
Trading privacy for survival is another tax on the poor - johnshades
https://www.fastcompany.com/90317495/another-tax-on-the-poor-surrendering-privacy-for-survival
======
gerbilly
This is like offering a discount on car insurance if you consent to having a
GPS tracker installed.[1]

It's voluntary for now, but the industry is hoping people get used to it so it
can be made effectively[2] mandatory.

And because people seem caught in race to the bottom competition to give up
the most privacy they can, stuff like this may regrettably catch on.

[1][http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/01/14/scenario-auto-
insuranc...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/01/14/scenario-auto-insurance-
discounts-and-monitoring/)

[2] Effectively mandatory meaning that insurance without a tracker will be
like 10x the price.

~~~
ip26
So, in your eyes, where should the privacy line be drawn? Is it OK the
insurance company knows the VIN number of your car, the make, the model, the
miles, the color, your name, age, address, credit score, credit card
information, marital status, how many miles you drive a year, where the car is
stored, your claim history, criminal history, etc? If that's all OK, what
crosses the line about monitoring driving behavior?

~~~
cgriswald
> ...what crosses the line about monitoring driving behavior?

First and foremost, it's only ever going to be used against me if it is used.
I would basically have to bet I was never in an accident, which, given I've
been hit three times while legally stopped in the last 5 years, I'm not
willing to do. I suspect for the vast majority of drivers, the monitor is a
net cost, not a net savings.

But also, there is not a one-to-one relationship between liability and safety.
Insurance companies care about liability first, and if they care about safety,
they care about it second. I'd like to see some studies on how these monitors
influence driver behavior before even considering getting one installed.

For another, the monitors lack context. It is safer to travel at 75mph in a
65mph zone if traffic is going 75mph and the road (and your vehicle) otherwise
supports that speed. (Put lazily without citation: At that speed there is
almost no difference to increased speed in terms of serious injury or
fatality, but at that speed variance, the likelihood of a crash occuring is
higher. Net result: more serious injuries and fatalities driving at the slower
speed.) But the monitor will only see you going 10mph over the speed limit.

And then, as a sibling poster mentions, there are the privacy issues. If it
monitors your location, it is monitoring far, far more than your driving
habits.

~~~
neutronicus
I've seen it asserted that it's actually safer to drive 55 when everyone else
is going 75, despite the conventional wisdom you're quoting here.

So do you have a citation?

~~~
thedaemon
It's basic physics. Citation not needed.

~~~
JohnFen
There are a lot more variables involved than simply basic physics, though.

------
mrosett
This seemed like a grab bag of "Here are some bad things about being poor that
are vaguely related to privacy" with the only common thread being Professor
Gilman's willingness to speak about them. Poverty is brutal, but I'm not
convinced that the privacy lens really adds a lot.

I'm also not convinced that privacy problems truly affect the poor more. The
government surveillance mentioned here is a big problem. But on the commercial
side, companies are a lot more interested in acquiring the personal,
financial, and medical data of the rich. And as the article admits, people
making higher incomes are more likely to have their information stolen.

A lot of the evidence in this piece amounts to "surveys show that people
earning under $40k worry about X more than people earning over $40k." That's a
very weak form of evidence.

~~~
UweSchmidt
I think the article is quite specific and articulate about the problem:
"Employers of low-income workers listen to phone calls, conduct drug tests,
monitor closed-circuit television, and require psychometric tests as
conditions of employment."

This makes government surveillance (as serious as it is) feel like a distant,
abstract issue.

~~~
astura
This is just complete BS, drug tests are mostly required for mid-to-high
paying jobs, not your typical low income job. I've never had to take a drug
test for any of the sub $10/hour jobs I've worked, I've had to take a drug
test for every single software job I've ever worked. In fact, I have an
acquaintance who was talking about quitting weed the other day and how
difficult is is. When I asked her what made her quit she said "I'm sick of
making only $30,000 a year and any jobs that pay over $30,000 a year are going
to require a drug test."

Having your work phone calls monitored is hardly something to get worked up
about (you're using your phone for work...do you also get mad when your
supervisors monitor your work in person?) and almost certainly not specific to
low income employees.

CCTV is literally everywhere, nobody low income works in my building and
everyone's monitored with CCTV. Big whoop.

Psychometric tests are very, very uncommon and not at all specific to low
income employees, in fact, I'd argue the opposite (I mean... college is
basically treated as a psychometric test)

~~~
notfromhere
i've never heard of any place in tech that drug tested that didn't involve
getting a security clearance.

