2024-02-10 04:23:37
Paul Armer was a pioneer in computing technology whose work focused on the relationship between computers and society. He began his career at RAND Corporation in 1947 and was later appointed to head its computer science department, a position he held for 10 years. In the late 1960s he moved to Stanford University, where he led the Stanford Computation Center, and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and a faculty member at the Computer Science Department until the 1980.
Armer could be defined as an early advocate of digital privacy, long before people had debit cards, widespread personal computers, internet access, let alone smartphones and digital wallets. He warned of the pitfalls, or even dangers, of surveillance capitalism and a cashless society, decades before they became reality and common academic concepts.
In the article “Computer Technology and Surveillance” published in Computers and People in 1975, Armer clearly presented his insights and warnings on this issue. It should be noted that a surveillance state is what was at the center of his concerns. From an analytical point of view, though, these concerns take on a broad meaning not only regarding individual freedoms vis-à-vis the state, but also the right to privacy vis-à-vis empowered commercial corporations — Big Finance and Big Tech — in the capitalist, neoliberal state. Our times and lives are not just about surveillance’s individual instantiations but rather essentially about surveillance as a fundamental infrastructure of digital, neoliberal capitalism.
The following excerpt — in which bold emphases are mine and an underline emphasis is by the author — gives an intriguing glimpse of Paul Armer’s sharp observations, penned back in 1975:
“The state-of-the-art of computer technology — or, putting it somewhat more broadly, about information processing technology — is, I think, a most important sub-set of surveillance technology. […]
The technology under discussion was developed for reasons other than surveillance, but it happens that it is useful for surveillance purposes. As a prime example of this I want to talk about electronic funds transfer systems. I can’t give you a detailed definition of an electronic funds transfer system (usually referred to as EFTS) because the system hasn’t been built. Its final form will be an outcome of intensive competition, and also of government regulation. But the general form is reasonably clear. Terminals will exist in stores, hotels, restaurants, etc. (where they are referred to as point-of-sale terminals), and in financial institutions, including unattended terminals miles from the nearest office of the institution. In short, terminals will be at any location apt to have a large number of non-trivial financial transactions.
Let’s look at one way it might work. Say you are about to buy a book. You present your card (sometimes called a “debit card”, although National Bank Americard calls theirs an “asset card”) to a clerk who puts it into a terminal which reads it and then calls up your bank. If you have enough money in your account, or if your bank is willing to grant you that much credit, the transaction is okayed; your account is debited; and a credit is dispatched from your bank to the book store’s bank account.
The dimensions of the final form of EFTS which are of importance to its potential surveillance capability are such things as the percentage of the transactions recorded; the degree of centralization of the data; and the speed of information flow in the system.
Suppose for a minute all transactions over $10 must go through the system and that they are immediately debited to your account in your bank’s computer. Thus the system not only collects and files a great deal of data about your financial transactions — and that means a great deal of data about your life — but the system knows where you are every time you make such a transaction.
Suppose that the rule for all transactions over $10 is not compulsory, but voluntary. And further suppose that you have gotten into the habit of using the system because: one, it is convenient; and two, it may be cheaper than other payment mechanisms. Now comes an instance in which you want privacy and decide to use cash. If you have to obtain the cash from the EFT system, that cash transaction will stand out like a sore thumb. The point here is that it’s not enough just to have the option of using cash, the cash option must be used frequently or it becomes useless as a means for privacy.
To give you an idea of how powerful a surveillance system an EFTS would be, consider the following. In 1971 a group of experts in computers, communication, and surveillance was assembled and given the following task: Suppose you are advisors to the head of the KGB, the Soviet Secret Police. Further, suppose that you are given the assignment of designing a system for the surveillance of all citizens and visitors within the boundaries of the USSR. Further, the system is not to be too obtrusive or obvious. Not only would it handle all the financial accounting and provide the statistics crucial to a centrally planned economy; it was the best surveillance system we could imagine within the constraint that it not be obtrusive.
That exercise was almost four years ago, and it was only a two-day effort. I am sure we could add some bells and whistles to increase its effectiveness somewhat. But the fact remains that this group decided that if you wanted to build an unobtrusive system for surveillance, you couldn’t do much better than an EFTS.
Naturally, the EFTS proponents believe that laws could be written to prevent abuse of the system. I am less sanguine. I’m not concerned about the bankers invading my privacy or using the system for surveillance purposes; but I am afraid that EFTS system operators may be unable to resist pressures from government to let the EFTS be used for surveillance.” (Arms 1975).
Arms, Paul. 1975.”Computer Technology and Surveillance“. Computers and People 24 (9): 8-11.
These excellent books dive into and elaborate on this crucial matter:
— Lauer, Josh and Kenneth Lipartito, eds. 2021. Surveillance Capitalism in America. University of Pennsylvania Press.
— Scott, Brett. 2022. Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallet. Harper Business
—Zuboff, Shoshana. 2020. Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Public Affairs.
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