NEW PATENTS: GOOGLE WANTS TO MONITOR EVERYTHING YOU & YOUR CHILDREN DO AT HOME
BY C. MITCHELL SHAW
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
According to recently disclosed patents, Google is preparing to take
“surveillance as a feature” to a whole new level, with devices in every
room of users’ homes to watch, listen, and analyze users’ every word and
action.
Promoting the new devices as a matter of convenience, as it has done
with the Google Home speaker, the tech giant seems to expect that users
will readily accept even more (and more detailed) surveillance for the
promise of greater ease and convenience. The unevenness of that
trade-off (something as precious as privacy for something as unimportant
as convenience) is why this writer refers to such technology as
“surveillance as a feature.”
While Google may have started out as a search engine and is still
largely associated with that aspect of its business model, the reality
is that Google’s main business (to which the search engine aspect is
completely subservient) is data-mining and data analysis. Consider that
the tech titan has amassed a net value of roughly $200 billion by
offering “free” services, such as search, e-mail, calendar, and address
book, along with YouTube and other services. That $200 billion has
largely been made by gathering troves of personal data on its more than
one billion users and leveraging that data into advertising revenues.
The company also routinely filters and manipulates search results for
the benefit of political candidates and policies favored by the
company’s leaders.
The recently publicized patents reveal that the surveillance hawks at
Google apparently don’t think enough is enough. In fact, those patents
show that the new technology in Google’s offing blows past anything the
company has done up to this point. The new technology includes the
integration of cameras, microphones, and other sensors that would allow
those devices to work together to monitor the comings and goings (using
sensors on doors as well as cameras and microphones) of people in homes
equipped (read: bugged) with the devices. The cameras and microphones
would allow the devices and Google’s servers to recognize people and
objects and analyze the significance of the presence of those people and
objects. As PJ Media is reporting:
These patents tell us that Google is
developing smart-home products that are capable of eavesdropping on us
throughout our home in order to learn more about us and better target us
with advertising. It goes much further than the current Google Home
speaker that’s promoted to answer our questions and provide useful
information, and the Google-owned Nest thermostat that measures
environmental conditions in our home. What the patents describe are
sensors and cameras mounted in every room to follow us and analyze what
we’re doing throughout our home.
They describe how the cameras can even
recognize the image of a movie star’s image on a resident’s t-shirt,
connect it to the person’s browsing history, and send the person an ad
for a new movie the star is in.
That degree of surveillance is far beyond anything found in the current state of “surveillance as a feature.”
As an indication of the thinking of the folks over at Google, the description for one of the patents
begins by lamenting the lack of ability to use current “smart-devices”
to accomplish the level of surveillance the company desires. The patent
is explained in 258 paragraphs. Paragraph [0003] and [0004] state:
People interact with a number of
different electronic devices on a daily basis. In a home setting, for
example, a person may interact with smart thermostats, lighting systems,
alarm systems, systems, and a variety of other electronic devices.
Unfortunately, the usefulness of these devices often times is limited to
basic and/or particular pre-determined tasks associated with the
device.
As society advances, households within
the society may become increasingly diverse, having varied household
norms, procedures, and rules. Unfortunately, because so-called smart
devices have traditionally been designed with pre-determined tasks
and/or functionalities, comparatively fewer advances have been made
regarding using these devices in diverse or evolving households or in
the context of diverse or evolving household norms, procedures, and
rules.
And paragraph [0006] says:
According to embodiments of this
disclosure, a smart-home environment may be provided with smart-device
environment policies that use smart-devices to monitor activities within
a smart-device environment, report on these activities, and/or provide
smart-device control based upon these activities.
So, the current state of “so-called smart devices” isn’t up to
Google’s standard? Apparently, the only devices that qualify as “smart”
to Google are those that allow the company to analyze your every
conversation and movement throughout your home. To drive that home,
paragraph [0072] spells out just how two of the processors in the device
described by this patent would work together to accomplish the type of
surveillance that meets Google’s standard for “smart devices.” It
states:
By way of example, the high-power
processor 20 and the low-power processor 22 may detect when a location
(e.g., a house or room) is occupied (i.e., includes a presence of a
human), up to and including whether it is occupied by a specific person
or is occupied by a specific number of people (e.g., relative to one or
more thresholds). In one embodiment, this detection can occur, e.g., by
analyzing microphone signals, detecting user movements (e.g., in front
of a device), detecting openings and closings of doors or garage doors,
detecting wireless signals, detecting an internet protocol (IP) address
of a received signal, detecting operation of one or more devices within a
time window, or the like. Moreover, the high-power processor 20 and the
low-power processor 22 may include image recognition technology to
identify particular occupants or objects.
Paragraph [0125] explains how the devices would distinguish between
voices to determine, for instance, that a room is occupied by an adult
male, an adult female, or a female child based on the audio signatures
of the voices. It goes on to state, “Video data may optionally be used
to confirm or to help arrive at such conclusions.” And paragraph [0131]
explains how the devices can use “facial recognition or other
image-based recognition” along with “digital device presence (e.g.,
presence of electronic devices associated with a particular person), or
other inputs … associated with a particular household occupant or
particular type of household occupant” to identify people.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing elements is found is paragraph
[0185]. It describes the presence of sensors, cameras, and microphones
in bathrooms to determine whether a person is brushing his teeth— based
on “an audio signature and/or video signature” to measure such things as
“the sounds and/or images of teeth brushing” and the sound of the sink
being left on for the time it takes a person to brush their teeth.
Let that sink in for just a moment: sensors, cameras, and microphones
in your bathroom? Remember that paragraph [0125] already discussed the
fact that the devices can detect the presence of children. This means
that the folks over at Google are already aware that there are children
in the world. Those children take baths and showers. Google wants you to
point a camera and a microphone at your children while they bathe?
And that is far from the only access to your children sought by
Google. Another patent filed by Google discusses the tech company’s
plans to monitor children as a type of digital nanny. As The Atlantic reported:
The second patent proposes a smart-home
system that would help run the household, using sensors and cameras to
restrict kids’ behavior. Parents could program a device to note if it
overhears “foul language” from children, scan internet usage for mature
or objectionable content, or use “occupancy sensors” to determine if
certain areas of the house are accessed while they’re gone— for example,
the liquor cabinet. The system could be set to “change a smart lighting
system color to red and flash the lights” as a warning to children or
even power off lights and devices if they’re grounded.
As bad as all of this is, Google makes sure to leave the door open
for more. Early on, paragraph [0005] of the first patent states:
A summary of certain embodiments
disclosed herein is set forth below. It should be understood that these
aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary
of these certain embodiments and that these aspects are not intended to
limit the scope of this disclosure. Indeed, this disclosure may
encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below.
So, Google — already pushing surveillance into new areas — reserves
the “right” under this patent to push even further as new surveillance
ideas enter the darkened minds of the leaders of the company whose motto
was once, “Don’t be evil!”
