Under Surveillance: Regaining Agency in a Digital World

These workflows were suggested by my custom LLM, Chet. The work was done by me.

I was recently an unwilling participant of the Apple universe when the Gauteng Legislature rolled out Apple iPads for all its members. The lessons I learnt requires your attention.

I am normally at pains to insist on Samsung mobile devices, but this time, we were not given that choice. And so, I found myself impressed with the sleek 10^th Gen Apple iPad in my hands, and mildly curious about how and if I was going to get any use out of the device. I was not prepared for the complexity of the onboarding process, or the lengths I would have to go to just to hold on to my personal agency, my data and my privacy. Although this article is a journal of my experiences with Apple, Google and Microsoft, the big picture is far more unsettling, so lets start there.

At the heart of the tech world lies a powerful yet invisible economy: the attention economy. You see, these companies aren’t just selling hardware or software—they’re competing for your attention. In this digital age, where information is at our fingertips, our focus, our engagement, is the most valuable commodity.

It’s easy to think of tech companies as simply providing the services we need: the iPhone, the Office suite, Google search. But what they’re actually selling is not just their products. Every click, every search, every swipe feeds the system that keeps them in business. They need you to stay on their platform as long as possible, to keep you distracted, to keep you engaged so they can serve you more ads, collect more data, and sell you more products.

Here’s how it works: Apple locks you into its ecosystem by making everything from your music to your cloud storage depend on its platform. Microsoft tries to do the same through the ubiquitous reach of Office 365 and its seamless integration with OneDrive and LinkedIn. Google, however, has the most sophisticated model, capturing your attention through search, YouTube, Gmail, and a host of other services—each collecting data about you in ways most people never realize.

But it's not just Apple, Microsoft, and Google leading the charge. There are a host of other players deeply entrenched in the attention economy.

Amazon has transformed from an online retailer into a massive attention economy player. With Amazon Prime, Alexa, and AWS, Amazon collects data not just on your shopping habits, but on your voice commands, your video-watching preferences, and even your location through Alexa-powered devices. Amazon Prime Video keeps you glued to its platform with endless content options, while AWS powers cloud-based data for other companies, giving Amazon access to information about millions of people.

Spotify has turned music and podcasts into a core part of its business model. Through its freemium model, Spotify collects vast amounts of data on your listening habits, making it one of the largest attention-gathering platforms in the entertainment industry. Spotify’s recommendations engine is designed to keep you listening for hours, while it feeds you new content to stay engaged.

Facebook (now Meta) has been in the attention game the longest. Its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms have billions of active users, each providing a wealth of data about their interests, activities, and relationships. Meta is constantly refining its algorithms to keep you scrolling, liking, and interacting. Every post you engage with adds to a growing portrait of your personal life, feeding back into the algorithm to keep you hooked.

TikTok has taken the attention economy to new heights, using its algorithm to deliver personalized video content designed to keep you watching longer. The app tracks your viewing patterns, scrolling speed, and engagement rates to create an addictive feedback loop. As TikTok continues to dominate social media, it collects valuable insights into your preferences, ensuring that the content always feels relevant and impossible to stop watching.

Snapchat has always been about ephemeral content—media that disappears after viewing. Yet, Snapchat is one of the most effective platforms in terms of keeping people engaged, through its AR filters, Snap streaks, and Discover section. Snapchat collects data on how often you use the app, what filters you engage with, and your interactions with others, contributing to the ever-expanding attention economy.

So who wins? I think the more important question is “how do I win?”

How do I engage in this web native world in such a way that my data and privacy is protected, and that my individual agency is respected. In the context of setting up my new Apple iPad, here are the steps I had to take:

Step 1: Taking Apple Off My iPad

1. Log into your iPad: The first thing you’ll notice is that Apple will try to integrate you into its ecosystem as soon as you log in. (I created a fake persona just to get in, but that is a whole article on its own)

   • Sign out of iCloud:

     • Go to Settings > [Your Name] > Sign Out. This removes your device from Apple’s cloud.

2. Disable Apple Services:

   • iCloud: Go to Settings > iCloud and toggle off everything. This will stop syncing your contacts, photos, and other files with Apple’s servers.

   • FaceTime & iMessage: In Settings, turn off both FaceTime and iMessage. This will prevent your phone number and messages from syncing across your devices.

3. Remove Apple Apps:

   • Since most of the Apple apps are pre-installed, I simply disabled them to prevent them from running in the background. This includes Apple Music, Safari, News, and any other apps I wasn’t using.

     • Go to Settings > Apps, select the Apple apps, and uninstall or disable them

4. Remove the Apple ID:

   • Apple’s ID system controls much of the iPad’s functionality. I signed out of my Apple ID to ensure I wasn’t accidentally logging back in and reactivating their services.

5. Install Google Services:

   • Once Apple’s ecosystem was sufficiently turned off, I installed Google’s suite of apps (like Google Chrome, Google Photos, Google Drive, etc.). These apps give me more flexibility and privacy while using the iPad.

6. Disable Apple’s App Store:

   • I also avoided using the App Store, preferring to download apps via Google Play or directly from trusted sources. I disabled any automatic updates in Settings to keep my iPad from reintroducing Apple’s control.

Step 2: Gaining Control Over My Phone’s Content

1. Stop Auto-Syncing Everything:

   • WhatsApp: By default, WhatsApp syncs every media item (photos, videos) directly into your Gallery. I stopped this by going to Settings > Chats > Media Visibility and toggling it off. Now I manually decide what stays.

   • Google Photos: I turned off Back Up & Sync in Google Photos to stop automatic uploads of every image or video I take. It’s easy to lose track of what’s being backed up.

2. Control App Permissions:

   • I went through each app, especially Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and checked permissions. I disabled location sharing, microphone access, and camera access for many apps, as these are often sources of continuous data collection.

     • Settings > Apps > [App Name] > Permissions.

3. Tighten Up My Google Account Settings:

   • I reviewed everything from Location History to Web & App Activity in Google Settings.

     • I toggled off Web & App Activity and Location History to prevent Google from tracking my movements and online activity.

     • I also checked Ad Settings and Personalization in my Google account to limit how ads are tailored based on my data.

4. Control Cloud Backups:

   • For Google Drive, I made sure that nothing would be automatically backed up without my explicit permission. I also deleted older backups that were unnecessary.

5. Limit Notifications and Background Activity:

   • Apps are sneaky in how they grab your attention. I turned off unnecessary notifications and restricted background app activity.

   • Settings > Apps > [App Name] > Battery > Background activity (disable this for most apps).

Why These Steps Matter

The tech giants want us to trust them. They want us to believe that everything they do is for our benefit. But the truth is, they profit from our attention and data. And while the options to take back control are there, they don’t always make it easy to find. These companies would rather you blindly trust them with your data, assuming they have your best interests at heart.

What I’ve learned is that with persistent effort and a bit of digging, you can regain control over your devices, your content, and your data. The key is being proactive and understanding the settings that empower you to make decisions about what gets stored, backed up, and shared.

The battle for your attention is happening right under your nose, and it’s not just about your phone or your laptop. It’s about your life—what you watch, what you listen to, where you go, and what you buy. But if you’re willing to take the time to adjust these settings and make informed decisions, you can regain control. These changes don’t have to be difficult, and the payoff is huge: the peace of mind that comes from knowing exactly what’s happening with your data, and that it’s no longer being sold behind your back is priceless.

Ina Cilliers MPL