Hyperconnectivity and (Im)Mobility: Uber and Surveillance Capitalism by the Global South
Firmino, Rodrigo José, Bruno de Vasconcelos Cardoso, and Rafael Evangelista. 2019. Hyperconnectivity and (Im)mobility: Uber and Surveillance Capitalism by the Global South. Surveillance & Society 17(1/2): 205-212.
8 Pages Posted: 16 Aug 2020
Date Written: 2019
Abstract
Apart from governments’ increased opportunities to monitor citizens, businesses, civil servants, and services, companies are mobilizing personal data to build profitable, algorithmically based business models with profound ramifications. With companies that have rapidly become giants in this sector, such as Uber, the phenomenon is spreading to various services at the same overwhelming speed as many companies bet on what is known as Uberization. In this paper, we aim to use one example of such a phenomenon from the Global South to show how a potential hyper-connected society is, in fact, creating the possibility for expanded patterns of immobilization for certain groups. We aim to show how highly indirect corporate surveillance involved in businesses such as Uber can run in parallel with a specific direct form of worker surveillance that, without any legal or social safeguards, increases the vulnerability of the weakest link in this chain.
Keywords: Surveillance Capitalism, Surveillance Platform, Urban Mobility, Uberization
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