Big Data’s Surveillance in Modern Society

As the basis of this research, What Happened to Monday is a movie that was
published by Netflix about a dystopian world in the future. It told us that in the future
period of time, the world is overpopulated and food become scarce. Due to that scarcity,
scientists play God to engineer the genetics food-sources. Those attempts to solve the
issue is creating another issue that everyone who eats the food will easily get twin or
more children at once. With burst of natality, the government in the movie is enacting
Child Allocation Act which basically enforcing every family to only own one child. If a
family have more than one child, the Child Allocation Bureau (CBA) will take those
“illegal” children to the Cyrosleep Institution, so that the child would be frozen till the
world come into a better place (but then it is revealed that the children not getting
frozen, but burned to death).
Then come the main story where Terrence Sethman, who need to take care of
his 7 grandchildren that were named to days in a week. All of those children are living
under the same identity of their mother’s name, Karen Sethman. These 7 sisters will
alternately live outside based on their name, and they should be and exact copy and
even memories that they get must be shared at the end of the day.
To make that scenario more difficult, the government has every right and owned
the big data of the people. They have information of your whereabout in live stream,
they know what you eat, and of course they know everything about your basic
information. Thus, Big Data itself basically interpreted as “…being a lot of data that is in
a scattered form and needs to be processed quickly for proper interpretation” [ CITATION
Shu15 \l 1033 ].
Originally, the definition of big data was taken from Doug Laney and Mark
Beyer[ CITATION Bey12 \l 1033 ], which is defined as high volume, high variety and high
velocity of group of data. Big data refers to the vast amount, heterogenous sets of
information that grow at exponential rates. It pervades the volume of information, the
velocity of its creation and collection, plus the variety of the data that are being covered.
Big data could come from multi resources and with multiple formats. The format
itself can be categorized into two, which is unstructured and structured [CITATION SAS \l
1033 ]. Structured data consists of information that is frequently numeric and have been
managed in form of databases and spreadsheets. it is frequently numeric in nature.
Unstructured data is basically raw data that has not been proceeded nor organized. It
also includes data gathered from social media that can help the organization or
institution gather information on customer needs.
The power of the Big Data had been showed in the movie. In What Happened to
Monday (2019), the Government could access any information regarding their people’s
life and even live location of their whereabout. Even when Sunday bought a rat for
dinner, the government know what is included in the diet so that they know if their
people were feeding more mouths than allowed. There was scene that a family got
caught for having more than one child, and probably due to food consumption pattern,
activity pattern, and any other data that could be gathered from their daily life. This
scenario has proven in the movie that somehow could maintain the order of its society
through strict control from the processed big data.
The power of big data not only had been showed in What Happened to Monday
(2019), but also some Hollywood movies as though, Ex Macina (2014) that using big
data from social media to build artificial intelligent inside a robot, Minority Report (2002)
which is narrating a special police unit that able to arrest people before they commit
their crimes by using big data, and Moneyball (2011) that tell us story about a baseball
team that had been built with lean budget using computer-generated analysis of big
data to acquire new players.
Data Surveillance in The Near Future
The Oxford English Dictionary describes surveillance as "close observation,
especially of a suspected spy or criminal". According to Cambridge Dictionary,
surveillance means “the act of carefully watching a person suspected of a crime or a
place where a crime may be committed”. From these two descriptions, we can see
some important contents in surveillance: a targeted form of monitoring, conducted to
obtain specific data or evidence, and it could occur without the person knowing they are
being watched -such as data being collected from apps without a person’s knowledge.
Nobody is going to like the fact that they are being watched, closely even make it
worse. A very simple example can be seen from our daily life. When we know someone
has been stalking to our social media or our personal life, we will feel disturbed and
annoyed. Without second chance, we’ll lock our social media account, block the person
accounts and even their phone number, email, etc. 
Why we do that? We need privacy. But why we need privacy? 
Privacy allows us to create our own boundaries and protect ourselves from
unwarranted interference in our lives. We determine who and how do we want to
interact with the world around us. As important as it is mentioned above, privacy has
been regulated under the European Union when the EU ratified its own statement of
fundamental rights—the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Among the rights included in
the Charter is the right to privacy. Importantly, the Charter specifies a privacy right in
relation to the Internet and modern computing. Under Article 8, Protection of personal
data:
1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or
her.
2. Such data must be processed fairly for specified purposes and on the basis
of the consent of the person concerned or some other legitimate basis laid
down by law. Everyone has the right of access to data which has been
collected concerning him or her, and the right to have it rectified.
A recent empirical study at U.C. Berkeley by Hoofnagle, et al [CITATION Hoo12 \n \t
\l 1033 ],has been shown an example of privacy abuse. In 2009 and 2011, researchers
gathered data on internet tracking technologies. Among other findings, they discovered
that persistent tracking of personal internet behavior was not only common but also
relatively unknown to consumers. Over those two years, the study showed that “the
number of tracking cookies expanded dramatically and that advertisers had developed
new, previously unobserved tracking mechanisms that users cannot avoid even with the
strongest privacy settings.” By design, these technologies inhibit consumer choice,
obscuring the common practice of monitoring internet behavior and collecting personal
information.
