Draft Essay

Wearable computing and privacy
Fiona Johnston

Introduction
Wearable computing has been around since the invention of the watch. A wearable computer is defined as being (1) Worn, not carried, (2) user controllable, and (3) operating in real-time. Currently available wearables include MP3 player jackets, wireless area sensing T-shirts and medical devices such as a pacemaker.

Reading the January Domus magazine, I came across a small article about a design project by Philips called SKIN. This project is based on soft technologies, exploring the future integration of sensitive materials and the human body. Things such as conductive inks, small textile sensors, stretchable and flexible electronic substances that integrate energy, supply, sensors and displays have all been explored. I have worked with fabric and fashion design for the past 3 years and this has made me interested in what the future of textiles and clothing might hold. Already to date we have gone from all natural fabrics like cotton, wool and linen in natural colours, to synthetic fabrics with stretch, heat resistance, anti static properties, waterproof, breathable and incredibly light-weight warm fabrics. A lot of these textiles seem to be trying to reproduce or out-do nature itself.

With such rapid advances in technology, concerns about our way of life and how it is going to be affected are being raised. A very big topic of concern is privacy and how it is being rapidly deteriorated by new technologies and the way they are used. “…the computer revolution has put individual privacy interests at risk” (Technology and Society Issues for the 21st century and beyond, p.53, 2008). Things are changing quickly and in the future even our social culture and the way we interact with others will be completely different. With every passing year we get another step closer to integrating humans and computers. But everything that is a technological advancement has a downside and often it is change, which we as humans are not entirely comfortable with.

Social Interaction
“An evolution in lifestyles in recent years has led to increased mobility and, at the same time, a strong desire for instant access to information and communication” (Wearable electronics and photonics, 1.3.1, 2005) Wearable communication technology gives users a huge benefit for easing tasks in everyday life but what effect is it going to have on our face-to-face social interaction with other people? Will a videophone embedded in clothing be able to keep people connected or will it create awkward social situations when two people meet in person? As with text messaging, people often say things they wouldn’t normally say in person, creating completely different situations that would not exist if it weren’t for the technology. It will be interesting to see what further social impacts wearable technology creates. An example of technology’s impact on social situations is “Ibieca, a Spanish village, found that its indoor plumbing came at the expense of community integration… upsetting a traditional pattern of water use…” (Society, ethics and technology, p.84, 2006). The development of user changeable fabrics and emotion sensing wearables gives people the opportunity to express themselves through a completely new and dynamic medium. But more often than not people seem to be happy not to stand out. We will see something another person has, and we will want one, which just shows how little control we have over our lives we just do and wear what we see advertised. So even if everyone was able to completely personalise their clothing you would still see groups of people walking around wearing exactly the same thing. The development of wearable technologies could also cause a large separation of “classes” i.e. those who can afford it and those who cant. “A real threat is that people equipped with wearable electronics can outsmart other people who do not have such devices.”(Wearable electronics and photonics, 1.4.2, 2005).
The development of such personal technology gives rise to many issues surrounding privacy. Wearable technology is opening up capabilities of recording details of life around us through images, audio or even collected data transmitted by other devices. People may react negatively to being unintentionally recorded by wearable technology in use by another person in the same vicinity as them. It does give the user benefits, but no one else.

Tracking
Already some workplaces monitor the performance of their staff. How long will it be before we are carrying monitoring devices around with us 24/7? Where and to whom will this information be sent to? With the invention and introduction of RFID technology, people are already inventing was to block the RFID tag frequencies and how to disable them without destroying the product they are on. In the future I think we as a society will grow accustomed to the lack of privacy. Already the younger generations of today show little concern for how much privacy they have, to the point of advertising themselves, their habits and relationships on websites like bebo, myspace, livejournal etc. These pages can be viewed by anyone, anywhere in the world. The information on these pages can be used by corporations to gather data and sent relevant advertising back to the user. Gmail is a good example of this, it scans your emails and picks up key words and places advertising relevant to the email on the side of the screen. This brings up a question of whom else has access to what information is sent and how private our lives really are.

Surveillance cameras have paved the way for desensitisation to being monitored. Almost all public areas now have cameras up watching everywhere where we go and everything we do within their range. The next step, which we are now seeing is RFID technology. Now everything we purchase, right down to the brand and date can be tracked. So if all grocery items had RFID tags on them, anyone would be able to predict your life for the next few days just by compiling a list of what items you have in your bags as you walk past the scanner. What is the next step in de-privatising our lives? We implant microchips in our animals so they can be identified, and put tracking devices on endangered animals and criminals on parole. So already humans are being made to wear tracking devices. How long will it be before everyone is wearing tracking devices or has microchip technology implanted beneath their skin?

Implanted technology has advantages in areas concerning identification and the possibility of connecting information to a person. In the future we might not even need to carry keys or a wallet on our person, all transactions and identification could be done through a simple scanning identification process. Science fiction is not far off the mark.

Medical wearable technologies are already being frequently used and are becoming more advanced. AS well as pacemakers, cochlear implants are being developed to help deaf people hear again, and automatic defibrillators which provides immediate emergency medical aid to people prone to heart attacks (Wearable electronics and photonics, 1.3.2, 2005). Global positioning systems (GPS) are being developed to help blind people become more independent.

Conclusion
Technology is advancing so rapidly that our social structures are having trouble keeping up. But advanced wearable technologies are still in their infancy and will not be readily available to the public for quite a few years. Until then there will be much debate about how it is going to affect our privacy and our way of life in general. We may never know exactly who has access to information about us, but by that time we may not care. The introduction of surveillance cameras and RFID tags has begun to desensitise us to the tradition western idea of individual privacy. The future looks set to be a completely different social culture where there could either be a complete lack of regard for privacy or it could create mass paranoia. Everyday man and computer come closer to becoming one organism.

References
Tao x. Wearable electronics and photonics. Woodhead Publishing, 2005.

Winston M. E. and Edelbach R. D. Society, ethics, and technology 3ed.
Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

Hjorth L. S., Eichler B.A., Khan A. S., Morello J.A. Technology and society Issues for the 21st century and beyond 3ed
Pearson Education Inc, 2008.

Bibliography
Viseu A. Social dimensions of wearable computers. In Technoetic Arts: a journal of speculative research, vol 1 Number 1, Eastborne, Great Britain: Anthony Rowe, 2003.

Strub H. B. Privacy, Wearable computers, and recording technology.
Interval research Corporation.

http://www.Hautegear-WearableTechnology.html

Schoeser M. World textiles A concise history
Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2003.

Anne nimetz, Lecture on Embodied interaction, 4th April 2008.
Images


http://www.presseagentur.com/media/832/IAW_GPS_Jacket1.JPG

http://www.popgadget.net/images/skin.jpg

http://www.imec.be/wwwinter/mediacenter/en/newslink/images/patch_th.jpg

http://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2007/08/08/mobile_video460.jpg

http://aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/surveillance-cameras-400.jpg

http://www2.cpttm.org.mo/cyberlab/rfid/tagInLabel.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Feline_identifying_microchip.JPG/800px-Feline_identifying_microchip.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/RFID_hand_1.jpg

http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1044318671749_2003/02/05/nat_pacemaker07,0.jpg

http://mobilecommunitydesign.com/uploaded_images/cyber_eye-760815.jpg