Privacy, Surveillance, and AI

Privacy has always mattered — but AI has changed the scale, subtlety, and consequences of surveillance in ways that make it a newly urgent issue for your generation.

Surveillance as a byproduct

Every interaction with a digital device generates data. Your location, your browsing patterns, your communication metadata, your purchasing behaviour, the content of your messages — all of this is collected, stored, and analysed, often by many different organisations simultaneously.

Facial recognition

Facial recognition AI can identify individuals from CCTV footage at scale. It is being used by police in some jurisdictions, by retailers to identify known shoplifters, and by some governments to monitor populations. Accuracy varies significantly by race and gender — the technology performs worse for darker-skinned individuals and women.

Data profiling

Organisations build detailed profiles of individuals by combining data from many sources. These profiles can be used for targeted advertising, dynamic pricing (showing different prices to different people), insurance risk scoring, and credit assessment — with significant consequences for individuals who have no idea such profiles exist.

Your rights in New Zealand

The Privacy Act 2020 gives you rights over your personal data. You can ask organisations what information they hold about you (a "privacy access request"), request corrections, and in some circumstances request deletion. These rights are worth knowing about and exercising.

Privacy is not about having something to hide. It is about having the power to choose what you share with whom, and retaining control over your own narrative. That power is being eroded — and it matters.