The first issue to the availability of big data giving a competitive advantage to
those who hold the data - such as the capability to predict new economic, social, and
political trends. The information and knowledge deriving from big data is not accessible
to everyone, as it is based on the availability of large datasets, expensive technologies
and human skills to develop and use sophisticated systems of data analyses and
interpretation. Looking at these reason, governments and big businesses are in the best
position to take advantage of big data. They have large amounts of information on
citizens and consumers, complete with enough human skill and computing resources to
manage it, just like what we see in the movie (What Happened to Monday). Government
has full control of their citizen, they use big data provide basic information and
background about each citizen, money transaction, and even their behaviors.
In the near future when technology moving faster than average human mind, the
main issue will be data security. Do we have such technology that can assure its
capability to keep our data safe? Are we technological advanced enough to understand
the function and to use these technologies, to access and make the use of those
information wisely?
According to a publication made by Indonesia Ministry of Communication and
Information, in 2012 only 20% of Indonesian citizen who are able to use the
internet[ CITATION Min12 \l 1033 ]. If we zoom out furthermore, Indonesia rank the 4th in
number of populations in the world (before China, India, and USA) - which means, the
level of internet literacy in world population was still low. With this facts and figures, are
we ready to pour out our personal data and privacy into the technology? Guess not. 
Human Rights Protection from Government and Private Sectors’ Surveillance
As mentioned above, the governments and big corporation are in the best
position to take advantage of big data due to the large amounts of information on
citizens and consumers with enough human skill and computing resources to manage it.
But both of the entity has different rights in a society. On history basis of
surveillance, since the late twentieth century, with the rise of neoliberal policies, the
relationship between the government of the state and private sector has become deeper
and more complex[ CITATION Bal13 \l 1033 ]. Because not only private sector supply the
knowledge and equipment for monitoring and tracking, but also the data desired to be
used in policing and intelligence, and in many other tasks, originates in ordinary online
exchanges, searches and interaction, as well as in phone calls [ CITATION Bal13 \l 1033 ].
This means routine forms of data exchange is allowing for information to flow between
public and private realms with many public-private partnerships that have been
developing since the 1980s and 1990s, are now normalized and commonplace
[ CITATION Bal13 \l 1033 ].
The Government has always been the key player because government of a state
has right to use force in within its territory to maintain their sovereignty. This has to be
done to preserve the pacification and administration of the state. Thus, the people of
that country are obliged to give their basic information to Government either conscious
or unconscious. The problem is, those people are not aware of a concept which there is
no private space within country due to state’s surveillance to its people.
State’s surveillance become widely known especially in the United States after
the Wikileaks phenomenon started by Edward Snowden [ CITATION Hay14 \l 1033 ]. He
revealed that the surveillance capabilities of some of the democratic governments are in
a way that they can access almost anything their citizens do online or over a telephone
in the absence of meaningful democratic or judicial controls [ CITATION Hay14 \l 1033 ]. That
revelations had been a major wake-up call for that who don’t really aware of state’s
surveillance. Even the idea of privacy was revoked, and imaginary safe-measurement of
its people.
Thus, the boundaries of government surveillance to all intents and purposes are
limitless. The people of a state are virtually given up their rights to be determined by the
government. It is the government’s version of “term of agreement” to live within their
sovereignty. Then how far their rights, especially human rights, must be protected from
the state’s surveillance?
The answer is as far as the states are willing to. As mentioned above, to live
within a state’s sovereignty, an entity must abide any law (the term of agreement) given.
Nevertheless, other states could intervene any violation act of human rights. But to do
so, that state will be considered as aggression due to infringement of a state’s
sovereignty and could be regarded as invitation to war.
This situation is commonly happened due to the universality of human rights. The
nature of human rights is a widely contested debate over the years even after the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights[ CITATION Low12 \l 1033 ]. The problem with
universality of human rights is the contextual culture of a nation-states. Every nation-
state has their own perspectives and priorities between any rights so that, universality of
human rights is not fully accepted.
As mentioned above, government and private sector has deep and complex
relations in term of surveillance. Modern digital state’s surveillance is outsourced to
private sectors, from acquire and manage the vast datasets, record daily lives to
provides analytic software and services on top of that data [ CITATION Lee19 \l 1033 ].. And
to simplify, government surveillance is actually performed by private companies on its
behalf, often with far fewer privacy safeguards or cyber protections [ CITATION Lee19 \l 1033
].
People are giving their basic information as obligatory task of a citizen of a state,
they don’t give their daily routine, preference, habit, or private conversation to the
government willingly. But that is what private sector get from them willingly do to the
services or goods that they provide. What do they search on internet, what do they buy
online, what do they write on email, what do they say through messenger apps, or even
what do they talk while on phone could be recorded as part of the services that is
provided by the private sector. The massive difference lies in how much they voluntarily
give those information due to the hypnotism of convenient services.
