Skip to content
How Systems Work

The Surveillance Business Model

Ages 12–16 25 min read Advanced

To sell your attention effectively, platforms need to know you intimately. They achieve this through mass surveillance — tracking everything you do online (and increasingly offline) to build a detailed profile of who you are, what you want, and what you'll do next.

What They Collect

  • Everything you click, like, share, or search
  • How long you look at each post (even without clicking)
  • Your location — GPS, Wi-Fi networks, cell towers
  • Your contacts — who you communicate with and how often
  • Your purchases — through payment tracking and partnerships with retailers
  • Your voice — smart speakers and voice assistants record commands (and sometimes more)
  • Your face — facial recognition in photos you upload
  • Your browsing history — through tracking cookies and pixels across the web

The Data Profile

Facebook alone holds an estimated 52,000 data points on each active user (ProPublica, 2016). This includes inferred data: your political leaning, your income bracket, your health interests, your relationship stability — all predicted from your behaviour.

Google knows your search history, email content (Gmail), location history (Google Maps), viewing history (YouTube), and documents (Google Docs). Combined, this creates a more detailed picture of you than most friends or family have.

Australian Privacy Law

The Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles regulate how organisations handle personal information. But the law was written before social media existed and is widely considered outdated.

The OAIC (Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) is the regulator, but it has limited enforcement power compared to the EU's GDPR, which can fine companies up to 4% of global revenue.

The Australian government has proposed reforms, but tech company lobbying has slowed progress.

What You Can Do

  • Review privacy settings on every platform you use
  • Limit app permissions (location, contacts, microphone)
  • Use a privacy-focused browser (Brave, Firefox) and search engine (DuckDuckGo)
  • Regularly clear cookies and browsing data
  • Think before accepting "terms and conditions" — you're agreeing to data collection

Tonight's Question

"If you could see everything Google knows about you, would you be comfortable? What would surprise you most?"

You CAN see this: go to myactivity.google.com while logged in.

Privacy Audit

  1. Each family member visits myactivity.google.com and reviews what Google has recorded.
  2. Check privacy settings on your three most-used apps.
  3. Review app permissions on your phone: which apps have access to location, microphone, contacts?
  4. Revoke any permissions that seem unnecessary.
  5. Discuss: were you surprised by how much data was collected?

Go Further

  • Website: OAIC (oaic.gov.au) — Australia's privacy regulator. File complaints about privacy breaches.
  • Tool: Request your data from Facebook (Settings → Your Information → Download Your Information). See what they have.
  • Book: Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (2019) — the whistleblower who revealed mass surveillance.
  • Question: Is privacy a right or a privilege? What would you give up for a "free" service?

What We Simplified

  • Data collection enables useful services. Google Maps needs your location to give directions. Recommendations need your history to be relevant. The question is proportionality.
  • Not all companies are equally invasive. Apple, for example, has made privacy a selling point. Not all tech is the same.
  • Regulation is coming. Australia, the EU, and others are strengthening privacy laws. The situation is improving, though slowly.

Sources

  • Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Profile Books.
  • OAIC. "Australian Privacy Principles." OAIC
  • ProPublica (2016). "Facebook Doesn't Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them." ProPublica
  • Snowden, E. (2019). Permanent Record. Metropolitan Books.

Want to track progress and save lessons?

Create a free family account. No credit card, no catch — just a place to keep track of what your family is learning.

Create Free Account