The demise of data privacy in the era of surveillance capitalism

Data privacy is a critical phenomenon. It is characterised as a state in which an
individual’s data remains confidential, including the current era of surveillance
capitalism, where individuals constantly provide their data in return for navigating
websites and applications owned by tech surveillance capitalist companies
on the Internet. This is important and complex at the same time, especially in
this era, where individuals’ data can easily be compromised. The seriousness and
critical nature of this situation urge us to examine the current situation of individuals’
data privacy within websites and applications owned by tech surveillance
capitalist companies.
To achieve the results of this investigation, we formulate three hypotheses. 1)
Individuals and tech surveillance capitalist companies share the responsibility
for demising data privacy. 2) Tech surveillance capitalist companies maximise
surplus-value by exploiting individuals’ invaluable data, invaluable data which
contains personal and other individuals’ data. And 3) Individuals’ data privacy
is demised through the usage of dataveillance and deceptive patterns by tech
surveillance capitalist companies. In Hypothesis One, we seek to examine who
is responsible for the termination of data privacy: the owners of personal data,
surveillance capitalism, or both. In Hypothesis Two, we critically examine the
exploitation of invaluable data in software updates and upgrades, new hardware
development, and targeted advertising to increase the surplus-value of these
companies. In Hypothesis Three, we investigate the tools used by tech surveillance
capitalist companies to collect substantially more data than they need.
The results of these three hypotheses are highly concerning. The results of Hypothesis
One reveal that tech surveillance capitalist companies compromise data
privacy, and individuals play a role through their decisions. Factors such as age,
education, culture, and economic status shape this behaviour of individuals. Despite
concerns about privacy, individuals continue to depend on these companies
because of Internet addiction, convenience, and perceived advantages. The results
of Hypothesis Two emphasise the conflict perspectives between individuals
and tech surveillance companies. While for individuals, personal data needs protection,
for companies, it is valuable and must be exploited to gain direct and indirect
surplus-value. Finally, the results from Hypothesis Three show that at the
collection level, individuals begin to lose the confidentiality of their data through
the dataveillance operations of tracing, observing, and seeking data. Deceptive
patterns are also used in legal consent forms to collect more data than necessary.