Armaan's Adventures

Over the duration of being in this class, I have had an emerging interest in studying digital surveillance and how it impacts different areas. Some of these areas such as facial recognition technology use in places like airports are apparent and clear, as many individuals have experienced this type of digital surveillance. Other areas of digital surveillance such as cross platform tracking are topics that individuals might be more curious about, as the process in which this occurs is a lot less apparent than other areas of digital surveillance. With that being said, the main goal of my summative project was to determine how digital surveillance impacts personal security and safety. Additionally, I have taken an interest in researching how different areas of digital surveillance have attempted to strike a balance to ensure that digital surveillance is being used for the right reasons. Undoubtedly, the use of digital surveillance in general is a groundbreaking discovery that has the potential to extremely positively impact various areas. Although this is true, we as individuals and bodies of power have the responsibility to ensure the use of this digital surveillance is being done ethically.

A study done by Technology Innovation Management (TIM) Review surveyed 1486 Canadians on topics related to digital surveillance, in reference to how digital surveillance influences individual opinions on governing bodies. After the survey was done, researchers at TIM concluded that while digital surveillance concerns negatively impacted the acceptance of frequent digital surveillance tools being used in areas of interest, these digital surveillance initiatives did not cause the majority of individuals to lose trust in the government. This could potentially be attributed to a common understanding that the government is trying to act in the best interest of its citizens, even though this may mean that individuals of no interest are also being subject to digital surveillance measures. The study done also makes some key points about how transparency and clarity surrounding digital surveillance is one of the most important factors surrounding this issue. If individuals truly understand what this technology is being used for, they will more likely accept it and be able to appreciate the intended purpose of it. Lastly, a point was made about digital surveillance that states that if you do not agree to be surveilled, you need to take measures to combat it such as reading fine print and not consenting to personal things such as data collection.

In terms of digital surveillance in relation to workplace surveillance, there are many resources and experts to consult to ensure that digital surveillance in the workplace is being conducted ethically and for the right reasons. The biggest point to make about workplace surveillance is that there should be clear and open channels of communication between employees and employers. This means that to ethically carry out workplace surveillance, employers should be able to communicate what exactly is being monitored and why it is being monitored. When this communication is able to happen, it allows for employees to avoid conducting business at work that they would not want to be monitored, as well as creating a common understanding as to why the surveillance benefits both parties. When there steps and precautions are carried out, I do believe that the use of digital surveillance in the workplace is ethical. As companies are allowed to digitally surveil, I personally would have no issues with this implimentation as long as I am fully aware of what is being surveilled and why is is happening. On the flip side, if a company were to digitally surveil without saying anything to employees, I would be lead to believe that this type of surveillance would be unethical.

Secondly, facial recognition technology within digital surveillance follows a somewhat similar formula to digital surveillance within the workplace, with a key emphasis on transparency. In relation to facial recognition technology being used at airports, through sources I have researched I am lead to believe that the use of this technology is completely ethical. I say this because I have experienced first hand as a frequent traveller that when airports and governments started making a further shift towards facial recognition, I was able to have more seamless experiences in different airports around the world. While I was subject to facial recognition technology, I as a law abiding citizen had nothing to worry about. Within this scope, I understand that while all individuals may be subject to facial recognition technology being applied to them, the technology is being used to help create a streamlined experience at the airport while also being used to identify individuals who may be of danger, so in my opinion this technology is being used only for the benefit of everyone involved and is in fact completely ethical. I have a similar opinion surrounding the use of facial recognition use by police forces. I understand that I may be being unintentionally surveilled, but I have a bigger concern for individuals having an easier time committing crimes, so I believe that the use of facial recognition within police operations is ethical and being used to benefit the vast majority of law abiding citizens. The area I start to have some wonders about facial recognition is in the private sector. As companies have figured out ways to use facial recognition technology to analyze consumer behaviour, there is potential for any individual to be watched at all times while carrying out daily tasks such as shopping. While I appreciate efforts to be presented with what I want to see, there is little transparency surrounding this, making me believe that it is potentially unethical.

