With the rise of social media and artificial intelligence, information has increasingly become important. This is because there is a need for information for targeted advertisements and for data to train large language models like ChatGPT. The immense demand for this information and the use of such a large amount of data are causing many companies to sell to large data firms.
There has been more interest by the government to use this information. This has made companies like Flock and Palantir grow massively. Flock is a company that makes cameras that scan car’s license plates. Many towns and communities across the US have implemented these cameras in hopes of stopping crime. Although municipal governments pay large sums for their installation, Flock maintains the ownership of these cameras. With this ownership, they keep up their profits by selling their data to third parties like car insurance companies. Palantir is another company that profits off of government surveillance contracts. In their case, they organize and collect data on Americans to create a better database of the American people. Both of these companies have been criticized for these actions as there is concern of the US using these companies to create a surveillance state. These companies show that there is a shocking amount of information that is being collected by the US government.
Another way that data is being collected is through common apps like Life360 or Instagram. Many parents use Life360 as a way to keep track of their children’s whereabouts, but only few know how their data is being used. Life360 often sells its user’s information to government agencies like the Department of Defense, and to third party companies like the subsidiaries of insurance companies. This shows how these common apps can abuse the trust of their users. Instagram is a good example of this because of the sale of their users’ data. Instagram uses a wide range of data to complete a profile on each user. They use engagement metrics to see what interests each user and use the information from their choices to create targeted advertisements. Instagram also collects demographic and location data to further complete profiles on users. Once these profiles are complete, they are often sold to third parties. This has caused many users to feel taken advantage of due to the huge amount of data collected.
The rise of data collection has also caused innovation in the financial sector. Hedge funds like Two Sigma have used this immense information to create better trades and make more money for their clients. The scale of the information that they use is inconceivable. Two Sigma stores over 380 Petabytes of data which is equivalent to the storage of 1.48 million average iPhones or the amount of data in over 45,000 continuous years of television. This company shows the scale at which all of the information collected can be utilized.
Whether it is through traffic cameras or social media companies, the level of information being collected is shocking. To some consumers these methods of collection seem unethical, and there have been pushes to sue these companies through class action lawsuits. Although uncomfortable to some consumers, this trend of data collecting by these companies is here to stay. With these companies’ actions, it is evident that we have entered a new Information Age.
