Every time you log in to Facebook, every time you click on your news feed, every time you like a photo, every time you send anything via messenger, every time you use your credit card, you add another data point to the galaxy they already have regarding you and your behavior.
Apple and Google collects various user data including search history, location, and voice searches to help improve its services and provide relevant ads.
What’s interesting is the notion that Facebook or Google might be able to paint an extraordinarily accurate pointillist picture of you, with all the data points you give them! Your phone can tell whether you’re depressed. Algorithms are already being used to judge our character and can determine whether your relationship or job situation is in trouble based on your collective social graph.
And they can filter what you see or should see, of course. Like ‘everyone will know’ described in a recent article in the Washington Post.
Did you consider the possibility that human data will in a near future act as an X-ray revealing things about yourself that you thought was your secret or clearly didn't know? Which in turn raises fascinating and disturbing ethical questions, what if Google's extended neural networks predict, based on your behavior, that you’re going to commit an attack of some kind? What do you think NSA or similar organisations will do...?
