On November 30th, the TTC will stop selling tickets, tokens and passes. “Not to worry,” their subway posters tell us, “PRESTO’s got you covered.” This cheerful reassurance hides the fact that this latest change to service is approaching the last step in a gradual process of de-anonymization: beginning with the introduction of PRESTO in 2009, accelerating with the extinction of the Metropass last January, and probably culminating when the last Senior and Student ticket gets sold in a dusty convenience store sometime next year.
“What’s the big deal?” you might ask. “Who cares what piece of plastic I tap to get to school?” And, increasingly, the answer is that no one cares. Shelling out your personal data is just the way things are, should be, and always will be. But modest prediction of what these incremental changes mean for the future of societal values and civil liberties suggests that we should be more cautious about accepting them and perhaps hold ourselves to better standards than the resigned cynicism so easily adopted these days.
PRESTO, unlike the Metropasses I used throughout highschool, records every ride you take and stores that information for five years. This information was shared with the police 35 times in 2017 – 22 times without warrants. Where you used to get on the bus by flashing a rectangular, vibrantly-coloured pass that you bought with cash from a sleepy fare collector and no record connecting you with that purchase or that those trips ever existed, there is now potential for abuse of privacy and due process.
PRESTO is just one of the many hands snatching and grabbing personal information in a big data, algorithm-driven world. That Facebook likes, Instagram DMs and Google searches might one day reveal things to others that we don’t even know about ourselves is an increasingly accepted yet unsettling idea. Who wants the hidden patterns and preferences of their life sold off to the highest bidder for unknown purposes?
But even more profound is the notion that the data we disperse might one day reveal things that we don’t know about ourselves… to ourselves. This hypothetical becomes feasible when we look at the developing practices of the present day – what we’ve already deemed to be acceptable behaviour from firms, corporations, and ourselves – and draw them out to the inevitable conclusions they invite if left unchecked. What emerges is a future big data society that will challenge our notions of free choice and autonomy.
To begin, imagine a possible future wherein your online behaviour is observed, recorded, and peddled between a variety of large companies. This is probably not so hard to do. Now imagine this system also keeping tabs on the offline: monitoring your heartbeat, bank account, TTC trips, blood pressure, sleep cycle, and much more using a variety of hardware and software devices. While not yet fully realized, this is not so far from the future. Your smart watch, PRESTO card, smart phone, and other devices all form an internet-of-things well on its way to collecting biometric, behavioural, and other novel types of data.
For example, Fitbit tracks your sleep quality, shows you how you compare to those of the same age and gender, and offers advice on improving your rest. Bedpost sells biometric armbands that measure heart rate, sweat level, duration of intercourse and duration of climax to suggest a ranking for sexual performance. Modius offers a headset that monitors metabolism and appetite; then uses electric stimulation in the hypothalamus to activate processes that regulate body fat. Through programs like Mobilyze!, smart phones can also be embedded with sensors and software to track physical activity, energy expenditure, and acoustical speech properties.
Hypothetically, these devices could compile and compare data and run regressions to reveal that, contrary to your deepest convictions, you exhibited more physiological symptoms associated with depression and anxiety this month than the last. Of interest to anyone, no doubt, but what if you accepted a position at Diamond & Diamond last month? And what if your personal definition of success and well-being centers on steady movement up the career ladder at a reputable personal injury firm? If your devices show you that each ascending step in fact makes you more miserable and stressed out, do they know you better than you do?
As human beings, we are notoriously fallible to cognitive biases in judgment and decision-making. Evolutionary features such as the peak end rule, availability bias and differences between our “remembering” and “experiencing” selves nudge us away from the logic and probability that should inform rational choice. Undoubtedly, the devices we use can liberate us from these bugs and glitches. But it’s important to remember that their makers and marketers hold your best interests and privacy secondary to other considerations like market share, profit margin and R&D. Handing over your autonomy to the fast-approaching internet-of-things proposed above would mean handing it over to corporations with no obligation to tell you what they will do with it (or even if they’ll do anything with it).
Your civil liberties can become engaged and threatened at any point along the data pipeline because the design choices behind big data took place without the involvement of civil society – without you. While the speed at which legal guidelines can be adapted and established is too slow to have any meaningful impact at present, your ability to ask questions, switch retailers and demand better is profound. So if you see the slow creep of big data into more and more aspects of your life as a problem – or can imagine how it could be a problem for, say, a 10-year old navigating through their first iPhone – consider the means of action to be your eyes, your time, and your wallets: what you choose to look at, how long you choose to look at it, and what you choose to pay for.