Lastly, the area where I believe to be the most unethical within the digital surveillance areas I have studied is tracking related to social media. To begin, the use of data brokers to collect personal information is one I believe to be quite unethical. While individuals consent to this data collection, may times it is not clear and transparent to what they are consenting to, with sometimes this consent being mandatory to access a website or app. Throughout this final project, a common theme has been transparency. I believe that transparency is directly related to the ethics surrounding this technology, as if people know about what they are consenting to then they will be able to have a choice, making it ethical. When data is collected by data brokers through hidden initiatives and unclear motives, I believe it is unethical because the majority of individuals most likely don’t know that it’s happening, compromising both safety and security. While I believe that cross platform tracking is more ethical than data brokerage, I still don’t believe that it is completely ethical due to the fact that lots of individuals are also unaware that it is happening. While I personally don’t mind that my feed gets optimized so I see exactly what I want to see, in terms of transparency and the grand scope of the project, I believe that the use of any digital surveillance technology without clear and outlined goals and communication is where things start to become unethical.

After reading my final project I invite you to share your thoughts with me! What is your opinion on digital surveillance? What is your main criteria (maybe transparency) to determine ion digital surveillance initiatives are ethical? Let me know!

Sources/Articles Consulted

https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/caij/docs/reports/tracking-the-surveillance-and-information-practices-of-data-brokers.pdf

https://piwik.pro/blog/cross-platform-analytics/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/facial-recognition-ai-police-canada-1.7251065

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/controversy-illuminates-rise-facial-recognition-private-sector/story?id=96116545

https://hbr.org/2020/12/if-youre-tracking-employee-behavior-be-transparent-about-it

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/10/employee-surveillance/568159/

https://timreview.ca/article/1427

In the talk with Dr. Remi Kalir of Duke University, Kalir takes a deep dive into social annotation and how social annotation is an important component in gaining competence in digital literacy. Kalir discusses how social annotation interworks individual collaboration with others as a means to make understanding of different forms of media in a way that individuals are able to understand what they are viewing together. In society, we see many different forms of annotation from unexpected places, such as physical and academic annotations. In using these various forms of annotation, we are able to collaboratively express our perspectives on different forms of media. When individuals are able to socially annotate, it allows for engagement and understanding in both academic and individual areas.

From the talk, the most interesting part I found was Dr. Kalir’s perspective of how AI influences social annotation. From what I understood, Kali’s stance on the use of AI in social annotation is overall poor. When using AI in social annotation, there is an evident lack of human’s critical perspective, which ultimately defeats the point of socially annotating. This defeats the point because you are not coming to a common understanding because you are not giving individualized thoughts and ideas on the media you are viewing. In knowing this, when socially annotating for the rest of this class and in my future endeavours, I will ensure that I will do this without the help of AI. Over the course of this class, we have learned that AI can have many positive impacts in different areas, where tasks can be streamlined to help productivity. Also throughout my time in this class, we have learned that sometimes AI aren’t the best tools to use. My takeaway from all of this is that through my time gaining digital literacy, it is important to know when to and when to not use different online applications.

After watching the talk with Dr. Remi Kalir and reading my blog post, I invite you to share your thoughts with me. Do you have previous experience socially annotating? If so, have you found that socially annotating has given you the ability to understand what you are annotating better? Let me know!

Sources/Articles Consulted

University of Victoria EDCI 136- Remi Kalir on Social Annotation

https://www.edutopia.org/article/social-annotation-digital-age/ – Christophe Heylen/ iStock

In this YouTube video by Lucas Wright of UBC, he discusses how Generative AI has developed over the past few years int he realm of teaching and learning. Within the past few years dating back to 2022, Generative AI has burst onto the scene of education, as tools such as ChatGPT have been developed and remodelled over the years to become more advanced with more practical applications. Since then, the percentage of users that have been surveyed have seen an increase in usage of AI within their school work. Although there has been increased usage with AI in educational applications, there are ethical concerns such as environmental and privacy concerns that also need to be addressed in a manner that keeps up with the rapidly growing environment of generative AI. With that being said though, AI is going to reshape the way that we think about education, as the abilities the developing technology has can help the advancement of our education.

As an individual who has little experience using AI for educational applications, I am curious to keep developing my AI skills through this EDCI class. I believe that if I am able to advance my skills, I will be able to give myself personalized learning plans that will help me understand content at a higher rate. With that being said, I realize that I will also have to be careful while developing these skills because AI has the ability to spread misinformation, so I will need to verify information to make sure that my personalized learning plan will be accurate and effective. I believe that the main message surrounding this is the responsible use of AI, and I will make sure that as I continue my journey into learning AI, that all applications will be responsible and ethical.

After reading my blog post and watching Lucas Wright’s YouTube video, I invite you to share your thoughts with me on this topic. Do you have previous experience using AI for educational purposes? Are you aware of the pros and cons of using AI? Let me know!

