Apple Vision Pro: The Shocking Truth Behind Big Tech’s Biometric Data Harvesting
First, they came for your fingerprint, then they came for your face, and now they want your eyes.
What is Apple, Google, Meta and all of the other big tech companies doing with all of your biometric information that defines who you are? Why are they harvesting all of this biometric data? For safety? For Privacy? Or For Profit?
Are they creating clones of us?
Are they buying your genetic information from 23andMe?
Are they harvesting all of this data just to sell us ads?
Is there a deeper story to this?
Biometric technology has come a long way since the days of fingerprint scanners on our phones. With the introduction of Face ID and now, the rumors of Apple’s upcoming eye-scanning technology, it’s clear that the future of personal identification is rapidly evolving.
But what are the motivations behind these advancements, and what implications do they have for our society?
One of the key concerns is the potential for big tech companies like Apple to use this data for targeted advertising or even to create digital clones of their users.
While these scenarios may seem far-fetched, the fact remains that the data collected through biometric technology is incredibly personal and sensitive.
One of the most fascinating topics for me is the potential use of biometric data for good and for worse.
Apple released its newest product, the apple vision pro, and everyone was so excited about it saying how revolutionary it is for consumers and for productivity being able to see a movie as if you were in the mountains or working on your presentation at a cafe and shutting down the outer world.
But for me, the first thing that came to mind is how much data our eyes give to Apple. Just to shed a light on the power of the eye, The eyes can process about 36,000 bits of information each hour. 10. Your eye will focus on about 50 things per second.
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The eyes are literally the window to our soul. They are a part of our brain, and it is the primary way we interact with the world.
They also reveal a ton of health information about us, and companies are starting to notice:
Biometric technology is rapidly advancing, with a focus on facial recognition and iris scanning. According to a recent study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the accuracy of facial recognition algorithms has improved significantly in recent years, with the best algorithms now achieving error rates below 0.001% (Source: NIST).
An algorithm being developed by Google is really set on proving that your eyes are the window to your soul. A deep learning model based on the retinal images of nearly 285,000 people can predict risk factors such as age, gender, blood pressure and smoking status — some of the big predictors of heart diseases.
Imagine being able to spot health conditions just by looking at retinal images! That’s what AI is bringing to the table, and it’s speeding up the diagnosis process like never before. But, as with any AI model, it needs a lot of data to learn from, and that’s where things get tricky.
Enter RETFound, a game-changing foundation model for retinal images. It learns from a whopping 1.6 million unlabelled images using self-supervised learning, which means it doesn’t need as much human input to get the job done.
This makes it super adaptable and efficient when it comes to detecting eye diseases and even predicting complex systemic disorders like heart failure and myocardial infarction.
And now that more than 400,000 thousand Apple Vision Pro’s will be manufactured, and the rise of Augmented Reality Headsets, imagine how much data will be accessible for this kind of good research to be done.
And all of this Biometric data is particularly sensitive because it is unique to each individual and cannot be changed if compromised.
A 2024 report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) highlighted the risks of biometric data breaches, citing examples of large-scale leaks of biometric data from government databases (Source: EFF).
But, is this data going to the good people fighting the good fight?
Not so much. In fact, it often only goes to people trying to sell you more things, and it is usually handled by a middleman you’d never want handling your health data. Carissa Veliz, Author of Privacy is Power, writes that the people who handle this kind of data are called Data brokers.
In her words, these people are “traders in personal data — [that] can acquire medical data from pharmacies, hospitals, doctors’ offices, health apps, and internet searches, among other sources. Your medical details could also end up in the hands of researchers, insurance companies, or prospective employers”
And it gets worse. According to Carissa, we are never told who will own our data or how will it be used after it is collected. In Privacy is Power, Carissa argues that the data brokers usually don’t care who gets the data, but instead care on how much they offer for it.
So essentially, your eyes are sold to the highest bidder. Not to the ones fighting the good fight, but instead to those who have the deepest pockets.
All of this data is harvested to sell you more stuff. Pretty amazing, right?
You might say, well, if the data is anonymized I don’t really care if my health insurance gets it, since they will never know who I am.
But according to Carissa. Anonymizing Data is tricky and not as lucrative for data brokers:
Carissa writes that:
“Data brokers are misleading the public when they claim they anonymize data. They trade in personal data. They collect all kinds of extremely sensitive information, package it, and sell it to banks, insurers, retailers, telecoms, media companies, governments, and occasionally, criminals. These companies sell information about how much money you make, whether you are pregnant, or divorced, or trying to lose weight. They have also been known to sell lists of rape victims, AIDS patients, and other problematic categories.”
I know, this is getting intense. And its about to get even more intense.
