It is one thing to live in an evolving surveillance state; it’s another thing to give up entirely and get on the “shut-up-and-take-my-data” bandwagon.
Yes, you can use a VPN, switch to Incognito mode, and turn off various features on your phone. Then there is the classic counter-spy move of putting a Post-it note over the camera on your laptop or desktop. The reality of the 21st century is that if someone wants your information, they are probably going to find a way to get it. Wherever you go, with perhaps the possible exception of a public bathroom, there are eyes and ears on you. People with smart devices in their homes are probably yielding up troves of information, and God only knows what Siri and Google Assistant are getting up to on our phones.
Apparently, there are some out there who have decided that if you can’t avoid ‘em, at least get on the payroll. According to the website TechCrunch, as of Wednesday, the number two App on Apple’s App Store is Neon Mobile. The company is offering to pay users 30¢ per minute when they call other Neon users, with a daily maximum of $30 for calls to non-users. The catch? Of course, there is a catch: Neon will record your end of the conversation and sell that information to AI companies. Neon says it will only record the user’s end of the call unless both people have the app. This will apply to inbound and outbound calls. TechCrunch said that Neon tells users that the data will be used “for the purpose of developing, training, testing, and improving machine learning models, artificial intelligence tools and systems, and related technologies.” The site reported that Neon has some, shall we say, slippery language. Users agree to give the company:
…worldwide, exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free, fully paid right and license (with the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to sell, use, host, store, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform (including by means of a digital audio transmission), communicate to the public, reproduce, modify for the purpose of formatting for display, create derivative works as authorized in these Terms, and distribute your Recordings, in whole or in part, in any media formats and through any media channels, in each instance whether now known or hereafter developed.
Neon claims that it will anonymize a user’s personal data. The company has not disclosed the companies with which it is working. Moreover, TechCrunch notes that app users will have no idea what the AI companies or other Neon “partners” will do with the data, which could, the site ominously adds, include users’ voices. And Neon will have the users’ phone numbers.
Oh, how could this go wrong? We don’t have the time, and I don’t have the space to count the ways.
Some will say that corporate and government surveillance is simply a fact of life, and unless one wants to study up on bushcraft and take up residence in the boonies, there is no getting around it. And those people would be right. After all, pinecones don’t have Bluetooth. At least not yet.
Back when the Patriot Act was created, the common phrase among advocates was, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” I suppose that point can be made, but if the previous presidential administration taught us anything, it is that we cannot be too cautious when it comes to who decides what is criminal, harmful, dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, immoral, racist, phobic, or seditious.
On the other hand, if you don’t value your voice, data, privacy, or yourself more than 30¢ per minute, then hey, take your chances. And don’t spend all that Neon money in one place.
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