Transparent Lives

The work of a multidisciplinary research team, TransparentLives explains how surveillance is expandingmostlyuncheckedinto every facet of our lives. Although many Canadiansare aware that government agencies are able to conduct masssurveillance using phone and online data, relatively few of usrecognize the extent to which our privacy has been invaded by routineforms of monitoring. We cannot walk down a city street, attend a class,pay with a credit card, hop on an airplane, or make a phone callwithout data being captured and processed. Where does such informationgo, and who makes use of it? Who gains, and who loses? The NewTransparency Project set out to investigate the myriad of ways in whichboth government and private sector organizations gather, monitor,analyze, and share information about ordinary citizens. This research, which extended over several years, culminated in theidentification of nine key trends in the contemporary practice ofsurveillancetrends that, together, raise urgent questions ofboth privacy and social justice. Perhaps the loss of control over ourpersonal information is merely the price we pay for using social mediaand other forms of electronic communication. Or should we instead bewary of systems that make us visible, and thus vulnerable, to others asnever before? Transparent Lives is intended to informpolicymakers, journalists, civil liberties groups, and educators aboutthe current state of surveillance in Canada. Above all, though, it aimsto alert unsuspecting citizens to the ubiquitous and largely invisiblepractices of monitoring that surround them.