Czarnek: “we are under surveillance all the time on the Internet”, “blah committee”. We translate this mechanism

From the beginning of the scandal related to the use of Pegasus to eavesdrop on people who are inconvenient to the government, PiS politicians have been doing what they can to downplay the problem. Some try to marginalize its importance, others pretend to confuse Pegasus spy software with a game console of the same name or try to do so. Now, when the opposition is trying to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry in this matter, the minister of education and science, Przemysław Czarnek, spoke about Pegasus.

Czarnek: We are constantly under surveillance in this world of the Internet

On the air of the Polish Radio, the minister stated that “if we are to investigate the signs of surveillance for the last 17 years, this is the commission” blah, blah, blah “(yes, these are the real words of one of the most important politicians of the ruling party). He also stated that the commission was “nonsensical”, “unnecessary” and “fundamentally unconstitutional”. But he said something else:

Surveillance, when you visit websites, portals or search for something on Google, you have different answers later. When we are looking, I don’t know, for shoes to buy online, we have offers of shoes for a few days later. We are constantly under surveillance in this world of the Internet and universal Internet access, so what surveillance is it about?

Czarnek said, adding that he was convinced that his phone “is also being listened to somewhere by someone”.

Google is eavesdropping on us? We give him the data on the tray ourselves

It must be admitted that Czarnek did not miss the truth in this statement. When actually looking for a product on the Internet, we later find advertisements encouraging us to buy this or a similar item. The problem is that the minister turned the cat around a little. This is not a symptom of some illegal surveillance carried out secretly by an internet giant (as the statement seems to suggest), but a transparent and known practice for years.

This is how personalized ads work, i.e. those that are tailored to the preferences of a specific user. They are definitely more effective and more profitable for advertisers, because they offer Internet users products that they are probably interested in, and therefore they may buy them. In fact, companies such as Google explain (e.g.) how personalized and non-personalized ads work and why they are displayed.

The former are based on our previous interests, so when looking for shoes on the Internet, advertisers will encourage us to buy them. Algorithms adjust the prompts based on e.g. on the so-called cookies, which are saved by the browser when entering any website.

Of course, it’s a fact that internet giants, application producers and web developers often collect huge amounts of data about us. The problem is that we agree to it using their browsers, operating systems or surfing the web.

What’s more, throughout the European Union (including Poland since 2013), website owners are required to inform you that the website in any way (not only through cookies) collects data about the user. By accessing any site on the Internet, we may consent to this or adjust the data collection settings. If we do not agree to such – as Minister Czarnek put it – surveillance, we may not use the website.

We can block data collection for personalizing ads

However, there is one more convenient way to prevent personalized ads from appearing on the network. You can use the private mode, also known as incognito, or a special browser (eg Firefox Focus). After closing the browser’s private window, the collected data about us is removed from the memory of the device, so that the next time the browser is opened, advertisers will not know our preferences.

In the smartphone settings, we can also define exactly what data the web browser has access to and for example prohibit it from using the phone’s location. More informed users can connect these tips using a VPN, a virtual network that allows the real IP address of the device to be hidden.

So, if someone sees an ad for sample shoes on the web, it is because they have (often unknowingly) allowed advertisers to find out that they are looking for shoes. Moreover, for most people this information is not particularly sensitive, and if it is, they can use simple methods to hide it. This method of “surveillance” – although it may, of course, be controversial – has no comparison with the operation of Pegasus.

The NSO Group spy tool can steal photos and videos from your phone, eavesdrop and redirect phone calls, record sounds recorded via a microphone, watch someone live with a camera almost anywhere, constantly track their location and even steal confidential information from the application. including the password. Importantly, it does so without the consent and knowledge of the victim. Therefore, the minister equalizing the scale of surveillance in both of these cases is, therefore, at least absurd.