Allan Milne Lees
1 min readJul 29, 2020

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A good article, Lara, and well-argued. It's implausible to imagine that Apple, Google, et al are constantly surveilling us. What is, however, unfortunately a reality is that any national signals intelligence organization (NSA, GCHQ, etc.) can use one's smartphone as a surveillance device, even when it appears to be turned off. So if you happen to be a journalist covering something your government (or someone else's government) doesn't want you to cover, or a political dissident, or even a protester, there's a non-zero possibility that you are being illegally monitored via your phone. The same is also true of any "smart" device you have in your home: Alexa, your TV, etc. The implications for civil liberties have not yet begun to surface, and doubtless hardly anyone will care ("I'm not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to hide so I don't need to be worried....") when abuses inevitably come to light years from now.

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Allan Milne Lees
Allan Milne Lees

Written by Allan Milne Lees

Anyone who enjoys my articles here on Medium may be interested in my books Why Democracy Failed and The Praying Ape, both available from Amazon.

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