by Derek Morrison, 27 March 2009
Seth Finkelstein’s column in the Guardian always makes for an interesting read. Yesterday’s print version was titled Google’s would-be watchdogs are distracted by its chew-toys but in the online version the same article was called Google’s surveillance is taking us further down the road to hell (Guardian, 26 March 2009). Whatever it is called it’s certainly one for my techno-dysfunctions category of postings. Here’s a flavour of the concerns he expresses but do read the full article and follow the links he provides.
In the same way that “total personalisation is total surveillance“, complete knowledge of one’s interests entails complete monitoring of one’s actions … No matter how benign the original intent, large collections of personal data, especially combined with the economic pressures of a deep recession or a government interest in data-mining for security purposes, are fraught with the potential for evil.
Food for thought as we embrace the personalisation agenda in learning.