Sources/Resources Consulted

https://www.digiexam.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education

Have you ever been on an international trip outside of Canada? When you come back, you have to do your declaration along with a picture of yourself and a scan of your passport. This might sound like a familiar experience to many of you, and it directly related to different facial recognition technology used by private and government sectors to help with different identifying and safety concerns. While this technology may be used to help contribute to the greater good, this like any other surveillance methods have their ethical and privacy concerns. On a basic level, facial recognition technology is the use of using an image of a persons face and back checking it against a database of many different pictures to identify unique features in the face. The main goal of facial recognition technology is aimed to verify the identity of a given individual. As this technology has become more advanced, many different private and government sectors have taken this technology into consideration, weighing the pros and cons in efforts to streamline and maximize efficiency.

According to an article done by CBC in June of 2024, some divisions of police in Canada are reportedly trying to increase their use of facial recognition technology. According to these governing bodies, they are able to find suspects and solve crimes in a more efficient manner with the use of facial recognition. Although this might sound fantastic and obviously should be implemented, the reason why these policing bodies have not been able to implement this technology widespread is due to the raised concerns that citizens have had over the ethical use of this technology. According to critics of this technology, there are mass identification concerns swell as misidentification concerns. As policing bodies who have tried to implement this technology have not been open and communicative about the use of this technology, it has hard to bridge the gap of trust between government and citizens for the lack of communication.

Along with the government sector, several private sectors have been implementing the use of facial recognition technology in efforts to help their businesses in several different facets. For example, facial recognition technology has been used in many different stores to help their operations. While you may walk into a store sometimes and see a security camera, thinking that the sole purpose of the camera is to help the store protect against crime and theft, that is in fact not the only purpose that the camera is used for. Recently, different private businesses have been using facial recognition technology to further understand consumer habits, so they are able to effectively target efforts at what people want. Similar to the government sector of facial recognition technology, there have been ethical concerns raised surrounding this technology due to the miscommunication of the use of it at all. Many different stores have implemented this technology without the proper disclosure to their customers which have caused many different issues. Unlike the government sector though, there are split perceptions of the use of this technology in private sectors like stores. While some believe they are ethically being violated with facial recognition, others appreciate that they are more safe and see more of what they want to see through the use of this technology.

Circling back to my main goal of my deep dive inquiry being the study of how digital surveillance impacts personal security and privacy, as well as the ethical concerns surrounding this topic and ensuring a balance has been struck, I believe that there is a lot to uncover under this topic. To begin, I believe that facial recognition technology has impacted personal privacy and security in a big way. Through the use of this technology paired with the closed communication from bodies of power, there are chances that we are being watched in places that we don’t even know. I believe that this can contribute to a big issue. Personally though, I don’t mid the use to facial recognition technology in the government and private sector. As a person who follows the law, I believe that these initiatives only help me and make me more safe in the places that I live in, so I appreciate the initiative. I believe that the only way to strike an ethical balance in this conversation in for bodies of power to be more open surrounding their goals and effort surrounding facial detection. If clear channels of communication are open, then it will allow for back and fourth conversation where individuals are able to understand that this technology is used to benefit them rather then hurt them.

After reading my blog post and the articles I have consulted, I invite you to share your thoughts with me on the subject. Do you believe that facial recognition technology is overall good? Or bad? Do you believe that facial recognition technology should be something that is more controlled and monitored by regulatory bodies? Let me know!

Sources/Articles Consulted

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/facial-recognition-ai-police-canada-1.7251065

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/controversy-illuminates-rise-facial-recognition-private-sector/story?id=96116545

https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-facial-recognition

In an article by the Asian Journal of Distance Education, many different contributors explore the significance of AI in primarily education roles, and how this new technology can further influence day to day practices. The lengthy article in written within the bounds of Artificial Intelligence in Education, where AI in education is analyzed in both a serious and hypothetical manner to ensure the proper use of the tools. The article explores different applications of AI in education, such as AI helping students learn, AI helping teachers do their jobs more efficiently, and the potential of AI fully teaching different subjects without human intervention. The article also has an emphasis on the ethical use of AI, acknowledging that misuse and potential inaccuracies of AI that can cause bad results.

From all the things explored in this article, I believe that the most interesting to me is finding a balance between human and AI while in a classroom setting. In my personal experience, having a teacher with a welcoming and supportive personality helps me further be able to confidently learn. I believe that this is part of the debate, as I believe you will always need a teacher in the classroom on a personal level, to help guide and emphasize with students. On the other hand, I definitely believe that there are some aspects of classroom teaching that could be automated. For example, I believe that once AIs can become advanced enough, they should definitely be implement in to help with grading. I believe this would benefit both students and teachers, as teachers have aleviated stress of marking out of their worries and students are able to receive their grades in a more efficient manner.

