Like never before in history, surveillance technologies from geolocation to data analytics to facial recognition are being used by companies and governments to track the behavior of communities and citizens. But in 2020, we're also witnessing the power of smartphones and other tools for citizens to hold government accountable and as aids in tracking and tracing the spread of coronavirus. Is it possible for surveillance technologies to do more good than harm? Or are the technologies and the terms of our society too fraught to unleash the good without the evil? What kind of social contract do we need to get the best out of technologies?
Author and technologist William Powers (who recently co-wrote this Globe oped on surveillance technology) and Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Project of the ACLU of Massachusetts will join the Globe's editorial page editor Bina Venkataraman for a conversation about the technologies that watch over us.
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