Pirates of Privacy: How Companies Profit Off Your Personal Data by Using Capital Surveillance Methods in Criminal Prosecution

Surveillance involves monitoring an individual as a method of obtaining information for future use, and is defined as continuous observation of a place, person, group, or ongoing activity in order to gather information. Governments are normally restricted by judicial safeguards such as warrants and common law when it comes to surveillance methods of obtaining an individual’s private data. However, private companies are not. When users agree to terms and conditions on technology apps they often are not aware that they are consenting to being monitored and their information could easily be sold, even to the government. This process of capturing and commodifying personal data for profit-making is commonly referred to as “surveillance capitalism”. Surveillance capitalism poses a threat to privacy rights because the methods by which users’ online data is collected are overly intrusive due to the nature of how the data is stored on these apps. Additionally, the data collected by private companies can be sold, distributed, and used against the user’s legal interests and liberties. However, both International Law and the United States Constitutional Law recognize the right to privacy. This raises the question: How do we protect privacy rights when much of our personal data is now stored digitally and on technological applications that society is becoming reliant on for everyday tasks? Privacy laws have not yet adapted to address this modern day challenge. This article discusses the legal understanding of privacy rights, the threat modern-day surveillance capitalism poses to those rights, and possible solutions for updating outdated privacy laws.