After reading my blog post and the article by Asian Journal of Distance Education, I invite you to share your thoughts. What type of balance do you believe should be formulated between person and AI in the classroom? Do you believe that AI in the classroom is more harmful than beneficial? Let me know!

Sources/Articles Consulted

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Artificial-Intelligence-in/Balancing-Human-Touch-with-AI-in-Education/ba-p/590952

https://www.asianjde.com/ojs/index.php/AsianJDE/article/view/709/394

For my first deep dive into the world of digital surveillance, I have chosen to evaluate the current standards for employee tracking at their day to day jobs, and how ethical this process is. From the perspective of an employer, it is understandable that employers feel the need to use various tools to surveil employees. This surveillance can have many benefits, from ensuring the productivity of employers to enforcing company values and beliefs, it can prove essential to the smooth operations of a company. On the flip side, there are some employees that may feel that the steps companies take to monitor their daily tasks and communication may be over the line. While there are arguments for both sides, it is important to consider and strike a balance to make sure all parties involved are satisfied with their situation.

According to Syteca, there are five major ethical concerns involved with monitoring employees. In my opinion, the most interesting and controversial of these ethical concerns is privacy concerns that employees may have. For example, if an employee is sending personal emails to family members, the employee would most likely not want that email to be monitored by their employer. Although the employee might not want their email to be surveilled, there is also a chance that the employee might not know at all due to a lack of communication and boundaries surrounding employee monitoring. On the other hand of this issue, there could be an employer out there that could argue that an employee should not be using company facilities and time to be sending out personal emails. There is definitely an argument for both sides in this scenario, exemplifying why this next point my Syteca is ultra important when considering ethics in employee monitoring.

That important point is creating a detailed plan surrounding employee monitoring, which goes hand in hand with being transparent about the monitoring you plan to carry out if you are an employer. When you make a plan surrounding employee monitoring, you are able to give the employee an outlined guideline of what they can and cannot do. For example, if an employer outlined in a survelience plan that all emails will be monitored, there is no reason for an employee to get mad about having their personal emails looked at, because it was previously and clearly communicated that it would happen. Along with this, employees and employers will be on the same page about how the information is being used, to ensure a clean plan for ethical considerations, making sure that information is being used for productive use.

Additionally, an article does by Harvard Business Review highlights the post pandemic nature of online work, and how companies should handle these remote situations to ensure online employees are being productive during work hours. On one hand of the story, Harvard Business Review explains how companies use enhanced methods of tracking for online employees such as screen capturing and email monitoring to ensure the efficiency of company operations. On the other hand, some employees believe that since they are working from home, they should not be monitored in the same manner that they would be if they were in person at work. The answer that is also commonly shared between Harvard Business Review and Syteca: be transparent about the survailence you are doing. It is very important for an employer that you keep open lines of communication and transparency. If you as an employer feel the need to monitor your employees, it should be that they know exactly why and when they are being monitored. Without this, you compromise trust and performance of employees.

My goal with my inquiry project is to determine how digital monitoring impacts personal security and privacy, as well as creating an ethical balance so everyone is satisfied with this undeniably effective method of accountability. To answer the first question, I believe that from the information presented, there is not a high degree of risk associated to personal security and privacy associated with employee monitoring initiatives. From the professional sources and information used throughout this first inquiry, it is evident that it is common practice to notify employees why, how, and when they are being monitored by your employer, if this is the case. I believe this exemplifies a lack of risk to security because employees are usually well aware of what is being monitored. If employees have personal communication that they wish not to be monitored, then it is up to them to ensure that they are using company time for company reasons, and personal time for personal reasons. This also leads into the next part of the inquiry question, surrounding the ethics of using employe monitoring . I also believe that companies that disclose why, when, and how they are monitoring is ethical. As employers pay employees to perform work to a high degree of standards, if they openly communicate, that should be entitled to ensure that employees are performing to their potential.

I invite you to share your perspective after reading my inquiry. Do you believe that employees should be monitored? Do you believe that employers should keep open lines of communication when doing so? Let me know!

Sources/Resources Consulted

Addressing the Ethical Dilemma Surrounding Employee Monitoring: 8 Best Practices

https://hbr.org/2020/12/if-youre-tracking-employee-behavior-be-transparent-about-it

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/10/employee-surveillance/568159/