Educational Media Reviews Online

This English subtitled work by Dutch director, Peter Vlemmix, takes a mind- bending look into privacy and digital surveillance in the Netherlands. This intense work examines what government and corporations monitor and record. That is, how and why do governments use camera surveillance, and what do Facebook and Google do with data about one’s online searches and behaviors? The most compelling theses of this film are that the citizenry does not know exactly what data are collected and how these entities use the data.

The Dutch government has placed cameras on subways and other places, even though this practice was not legislated. The footage is submitted to face recognition software for border security and criminal detection. There have, however, been breakdowns in the intelligence gathered. There have been instances of false linkages, and instances in which surveillance criminals assuming stolen identities have led police to false arrests and even convictions. Similarly, there have been useful applications of consumer data made by companies, and the film gives examples of companies conscientiously deleting private customer data.

In corporate circles, there are examples of businesspeople who delete customer data. On the other hand, the film offers numerous examples of companies recording consumer behavior and data by sales. Companies like Google and Facebook have massive amounts of personal data, but it cannot be determined exactly how much data is stored, why it is being stored, and how (if at all) it is being used. In an interesting side story, the people and politicians in Berlin, Germany stood up to privacy breeches and surveillance and won.

This is an exceptionally potent work that not only provides many instances of questionable to mysterious electronic surveillance and data recording, but poses very challenging questions. What does the government know about its citizenry? What degree of responsibility do ISPs have? What kind of access do hackers and other entities have to previously assumed-to-be-private information, such as medical records, including psychiatric patient information? The most resounding message of this astute work is there is data collection occurring for compilation and future use, even if the compiling entities and the citizenry do not know what that use might be.