Outside of the illogical fear that it will blow up in your sleep while it sits two inches from your face or expose you to some unknown form of cancer, having a phone is slightly unsettling. It’s known and almost accepted that smartphones and their apps watch and harvest data on us all the time, through sources like TikTok and Instagram, specifically. With the recent acquisition of TikTok by American conglomerates, many users have even expressed that they miss their “Chinese spy,” who hypothetically tailored their “For You” page via their data and did it better than whichever American is now tasked with it. It’s a funny joke, and I do miss my “Chinese spy” as well, but the acceptance of this surveillance — especially in the hands of who maintains it now — may be the downfall of privacy, giving rise to the exploitation and stalking of our fellow Americans with malicious intent.
TikTok being “under new ownership” is one of the changes that hits close to home for many. Following its transfer from the Chinese company ByteDance to majority American ownership under a new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC (held by notable tech companies like Oracle and Silver Lake), many privacy policy changes were implemented. These changes included new permissions, such as precise location tracking through GPS rather than the more simplistic data found through your SIM card and IP address, and the utilization of data on users from outside the app to influence ad placement. Although the changes have been positioned as benign, ad-based changes, it has been theorized that these overreaching policies are part of a growing underground censorship plan that is repressing content about controversial topics like the Epstein files and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) shootings.
These accusations have been denied by U.S. owners, citing power outages at a major Oracle data center for the slow loading times and wonky algorithm. But there is still an undeniable shift in TikTok that undermines this reasoning, and California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced an investigation into these claims. If found to be true, these changes strategically target certain views and silence first-hand accounts and evidence. If your phone and TikTok, can see what you say and silence you, what else can it do? The better question is, what can be hidden from or found about you without your phone?
The most blatant exercise of this desire to harvest data is the U.S. government’s massive grants and cooperation with the controversial tech giant Palantir. Since President Trump took office, Palantir has experienced its most successful year to date due to $570 million in government contracts with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, Palantir has been contracted by I.C.E. with engineering a database dubbed ImmigrationOS that would compile information on immigrants to track their movements. I.C.E. has been documented pulling location and background information on individuals even through far-fetched means like the ads that come up when you browse a website or play an online game.
13 former Palantir employees have signed a letter urging the company to leave these contracts, but it seems the company is happy to aid in harvesting this data as CEO Alex Karp called these projects “some of the most interesting intricate, unusual, operations that the US government has been involved in – many of which we can’t comment on – but were the highlight of last year and highly motivating to all of us at Palantir.” Comments by both the current administration and Palantir may allude to a future where all Americans are highly surveilled by these kinds of programs that could be used, for example, to document or suppress those who participate in protests. A much worse outcome than just repressing their TikTok algorithms.
Surveillance outside of an immigration context is already here. Anyone who steps into certain Target stores, especially upon engaging with the self-checkout kiosks, has unknowingly given biometric data like facial scans to the company. Target has been documented using this infrastructure to build up cases on repeat shoplifters, noting every product value that is stolen until they can be prosecuted for larceny, an actual felony. Outside of these criminal cases, Target concedes that it uses specific data from product views and interaction online to customize advertisements. The combination of these facial recognition cameras and in-depth documentation of purchases is indicative of a natural progression toward the company employing data found on its cameras of an individual, maybe looking at a specific product, to more intensely advertise it.
Even the collection of this biometric data, let alone the misuse of it, is illegal. In 2024, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Target for violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which protects individuals from having data like facial scans and fingerprints taken without full disclosure of what that data is being used for. Seeing as how most Americans are not aware of this practice, it is clear that Target is negligently stealing consumers’ data.
Targeted surveillance of social media activity is benign until used to build up a profile on an individual and censor or take legal action against them, in the case of TikTok and Palantir. Similarly, Target’s robust facial recognition system is benign until used to adversely affect the customer. A future where companies like Target can strategically use this data to hypothetically charge consumers more may be at hand as Walmart, Kroger and Whole Foods roll out new digital price tags that can be changed in an instant.
The tags have been pitched as a more efficient way to change items to clearance, but many lawmakers cite them as additional vessels to gouge customers. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey wrote to Kroger arguing that “widespread adoption of digital price tags appears poised to enable large grocery stores to squeeze consumers to increase profits.”
At the center of all of these concerning circumstances is data. The silly and useless data like which TikToks you like and what you buy at Target is mirrored by the same data collection that is silencing whistleblowers and stalking individuals. The right to privacy is a human right, and it’s one that is dwindling faster than it is being noticed.
The scariest part, though, is that this collection is no longer an opt-in program. If you did not want records of your locations or purchases, you could just leave your phone out of the equation. But the threat of excessive surveillance is no longer contained to our phones. It is outside in traffic cameras and grocery stores, and once it has moved from only tracking shoplifters and I.C.E. victims, it may be a cornerstone for all of the policies that hinder and overcharge the people.
Lucy Miller fears declining cookies and wearing a tinfoil hat isn’t enough anymore.
