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DNA

In the world of Dattaca, more than just the contents of your DNA will be available. (image by PublicDomainPictures on Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dna-biology-medicine-gene-163466/)

Clearview is Only the Beginning

A week ago I read an article about an app named Clearview AI that allows users to take a snapshot of anybody’s face, determine their identity using facial recognition, and then use that information to provide the person’s name, address, and a host of other information on them. This app makes a dramatic step toward the digital panopticon that is forming around us. In my read, the data that Clearview retrieves is actually quite limited, but rest assured that more and more information about you will be retrievable over time. Regardless of what Clearview can do, somebody who is willing to pay for a service to research the people they meet will certainly be able to find quite a bit more about you simply by seeing your face.

The very idea of an app that allows any user to get such immediate data on a person’s identity reminded me of the dystopian world seen in the 1997 movie Gattaca. Rather than facial recognition, authorities in the world of Gattaca use blood scanners for immediate identification. In that world many people are genetically engineered and the content of people’s genetic code is used to set up a class system. I think that Gattaca is prescient in a number of ways, but the digital panopticon we are entering has the potential to be whole lot worse. The reality of Dattaca may actually be much worse than Gattaca!

Valid vs. In-Valid

In the world of Gattaca, to be considered “valid” a person needs to be genetically engineered. The main character Vincent Anton, played by Ethan Hawke, is considered an “in-valid” because he was conceived naturally (I'm purposely using the movie's unnecessary hyphenation in this article). He’s actually worse off than most in-valids because when his genetic makeup was checked at birth, it was immediately exposed that he would be a weak, sickly child, with poor eyesight, ADHD, a potential for mental problems, and a heart problem that would end his life prematurely at around 30 years old.

Vincent’s entire life is affected by his genetic status. He’s denied entrance into a school as a child because they say that the insurance wouldn’t cover it if anything happened to him. He’s denied opportunities to enter the best schools, potential employers use his genetics against him, and his dream of spaceflight is denied to him. As his father says, “the only way you’ll see the inside of a spaceship is if you’re cleaning it.” It’s also illegal in Gattaca’s world for employers to discriminate based on genetics, a practice known as “genoism,” but the law is universally ignored.

I think that we are headed for a world that is actually worse than Gattaca, one where our genetic information is certainly available, but with every aspect of our digital lives is also exposed. This is the world that the Digital Panopticon can easily create, a world I call Dattaca. On the genetic side, certainly the sites that collect information all promise to protect your data, but we’ve seen data breaches in every industry and shouldn’t expect these to be any different. Even worse than commercial entities, the so-called "authorities" have expressed supposed powers allowing them to collect your DNA for as little as a traffic stop. If you’ve been in the US military in the past 20 years, your DNA is also on file with the Federal Government. These agencies may also be prone to data breaches and data abuse. Once again, also, the wealthy and powerful are likely to have more access to data than your average person, and again the path to this information can begin with as little as a photo of your face being passed to a facial recognition algorithm. No finger-pricking, invasive blood scans are normally necessary in this world.

Another major difference is that so much information is available and becoming available on individuals that once they’ve been identified, the floodgates will be opened. That same snapshot of your face will likely be used to provide any/all of the following information about you:

address
phone number
age
credit history and score
home value
net worth
employment history
income
K-12 transcripts and behavioral data (blame Common Core for this)
college transcripts
health and medical history
psychological history
political affiliation
attitudes on hot topics

Note that not all of this information needs to be collected directly, anymore! The AIs in use today can and do determine many attributes of a person’s personality by analyzing social network behaviors. These can lead to false positives and negatives, but there’s a lot of big money behind big data and often little regard for the effects that might be unleashed on unsuspecting individuals who are outside the norm or may be the subject of a Minority Report.

In Gattaca, there was a scene where a young woman was having her lips swabbed by a technician at a service counter asking her if she wanted a “full sequence.” Presumably, she had just kissed a man in the last five minutes and wanted to determine whether his genetics made him worthy of a relationship. In Dattaca, potential mates, employers, and other individuals will also want to have a quick, easy way to determine whether you are worthwhile. There’s nothing like a quick score weighted for specific purposes to look at whether a person would make a good:

employee
student
business partner
lover
sugar daddy
security risk
driver
terrorist
victim

Note the latter. When information is readily available, it will be used for nefarious purposes because, whether via lawful means or not, there’s always somebody looking to make a quick buck. Also, when the US Government uses data to determine security clearances and who is worthy for jobs such as holding a commercial driver’s license, false positives and negatives can be quite damaging. Even when that’s not the case, should all of that data really be used to make those decisions, do they have a right to have that information in the first place?

In Gattaca’s world, Vincent winds up becoming the subject of a manhunt because one of his eyelashes was found in the hallway after a murder takes place. Because the eyelash belongs to an in-valid who shouldn’t have been at that location, he becomes the primary suspect. It’s a terrible assumption for the so-called “authorities” to make, but in a world where a great deal of data is readily available, some of it may be used to back untrue assertions that are harmful to individuals.

Thankfully, Solutions Emerge!

In the movie Gattaca, Vincent finds and enters into a business agreement with Jerome played by Jude Law. Jerome is a genetically-engineered “Valid” with good credentials who has been paralyzed. They use clever techniques, primarily by sampling blood, skin cells, hair, etc. to help Vincent pass himself off as Jerome. This aspect of the movie is rather far-fetched and it would be nearly hopeless for somebody to pull this off in a technically advanced society. However the movie is still relevant in showing that a free (and often black) market will always find a way around things. Where there is a need to overcome oppressors, means will arise. This movie touches on the need for the human spirit to overcome all odds, even at extreme costs. It shows that free will and drive will mean more about a person’s achievements than will ever be found in their genetic code. The same is true when we combine that genetic code with the full set of data associated with an individual. That data will never capture their spirit, their soul, or their full potential as a human being.

Conclusion

At Ethical Developer Group we can’t provide you with a “borrowed ladder” to pretend you are somebody else, but we can help you find solutions that will defend your privacy. By limiting how much of your data is out there in the first place, we can avoid many of the nightmares and unintended consequences that can be created by the intense level of data oversharing that has become common in the current Digital Panopticon that we are living in. If people become aware and take active steps to control their data, then perhaps we can avoid living in the Dattaca I describe above, or any sort of Gattaca-like dystopia.

Here at Ethical Developer Group we are concerned about privacy, which is why we are working to increase digital privacy awareness. We will not have a free world if people do not take privacy seriously and/or privacy is not allowed. Please join us in learning about threats, finding alternative paths, and making our way out of the Digital Panopticon. Sign up for our email updates, become a user of the site, and show your support of our mission on social media sites including LinkedIn, Twitter, Gab, and Steam.

Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://edgcert.com/2020/01/30/dattaca-worse-gattaca/