no one's drug testing people making 100k+, but drug tests for low-level jobs
are far, far more common than you think.

~~~
astura
Sure your cool valley startup with a flip-flop wearing CEO isn't going to
require a drug test (and probably not a formal background check), but buttoned
up corporate America absolutely does as well as government and most companies
who does business with government. So basically most non-small-companies
outside of California. Employee drug testing got popular in the early-90s, it
was even the topic of a Seinfeld joke. Though I hear its becoming less common
in the last few years, and some have stopped testing for marijuana.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-
tren...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-
trends/2018/05/03/labor-shortage-businesses-mellow-over-hiring-pot-
smokers/573710002/)

>There is no definitive data on how many companies conduct drug tests, though
the Society for Human Resources Management found in a survey that 57 percent
do so. Nor is there any recent data on how many have dropped marijuana from
mandatory drug testing.

>After the Drug-Free Workplace Act was enacted in 1988, amid concerns about
cocaine use, drug testing spread to most large companies. All Fortune 500
companies now engage in some form of drug testing, according to Barry Sample,
a senior director at Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing firms.

~~~
cgriswald
Your citation doesn't really support any of the arguments, since it doesn't
address _which_ jobs require drug testing at those Fortune 500 companies.

For example, Walmart is number one on the list. Is it the CEO who is being
tested, or the guys unloading the shipping trucks?

------
deogeo
Imagine surveillance being turned upside-down. Imagine a company unable to
hire workers, because a union demands they first fire the CEO/management that
looted company pensions at their previous company, or ran a predatory loan
business, or tried to extort others through bogus patents.

The world would be a much different place if corporate was held _personally_
responsible for their actions the same way labor is.

~~~
dnautics
The thing is corporations exist precisely to _limit liability_. You don't have
to start a corporation - you can run your own business out of your own pocket
and accept all the legal liability. However, we make this activity undesirable
through policy: (personal income is taxable in a much more punishing way than
corporate income, and the legal system is incredibly expensive - the more
customers you have, the more you are likely to be exposed to a crazy customer
who is going to abuse the system and personally bankrupt you with frivolous
lawsuits. Who would want to start a business in that climate?

~~~
pavel_lishin
You're talking about legal liability; deogeo sounds like they're talking about
social liability.

~~~
dnautics
one is free to start a company with those rules in the corporate charter.
Heck, I'd even work there, but I'm wouldn't count on my job being around for
long.

~~~
deogeo
Nor would a company be around for long if it were the only one respecting
environmental protections, workplace safety standards, or anti-child-labor
laws.

------
AlexandrB
The ad-based content economy is beyond parody: the first thing I saw when I
opened this article about poverty and privacy rights was a full-page, autoplay
video ad for Lincoln cars. The whiplash between the content and the
presentation was so severe I'm going to have to wear a neck brace.

~~~
markdoubleyou
Privacy Badger detected 16 potential trackers, and uBlock stopped requests to
13 out of 30 domains the page tried to connect to. It's not usatoday.com
levels of absurdity, but it's getting there.

------
randomacct3847
First thing that comes to mind is the new wave of fintech apps for pay/bill
management (like Earnin) that take in your entire bank feed in exchange for
spotting you before your next payday...

------
exelius
I was thinking about this recently — the path to owning a small business in
the 2020s goes through social media. Which means that the founder has to put
an uncomfortable amount of their personal life on display in order to “sell”
their brand. Anyone “hustling” at 2 or 3 gig jobs has to self-promote via
those same platforms.

Basically, the only workers who are allowed total privacy anymore are white-
collar middle managers. We don’t trust low-level workers and feel the need to
keep tabs on them, while executives have been expected to carefully cultivate
a squeaky-clean public image for the last 30-ish years.

But it basically comes down to “how much of my privacy to I have to trade for
a paycheck?” The answer varies based on income level...

------
7402
If you haven't worked low-end jobs it may be a surprise, but if you are a
clerk in certain chain stores, you are searched by a supervisor every time you
leave the building (to make sure you aren't stealing anything).

~~~
ams6110
Well, honestly that's because a lot of employees in jobs like that _do_ steal
stuff ("a lot" meaning enough that it's noticed and is a problem).

Sure, everyone _should_ have the presumption of innocence, but these things
aren't just happening out of mean-spiritedness.

~~~
pnw_hazor
In some industries or retail sectors, a big part of being successful is
preventing/reducing employee theft or employee fraud.

For example, modern POS stations often run several cameras: one pointed at the
cash drawer, one pointed at the customer, one or more pointed at the employee,
all synced to journals or screen streams.

------
techntoke
You ever watch those HD antenna television shows? We spam the poorest people
with some of the nastiest propaganda that exists. Even the shows they
frequently play are legitimizing and glamorizing crime.

