Verbeek’s Designing the Public Sphere: Information Technologies

and the Politics of Mediation

Markets, businesses, groups, and individuals should be regulated or limited differently in the face of diminishing state power and the intelligification and networking of the material world. Verbeek (2014) argued that Information and Communication Technologies are an essential part of our everyday lives. With intelligification the ability to obtain, access, and use information has increased more than ever. The conversation about privacy will need to be changed to address the regulatory environment in which the most common everyday appliance can gather a user’s personal information. Since the increased reliance on information and IOT platforms, there is a need to put in place policies strengthening oversight and accountability as it relates to transparency and privacy protection.

To regulate markets, businesses, groups, and individuals, the government, in partnership with technology corporations, will need to develop future-proof regulations to guide and ensure responsibility. Corporations developing technology operate with little to no oversight because the power of the state has diminished, as it has not always remained current with technological advancements. In the material world, there needs to be regulations defining ethical practices, restrictions on data collection, how data is used, information privacy, and unwanted surveillance. Additionally, policies should work to help the individual protect themselves from intelligification. Policies should help people understand their rights and protections to control being monitored, tracked, or having their personal information unknowingly compromised. An effective partnership between the government and technology could create a framework that protects individuals.

In conclusion, whether the group or individual possesses good or bad intentions, a framework defining acceptable behavior and practices should guide how technology is used. In the example of Google Glass, in Verbeek’s article, there is nothing to prevent a user from collecting personal information about someone they see. Policies that call for transparency as to the capabilities of technology can protect against exposure to unwanted behavior. The same could be said for companies using pervasive technologies to influence consumer decision-making. Governments, working with corporations, need to understand the capabilities of technology and set limits as to how it can be applied. Most importantly, the government, just like the oversight of pharmaceutical companies, should hold the corporations to a standard of transparency where they disclose the complete capabilities of the intelligent applications and how they can impact lives.

References

Verbeek, P. P. (2014). Designing the public sphere: Information technologies and the politics of mediation. In The Onlife manifesto: being human in a hyperconnected era (pp. 217-227). Cham: Springer International Publishing.