The requirement to use those services usually the provider will give set of
documents about terms of agreement and privacy policy, but those documents are
rarely read by its users or if they read it, most of the time they don’t understand
it[ CITATION Med19 \l 1033 ]. By agreeing on that, even without completely read nor
understand it, the users are virtually giving consent on their digital trail to be used by the
service providers.
Thus, how far the human rights should be protected form private sector are in
depend on the consent of the users itself. They need to protect their own privacy as far
as they could. Because the true nature of the private sectors’ omnipresent surveillance
is not too much care about its users’ privacy. Amnesty International [CITATION Amn19 \n \t
\l 1033 ] has been reported that Google and Facebook had been fully breach its user
privacy as their business model through surveillance. This is the prime example of how
private sectors exploiting big data of its users through surveillance and virtually
consented by its users due to inability to comprehend the technologies and possibilities
that threatens their human rights.

Alternative Solution: The Third Way Between Public Order and Individual
Freedom in The Big Data Era
As cited from Scoon and Ko [CITATION Sco16 \n \t \l 1033 ], “privacy is an expected
right of most citizens around the world but there are many legislative challenges within a
boundaryless cloud computing and World Wide Web environment.“ Privacy has always
been a contentious issue within the legal field. In the USA, some serious cases related
with cybercrime has put FBI in charge, such as a Russian hacking of a U.S. bank in
1994, bank fraud cases, even the Mellisa virus that happened decades ago. As Scoon
and Ko [CITATION Sco16 \n \t \l 1033 ] has been said about data privacy, “laws filter down
through governments to society and by this point become very unclear”. In recent years
there has been much media coverage and publicity about leaks of personal data and
breaches of data privacy. There are numbers of cases happened in the world, yet the
easiest example that we can see around us is how our personal information has been
used and accessed by local banks. They have our phone number, email, home and
office address, and so on. A common staff who works in any local bank can even have
access to our personal loan and savings. There are so many cases around us which
actually gave us signs that our data and privacy is under surveillance. Do we know?
Maybe. But do we actually care? 
In the What Happened to Monday, we can see that the government as one solid
legal body has actually violated the article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Expecting the government to protect the citizen fundamental right is impossible as the
government has created the violation itself. On the other hand, citizen can do nothing
even when the situation has crashed their trust to their government, and vice versa.
According to McKay [CITATION Cun13 \n \t \l 1033 ], “some nations have declared
internet access a fundamental right, claiming that their citizens must be able to access
the internet in order to exercise freedom of expression and other fundamental human
rights, providing that states have a responsibility to ensure that internet access is
broadly available”. It is interesting to know that they ensure to provide internet access,
but none about data safety.
In the real ideal world, people tend to put their trust and live in government’s
hand. They pay work and pay tax, expecting government will use their money for
something good, public infrastructure for example. They call police when thief got into
their house; they rely on the security provided by government. However, as the situation
has changed to a more sophisticated world, we need to rebuild and adjust our system to
the new situation. However, it will move forward if we have a robust technology and a
good driver. Imagine when it comes to mobility in the field of public transportation,
safety and security are linked to trust: people need to feel safe when using
transportation. It could be a pleasant trip, or it could be perceived as threatening (e.g.
car-sharing with unknown drivers). 
The alternative solution we can propose here is nearly same with public
transportation case above. The same concept with what we are having in the big data
era, when the government is our driver, and the technology we are using is the car,
while we as the citizen are the passenger in the same car. We need a good driver who
can move the car forward in the right direction, but as passenger we need to put our
trust the driver. This simple concept can be bonded by set of rules, which means we
need a strong regulation that can draw a firm line between the government who do the
monitoring and owns the big data, and citizen as the data provider. 
Beside those simple set above, we should not forget how big data will be used by
big corporations for their own business advantage. The idea is government as the data
owner, who has the full authority and sovereignty of the subjected land, will be the
single window of all the information. Any other organizations who wish to have the data,
shall make the request permission to government and inform the purpose of those data.
It should be bonded an agreement, in black and white so every step and every action
will be recorded and archived for future needs (in case it needed). By doing this,
government is running their function effectively by protecting its citizens’ fundamental
rights. 
However, this solution will not work properly if each actor set aside trust and
integrity in their work. In the way citizen doesn’t trust their government, it will be easy for
other third party to break the nation apart, hence the main consensus will not achieve.
On the other hand, when government doesn’t work with integrity, data share for own
advantage, the case will be more likely same as what we can see in the movie, chaos.
Also in this respect, it is important to remember that the purpose of monitoring is not
eavesdropping on everyone. “With the hyperconnected era of big data, the concept of
power, which is so crucial for ethics and moral responsibility, is changing into a more
networked concept”[ CITATION Zwi14 \l 1033 ]

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