The Feds have made their intentions known about conducting surveillance on a range of social media platforms covering everything from political speech, activist assembly, and even health. In tandem with corporate data harvesters, open public forums like Twitter and Facebook can provide a wealth of knowledge about general behavior, as well as real-time monitoring of activities.
Troubling new research from the University of Rochester (full press release below) aims to go a step further: turning "any computer or smartphone with a camera into a personal mental health monitoring device."
That's right, mental health.
As you'll see, researchers hope that we will sign on willingly to have our interaction with social media scrutinized by an artificial intelligence algorithm that will evaluate our emotional stability.
What gives this new research an even higher creep factor than simply letting a computer make judgements about our mental well being, is if we look at how this could fit into pre-crime policing that already has begun to tie into social media posts, health databases, and gun purchase records to identify those who are possibly "near the breaking point." Combine this with the language embedded in ObamaCare that specifically states "predictive modeling" for a range of mental disorders (ever expanding in definition of course) and it is not difficult to heed the obligatory warning from these researchers:
...using this system means "effectively giving this app permission to observe you constantly," but adds that the program is designed for the use of the user only and does not share data with anyone else unless otherwise designated by the user. (emphasis added)
Gee, where have we heard that before? Time and again, we have seen how the choice to opt-in for new technology is slowly eroded to the point where it becomes either pervasive through widespread adoption, or it simply becomes mandatory at a later date.
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Originally Posted by Zippyjuan
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