I appreciate your time and contribution to this discussion. It certainly informed my thinking on this important topic for the better. As an "old" my perspective on technology has shifted over the years as the industry that one sees in media no longer considers me the target market.Snip
Like I said, it all sounds reasonable. And if we set aside the "slippery slope" arguments for a moment and assume (just for the purposes of this one sentence) that the system won't ever be abused by a government, it's a pretty nice design for a system that can both protect user privacy and scan for contraband.
But that 1) is a huge assumption and 2) still doesn't answer where's the legal authority that says they can do this on personal property.
Putting aside all the think of the children and slippery slope arguments for a moment: I feel that this raises a larger question. One that has been ill defined and has outpaced the current legal frameworks of countries for awhile now. That question being what constitutes digital personhood. After all, we all carry what amounts to a collective life experience in our societal pockets (I'm personally looking forward to getting a new foldable so I can actually put a phone in my tiny front pockets again which I only bring up to say that I'm not a tech troglodyte and we shouldn't go around flinging our smartphones out with the bathwater). What is life, really but a collection of memories, photos, communication exchanges, documents, numbers that signify our value to the state etc. etc. When does the collection of all of our digital ephemera eventually have some sort of value? It is a safe bet that marketers have placed a value on it.
That brings us around to my premise: Who owns the data footprint that is you? Because if the data in your pocket is you then regardless of the reason we should be advocating to have more control (and right to repair) and privacy (right to forget) over that data. Otherwise, any computer, including the data within, is just a rental. We are renting our digital lives and -insert company here- is "generously" leasing it back to us.
How should we start thinking about technology that we don't really own like smartphones that carry a digital version of our lives?
I see this as a canary for the work being laid down that will impact the generations that are coming up now. It won't be a detriment to me, personally, but what about 10, 15, 25 years from now? Young adults are being inundated with the idea that technology is only an appliance for social capital, everything is a subscription and one doesn't "own" anything. Take that to it's logical extreme if you really want to have nightmares.
Also, to be clear, I think we should have the legal and ethical expectation that companies and agencies will be scanning for things on the cloud. The cloud is the junk food for our time. We know we shouldn't rely and overindulge but it's just so damn delicious (and convenient). On device "blackbox" operations and functions, however, I'm gonna say hard pass, for me at least.