Location$$ is a web-based social experiment that is designed to simulate awareness for mass surveillance, it provides creepiness and unease once you agree to share your location.
Dan Qi Qian
Description
Location$$ is a multiplayer web-based experience designed for providing creepiness and unease once you agree to share your location.
Location$$ starts with a simple dialogue box, which is the first thing showing up every time a new application is installed, asking our permission to get access to location data in exchange for customized services normally with vague or incomplete prompts. We all know once we agree, our data is updated in every few seconds, aggregated, shared and sold to help advertisers or even hedge funds. Mass location surveillance has morphed into a data collection and analysis machine as smartphones have become ubiquitous and technology more accurate. Each anonymous location sharing could become personal location analysis, revealing the most intimate part of your personal life.
The site gives you street view based on your location, when you click on others’ mouse, their street view replaces yours and ] location name stays. When other people click, they’ll leave some trails too, which means once it's shared, everyone knows.
Besides, open questions exists that for example, in this global pandemic, mass location surveillance is taken in action to maintain social health. People turn on location data because it makes things functional. What attitudes we should hold for location surveillance? What if location sharing and analysis become fully transparent?