shut it down, but it should reduce the incidence of unwanted ‘help’.
Review the settings on your home assistance devices such as Cortana, Siri and Alexa
If possible disable any non-on-command voice recording.
Last but not least, think about what you post online and how your boss or employer now or in the future would interpret it
Assume everything you post online is visible to everyone. You have to care about this. Free speech is important but does your belief in it warrant the potential sacrifice of your career opportunities?
It’s your call and these steps cannot give you complete control, but I hope they help preserve a little more of your personal privacy, autonomy and prospects. All comments and additions will be welcome in the comments below.
P.S. My good friend Marcia LaReau has been hard at work already with her solutions for jobseekers to this problem. You can listen to her short Vlog commentary about this here.
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