Amid the wall d\u00e9cor in Karen Levy\u2019s Gates Hall office\u2014across from an assortment of trucker memorabilia and a signed photo of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg \u201954\u2014is a poster from the classic thriller The Conversation<\/em>. A Best Picture nominee written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the 1974 film stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert tasked with bugging an \u201cunrecordable\u201d event: two people talking as they walk through a busy, noisy city square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s apt artwork for Levy, an assistant professor of information science whose research explores the often fraught intersection of technology and privacy. Levy, who also has an appointment in the Law School, had already earned a JD from Indiana University and clerked for a federal judge when she decided to pursue a PhD in sociology from Princeton\u2014training that gives her a novel perspective as she explores a wide variety of topics, from the use of webcams in nursing homes to the ways in which retailers track customers to the role of technology in intimate partner abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tracking on 18 wheels<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But first, there were the truckers. While the current shortage of long-haul drivers\u2014and its role in pandemic-related supply chain issues\u2014has made headlines in recent months, Levy began studying the industry a decade ago. The subject of her doctoral thesis (and the reason why she has a trucker patch and belt buckle on her office wall) was how surveillance technology has impacted trucking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Starting in 2011, Levy spent several years interviewing drivers at truck stops in 11 states as part of her research on the use of electronic monitors in their vehicles, installed to ensure that they adhere to regulations limiting their driving time to prevent fatigue and accidents. \u201cPreviously, they\u2019d had a lot of autonomy in deciding how to get their work done\u2014when they were going to work, which rules they were going to follow,\u201d Levy says. \u201cThis was much, much more rigid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She found that the tech was deeply unpopular with drivers\u2014learning, among other things, that some developed clever ways of sabotaging the equipment, and that their employers sometimes altered data to conceal violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTruckers get paid by the mile, so if they\u2019re not on the road they\u2019re making zero money, even if they\u2019re doing other things that are required of them by their companies or by the law,\u201d Levy explains. \u201cSo of course they\u2019re incentivized to stay on the road as much as they possibly can, and to break the law if they have to. There\u2019s a lot of pressure on them to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n One overarching issue she examined was how the new technology clashes with trucking\u2019s traditionally independent culture; it\u2019s a profession that has long treasured the freedom and romance of life on the open road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMany truckers will tell you that the reason they get into the job is that it\u2019s a way to have control over their lives,\u201d says Levy, who recently completed a book called Data Driven: Truckers and the New Workplace Surveillance<\/em>, to be published in 2022 by Princeton University Press. \u201cPart of why this technology was received so negatively is that it slams up against this idea of autonomy that has been really valued in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And paradoxically, she says, the tech may initially have had a negative effect on safety by alienating more experienced truckers\u2014prompting the very people that society would want behind the wheel of a semi to flee the industry. \u201cOlder drivers don\u2019t want to be told, \u2018We don\u2019t trust you; we\u2019re going to watch you now,\u2019\u201d Levy says. \u201cAlmost every trucker told me that these monitors treated them either like criminals or like children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Passwords and \u2018first pets\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to her many scholarly articles, Levy has been published widely in the lay press, including the Washington Post<\/em>, Vox<\/em>, the Atlantic<\/em>, and the L.A. Times<\/em>. In a March 2018 essay in Slate<\/em>, she addressed the role that tech can play in facilitating intimate partner abuse\u2014potentially allowing someone to surreptitiously track a partner\u2019s movements, intercept their communications, and otherwise control their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve discovered in our research is that digital abuse of intimate partners is both more mundane and more complicated than we might think,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s mundane in that many forms of digital abuse require little to no sophistication and are carried out using everyday devices and services: social media platforms, find-my-friends apps, cell phone family plans. Abusers aren\u2019t hackers: though some do install surreptitious \u2018spouseware\u2019 to monitor their victims without consent, it\u2019s much more common to abuse victims digitally in ways that don\u2019t require any high-tech skill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we\u2019ve discovered in our research is that digital abuse of intimate partners is both more mundane and more complicated than we might think.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But as Levy notes, while tech companies tend to focus on preventing sophisticated cyberattacks, much of everyday cybersecurity hinges on factors like passwords, pre-answered questions (like the name of your first pet), and access to physical devices like a laptop or cell phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPasswords are saved on your home computer where your abuser probably is, and the abuser is going to know the answers to your security questions,\u201d she says. \u201cMany of these things that we\u2019ve built up as checks fall flat when the abuser is in the home with you. Technologies are not designed with that in mind; they\u2019re designed with the hacker in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n No easy answers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For Levy, the most compelling research questions involve modes of technical surveillance that aren\u2019t clearly good or bad; the same app that can help parents ensure their third-grader gets safely home from school, for example, could allow an abusive husband to track his wife to the concealed location of a domestic violence shelter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the American Journal of Bioethics: Empirical Bioethics<\/em>, Levy and colleagues pondered the ethical issues around the use of webcams in nursing homes\u2014often installed by relatives concerned that their loved ones aren\u2019t getting proper care. While that\u2019s a noble goal, she says, it raises concerns about privacy\u2014not only of workers and roommates but of residents who may have dementia and can\u2019t consent to being surveilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We often use technical solutions as a way to put a Band-Aid on a bigger social and economic problem, rather than just dealing with the root of it; you see that over and over.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In the same vein, Levy\u2019s trucker study explored the complicated effects of a technology intended to save lives by keeping exhausted drivers off the road. \u201cWe often use technical solutions as a way to put a Band-Aid on a bigger social and economic problem, rather than just dealing with the root of it; you see that over and over,\u201d she observes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we paid drivers a fair wage, or paid them for all the time they\u2019re actually working and not just moving on the highway, they wouldn\u2019t be so tired. That feels to me a much more sensible place to change the policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, nursing home cameras are a way for relatives to cope with the fact that facilities are often understaffed\u2014something that could be improved by higher salaries and tighter Medicaid regulations. \u201cBut we\u2019ve chosen not to do those things,\u201d she says, \u201cand we\u2019ve created a situation where families feel like they have no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A ‘shocking’ (and possibly apocryphal) example<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Among researchers on tech and privacy, there\u2019s an anecdote so canonical that Levy laughingly notes it\u2019s \u201calmost a drinking game; someone will eventually bring it up.\u201d It traces its infamy to a February 2012 New York Times Magazine<\/em> story by Charles Duhigg in which he described an effort by Target to market products to expectant mothers, whom it identified by mining data on their seemingly unrelated purchases, like calcium supplements and unscented lotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among those potential customers: a high schooler whose father was incensed by what he thought was an inappropriate mailing\u2014until he found out that she was, in fact, pregnant. \u201cIt was shocking,\u201d Levy says of the tale (which, she goes on to note, may in fact have been apocryphal). \u201cIt\u2019s so visceral. It has all these great ingredients that make it super sticky and memorable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The anecdote seemed all the more egregious, Levy says, because it came before the news of notorious breaches of privacy\u2014like Edward Snowden\u2019s disclosure of NSA surveillance (in 2013) and the Cambridge Analytica scandal (of 2018), when it was revealed that millions of Facebook users had their data mined without their consent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery few years, this issue pops up and we say, \u2018Oh my God, we have to do something about it,\u2019\u201d says Levy, \u201cand then we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Top image: Illustration by Cornell University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Published November 30, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Karen Levy has explored digital privacy in such varied areas as trucking, nursing homes, and domestic abuse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":4397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"alumni_hub_syml_posts":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[227],"tags":[],"cornell_year_post":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-4262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-beyond"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/UP_2018_0536_007A-819x1024.jpg\")
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