Terms and Conditions May Apply

            The documentary, Terms and Conditions May Apply, takes privacy in a digital setting to heart. Privacy hasn’t necessarily been top of mind and even Ess’s points throughout the chapter didn’t really unsettle me. But this documentary is a great comment to the chapter and I encourage you all to check it out! Highlight reel:            Around 20 minutes in there’s a surprising example of a credit limit decrease based on a “guilty by association” mentality by the credit card company. Based on where the client shopped, they expected him to be delinquent on payment since others who had shopped there had been delinquent credit customers.            Tom Tom was selling GPS info to the government and it resulted in speeding tickets for users. The ethical debate is double-sided: privacy and client relationship violated by the company; duty to society (see: deontology, consequentialism) violated by the speeder.            The repercussions for innocent people making jokes and sarcastic commentary on social media were surprising to me. The activity which was red flagged seem ridiculous in this documentary but the potential to save lives by pursuing these red flags feels like the ends justifying the means. It’s very Minority Report and people are outraged (and maybe it is outrageous), but when deontology in terms of service to security and safety; consequentialism (for the most part); and certainly utilitarianism, are applied it makes sense to me. Perhaps I’m being naïve.            Coming back to the unlikely connection to Minority Report, this could certainly work toward impactful preventive measures against crime. I know it wasn’t the argument they were trying to convey in the documentary but it’s the first time I realized how these privacy issues could save my life, the lives of my loved ones, innocent bystanders everywhere—through preventative measures. I like the idea of that. Is that unethical? Or does utilitarianism veto the unethical privacy violations?            Terms and Conditions May Apply is outside the scope this chapter discussion but certainly complements Ess’s discussion of privacy. Hoback, C. (Director). (2013). Terms and conditions may apply [Documentary]. USA: Distributed by Roco Films Educational.

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