~~~
segfaultbuserr
Can you elaborate? As a non-American and non-TV watcher, I always believe
DVB-T is a good way to avoid paying to cable TV yet still be able get some
basic TV programs like breaking news.

What are the groups that dominate American digital antenna TV station? Who are
their backers? What are their political leanings, and what kind of propaganda
do they air?

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
I don't know what OP is referring to. Broadcast TV in the US is more or less
the same as it always was, just with a lot of extra content on the sub-
channels that is mostly reruns of old shows. Nothing subversive in any of it.
You don't see the partisan crap that occupies subscription TV in the US. The
only notable difference is that certain advertisers don't bother with
broadcast so you never see their promotions.

~~~
asark
> You don't see the partisan crap that occupies subscription TV in the US.

Well, aside from all these stations:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group)

------
NightMKoder
This is a little off topic w.r.t. the article, but to some extent I like
privacy as a currency. Despite the fact that you might make minimum wage and
can’t realistically afford to pay for most services, Google gives you access
to the majority of human knowledge, for free. Nobody forces you to use Google
- if you can afford it, you can pay for it with time (i.e. worse results from
places like DDG).

Redistributing wealth to ensure fairness is hard, but at least when we use
privacy as the currency we all start with some, almost equal, amounts. The
downside is that realistically this approach only works when everyone
participates - I don’t think hybrid “pay or we track you” would work out to be
efficient at large scales.

------
4RealFreedom
“I get valuable government benefits in my mortgage home deduction, childcare
tax credits, my employer health benefits aren’t taxed,” says Gilman. “Those
are income transfers just as much as food stamps or welfare but I am not put
through intrusive questioning, verification requirements, home visits, or
anything like that to get those benefits.” This is disingenuous if not flat
out fallacious. They certainly are not the same and I continue seeing this
type of rhetoric repeated more and more lately.

~~~
beat
I'm reminded of an observation a friend once made... "Light rail is how middle
class people get to work. Bus is how poor people pick up their welfare
checks." That's his nutshell parody of the mentality that makes rail projects
okay, while buses are still bad.

What makes it "welfare" is that it benefits poor people, not that the money
comes from the government. What makes welfare "bad" is that it benefits poor
people, not the middle class or the rich.

------
MrQuincle
This is probably not something a lot of people will agree with, but my two
cents. The issue is autonomy and consent. If people are really owner of their
own data they should be able to do whatever they want with it. They should be
able to sell it. They should be able to exchange it for services.

You can use WiFi for free. Why should that be frowned upon? It's your choice.
We do not live in a nanny state. What should be clear is what kind of
transaction you're in. What kind of data is collected. The deal should be
transparent.

You can't say that this data is valuable on one hand but forbid people to
trade it on the other hand. Definitely not just with an argument based on
autonomy.

------
Arbalest
In my opinion (a bit tangential to the article I know)

The privacy thing is a symptom to the massive marketing budgets companies have
available to them today. We're covering up the cost of living by redirecting
them via advertising agencies who then get to direct the money however they
want. I say, block ads. Steal from advertising companies, falsify data as much
as possible. This is not the way people should be being paid. While this is a
viable mechanism of subsiding the cost of living, no change will occur.

------
zsz
This article is very lengthy and detailed, so eventually I gave up on trying
to find in it any evidence (in the form of e.g. actual quotes from the SCOTUS
decision -- which undoubtedly exist in detail and are publically available)
that it isn't a one sided, alarmist emotional appeal. But perhaps I myself am
letting emotions get the better of me by assuming the SCOTUS documents all
their decisions, when in reality they (more) typically don't(?).

------
expertentipp
I predict that the next hit in the poverty industry will be the gambling
businesses and loan sharks getting banking licenses. _...aaand it 's gone!_

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Some type of regulatory-skirting financial account device that pools
everyone’s money while the backing organization can gamble with it and extract
huge overall fees regardless of whether they succeed at gambling...

Sounds a lot like defined contribution retirement plans, asset managers,
mutual funds and hedge funds...

------
IshKebab
> “I can’t cross-examine an algorithm.”

You should be able to!

------
908087
Meanwhile, Surveillance Valley CEOs like Zuckerberg continue to spin their
privacy invasions as altruistic moves to help the poor.

