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The Big Problem with Uber’s Big Data: Ethics and Regulation of Data Ownership

The Big Problem with Uber’s Big Data: Ethics and Regulation of Data Ownership

“Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral”. That is why it is key to understand how we, as users and moderators, give additional meaning to technological features and participate in the complex chain of interactions they...
The Health Code System: or the Reinforcement of New Digital Mass Surveillance Practices

The Health Code System: or the Reinforcement of New Digital Mass Surveillance Practices

The rapid acceleration in the adoption of new technologies during infectious disease surveillance is not new, nor is it only applicable to the contexts of Covid-19. However, the outbreak of the coronavirus has brought a reality that demanded a...
Big data behind China’s “Health Code” system

Big data behind China’s “Health Code” system

As a common application of digital epidemic prevention, China's "Health Code" system has played an important role in epidemic prevention and control and has become one of the highlights of China's digital epidemic response to the COVID -19 outbreak....
“Hey Siri, are you sharing my private data”: A commentary on the impact virtual personal assistants have on surveillance capitalism and user information consumption

“Hey Siri, are you sharing my private data”: A commentary on the impact virtual personal assistants have on surveillance capitalism and user information consumption

For a digitally immersed society driven by technological developments and innovations, personal voice-controlled virtual assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri have become a crucial component to task completion, user interaction, and information consumption. Virtual personal...
Reality Slap Plugin: You Never Know When It Hits You

Reality Slap Plugin: You Never Know When It Hits You

With the number of Tweets, Facebook statuses, Instagram pictures and Stories many users share on a daily basis, we think it can be exhausting to keep track of the wide-ranging visibility a single post can have. With a public...
Googley Eyes

Googley Eyes

Microsoft is doing it (Hololens), Apple is doing it (Apple AR), Facebook is doing it (Facebook AR Studio) and last but not least, Google is doing it. Augmented Reality is the future of computing and all the big companies want to be the leader on this new market (The...
China’s Social Credit System could bring George Orwell’s 1984 character ‘Big Brother’ to life by allowing Big Data Surveillance to control Chinese public life

China’s Social Credit System could bring George Orwell’s 1984 character ‘Big Brother’ to life by allowing Big Data Surveillance to control Chinese public life

Any person who has seen the critically acclaimed Netflix show ‘Black Mirror’ will think the following is straight out of a dystopian futurology thriller. Unfortunately, the idea of every member in society being attributed a ‘social credit score’ based...
Weeping Angel: The latest surveillance tool, that can turn your smart TV into a bug TV

Weeping Angel: The latest surveillance tool, that can turn your smart TV into a bug TV

  Earlier this year, a revelation by Wikileaks called Vault7 refueled the privacy debate concerning intrusive media (Hacker News; The Verge, 2017). The series released documents on CIA activity between 2013 and 2016, showing how the intelligence agency gained access...
Using Personal Data to buy Art: The Data Dollar Store

Using Personal Data to buy Art: The Data Dollar Store

Recently, Kaspersky Lab has been in the news due to so-called suspicious activity within their security software system and a supposed link with the Russian government. Both TechCrunch and Wired state that the Department of Homeland Security has “banned...
‘M’ Assistant – a New Territory For Advertising

‘M’ Assistant – a New Territory For Advertising

‘M’ is an Artificial Intelligent virtual assistant inside Messenger which aims to be helpful to its users when appropriate. M Assistant analyzes their normal conversation on Messenger and pops up to suggest one of the features within the app...
Artificial Intelligence Defeats People’s Privacy

Artificial Intelligence Defeats People’s Privacy

Last week a Tweet by The Guardians’s writer David Shariatmadari showed how Google Maps tried to take a bullock’s privacy serious by blurring its face. The bullock was thereby treated the same as humans when it comes to their...
Gab.ai: Freedom of (conservative) speech?

Gab.ai: Freedom of (conservative) speech?

A few weeks ago a Norwegian journalist posted the Pullitzer Prize-winning ‘napalm girl’ photograph on Facebook. But instead of founding the intended discussion, he found his account suspended and the picture removed. The picture contained nudity, which may not...

Now on Sale: Sleep and Relaxation

 Sleep is an uncompromising interruption of the theft of time from us by capitalism (Crary, 10). We seem to be living in a time that is known for sleep deprivation, and many other activities that are being linked to...
From Chocolate Chips to Online – Creating a Cookie Monster

From Chocolate Chips to Online – Creating a Cookie Monster

Project by: Daniël Landman, Nick van der Meulen, Nicola Romagnoli and Seastar So. Link to Final Project. Cookies are the most well-known form of online tracking and can be used for a variety of reasons such as recording personal...
Big mother is watching you!

Big mother is watching you!

It will come to no surprise that in the past few years, digital media has changed primary and high school education in some major ways. Ipads, YouTube and “digital learning environments” have all been fully embraced by most dutch...
G is for Google, F is for friendly and I is for innocent

G is for Google, F is for friendly and I is for innocent

The 11th of August this year Google announced a big change; Google from now on will be part of a new parent company Alphabet which will cover all of Google’s activities. For some this might be a surprising move as Google...
The Companion: App which walks you home

The Companion: App which walks you home

Walking home at night can be a pretty terrifying experience. If you ever had to walk home through eerie suburban streets at 2 am., you know how it feels. That is why five college students in the US created an application...
Hey Siri, do you spy on me?

Hey Siri, do you spy on me?

Hey Siri, a feature which comes along with the new Iphone 6S has caused quite a stir when it became known that Siri (Apples Artificial Intelligence integration) could be activated on command by just calling “Hey Siri” to your device. This functionality...

A new enemy in our control society

  From an army of sabotage to a slippery enemy Ouroboros, the famous snake virus, crawled into the digital systems of Ukraine in 2013 and until today it has attacked large parts of the country’s infrastructure. There are many allegations that Russia is responsible for...
The posthuman cyborg: Technological telepathy

The posthuman cyborg: Technological telepathy

Researches have recently published an article where they have done an experiment with some kind of technological telepathy. A man in India wearing a BCI (Brain-Computer Interface), has successfully transmitted different kind of words through thoughts to a man’s...
Anti-drone clothing: fashionably paranoid?

Anti-drone clothing: fashionably paranoid?

Privacy, surveillance, technology and design: in the workshop ‘Warzone Wearables’ clothes and accessories are being adapted in order to escape the all-seeing eye of your physical and social surroundings. 
Cyborg Unplug – Counter-Surveillance Device or Product to profit of Fear?

Cyborg Unplug – Counter-Surveillance Device or Product to profit of Fear?

For everyone being paranoid that strangers could spy on them using drones, cameras, microphones or even Google Glasses – finally, a solution has arrived, which is going on pre-order on September 30, 2014. Cyborg Unplug is a gadget no...
Hacking the Digital: Fingerprint Secured Touch ID from Apple

Hacking the Digital: Fingerprint Secured Touch ID from Apple

The iPhone 5S is a revised version of its predecessor, the iPhone 5, and was unveiled to the general public last month on September 20th. Aside from various improvements and new available features, Apple’s new fingerprint-based identity sensor, Touch...
Global Internet Censorship – ACTA

Global Internet Censorship – ACTA

The internet as we know is a place with limitless accessibility and constant access to all shareable online information within an open exchange where media exist and co-exist in the way of informing and entertaining. It also means to...