Amnesty International Slams Google, Facebook For Assault On Right To Privacy, Surveillance-Based Business Model

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has released a report which has accused Facebook and Google of performing an assault on the right to their users’ privacy on an unprecedented scale.

The report has called upon both the companies to change their business models which threaten basic human rights and condemned their surveillance-based business model, which is starkly demonstrated by their long history of privacy scandals.

“Despite the companies' assurances over their commitment to privacy, it is difficult not to see these numerous privacy infringements as part of the normal functioning of their business, rather than aberrations," the report stated.

The report has stated that Google’s and Facebook's total revenues come almost entirely from advertising, at 84% and 98% respectively.

Their information is so attractive to advertisers that the two companies are often described as having a “duopoly” over the market in online advertising, the report stated.

However, it is not merely about advertising, the report stated, adding that it is the information in their data vaults as well as the computational insights that Google and Facebook derive from that data which is of intense interest to a host of actors, from insurance companies to law enforcement agencies, the Amnesty International report stated.

According to the Amnesty report, the surveillance-based business model of Google and Facebook has thrived from a largely hands-off approach to the regulation of the technology industry in key countries such as the US, the companies' home state.

“But despite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebook's platforms come at a systemic cost. The companies' surveillance-based business model forces people to make a Faustian bargain, whereby they are only able to enjoy their human rights online by submitting to a system predicated on human rights abuse,” the report noted.

“This isn't the internet people signed up for. Citizens today are paying for the Facebook and Google services with their intimate personal data,” the report stated.

After collecting this data, Google and Facebook use it to analyze people, aggregate them into groups, and to make predictions about their interests, characteristics, and ultimately behavior - primarily so they can use these insights to generate advertising revenue.

"This surveillance machinery reaches well beyond the Google search bar or the Facebook platform itself. People are tracked across the web, through the apps on their phones, and in the physical world as well, as they go about their day-to-day affairs," said the Amnesty report.

According to the NGO report, the companies' use of algorithmic systems to create and infer detailed profiles on people interferes with “our ability to shape our own identities within a private sphere”.

“Advertisers were the original beneficiaries of these insights, but once created, the companies' data vaults served as an irresistible temptation for governments as well,” the report stated.