Carissa Writes that Data Brokers have never been a positive force in society, and that she has never heard a good argument to keep them playing the game. In fact, she writes about this extremely concerning story:
“Data brokers are the scavengers of the digital landscape. They live off the data trails we leave behind, sell them to the highest bidder, and very rarely have any regard for the people whose data they are profiting from. Twenty years ago, Amy Boyer was murdered by her stalker after he purchased her personal information and location data from Docusearch[22] — a data broker that, incredibly, still exists. On their website they claim to be ‘online & trusted for over 20 years’.”
What is mind blowing is that The majority of Americans (58%) are open to sharing sensitive personal data, such as biometric, location, or medical information, with third parties for the sake of obtaining specific services or benefits, according to a recent survey by the Center for Data Innovation.
And we don’t really comprehend what can be achieved with all of this information besides selling ads to us — it can drastically change people’s lives for the worse, especially if a government with bad intentions gets this data:
A 2024 study by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that facial recognition systems used by law enforcement agencies disproportionately misidentify people of color, leading to potential civil rights violations (Source: ACLU).
So, where should we draw the line in the sand? How much data is enough data for these vultures to extract from us? How do we guarantee Apple protects our data, when the terms and conditions of all these companies change by the hour, and none of us are experts in law so we don’t know what they mean but it wouldn’t even matter if we know what they meant because, again, these terms change by the hour.
What’s concerning is that only a third of Americans (33%) expressed unwillingness to share any of this sensitive information with mobile apps, even when it could simplify account access or provide free navigational assistance.
The worst part of it all is that none of us are aware of these things when we buy these products, when we get Alexa to listen to every conversation we hold within the sacred and “safe space” that is our home, when our smart TVs connect automatically to more than 700 distinct internet addresses just after 15 minutes of use, when our car insurance asks us to download an app to get a discount for being a safe driver but the tradeoff is that they will track precisely every waking movement we do.
I know, we just want the gadget and forget about all of this because knowing this is just too uncomfortable. Too overwhelming.
But the truth should be overwhelming. These companies are selling us half truths and we must demand the complete story, we must demand that they tell us who gets our information, where does it go, and if we consent to they selling it to other companies or even train their AI systems with our data, effectively building clones of us.
As consumers, it’s vital that we remain vigilant and demand transparency from the companies that hold this information.
This is where the story gets better:
There is growing concern about the privacy implications of biometric data collection. A 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 68% of Americans are concerned about the way their personal data is collected and used by companies and the government (Source: Pew Research Center).
In other words, The public is becoming more aware of the privacy implications of biometric technology. A 2024 poll by the Center for Data Innovation found that 72% of Americans believe that companies should be required to obtain consent before collecting biometric data (Source: Center for Data Innovation).
What continues to blow my mind and I don’t really have the right words to express it is how we created all of this army, all this infrastructure, all this technology to harvest our data and sell it for ads, to sell us more stuff, it just blows my mind, blows my mind that this system that we have built runs through productizing our information and just the power of data and how it runs.
What is the solution to all of this? I don’t really know. I don’t think the solution is to stop consuming these products. I don’t think the solution is to keep buying these products and not knowing the consequences of it.
I think the real solution is for us to be informed about how all of our data is being used, because we sometimes think, or more often think, that this is just a one-way street, meaning that they sell us the product, they sell us the Apple Vision Pro, and that’s the end of the line.
But all of the analytics, all of the data that they continue to retrieve from us, is being handled in some way. And within the 100 pages long terms and conditions, they vaguely state what they’re doing with this data.
They don’t really tell us. And it’s not even in our scope when we buy this stuff.
And so here the real question is, would you, if knowing that data brokers, middlemen, would be handling all of your health data, would be selling it to the highest bidder, not to the most important research facility trying to end diseases by knowing what’s beneath, what the retina says about our health, not to the institutions trying to fight the good fight, but the ones with the deep pockets, would you be willing to do that trade-off?
And I would say, maybe not. But the key here is to be informed. I think that’s the real solution, to understand what is happening behind the scenes when we buy this product.
Why is it that there is this Trojan horse strategy saying that the real value here is just in our pockets, meaning when we buy this product, but the real value, the deep value lies in how they harvest all of this health data.
All of these data that comes from us, our genetic data, our retinas data, our fingerprints, our face ID, all of these data is literally what makes us, us. So shouldn’t we have a better understanding of how it’s being used? Shouldn’t we have a deeper say when it comes to this data? I’m not a fan of being paid for our data. I don’t really care about the monetization side of things. What I do care is that we have to have ownership in this.
As we wrap up this article, it’s clear that the world of biometric technology is both exciting and fraught with potential dangers.
While we can’t predict the future with certainty, it’s important that we stay informed and engaged in the ongoing conversation about privacy and security in the digital age.
So, the next time you’re tempted to unlock your phone with a quick glance or a touch of your finger, remember that the eyes of the world are watching.
Stay curious, and stay informed!
Thank you for reading.
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