IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - July 2021 - 117

Hofstetter
The financial valuation of algorithmically created
human profiles is visible expression of competition and
market discipline, too. Competing online, some human
profiles have greater pecuniary value than others when a
person becomes a digital " hero " or an " influencer. " Ever
more likes, more retweets, more followers increase the
financial potential of the New Man.
" The economy's categories are balance sheet, quantification,
and accounting. Thus, the question is: What is the
most worthwhile? What is most profitable? (.. .). The principle
of bookkeeping, balance sheet, and profit spread
from markets to the entire human being. Man becomes
enterprise; his life is his capital and the challenge is to
invest this capital as profitably as possible. (.. .) In this
way, man himself becomes an object, a thing " [13]. The
" architecture of oppression " [18]-mass surveillance and
classification-exactly serves this purpose. It gives technology
leaders an informational edge that can be converted
directly into money. In private-sector profiling,
money is being earned by perfectly targeted advertising
links, when every curious click rings the cash registers of
the technology giants. To governments, surveillance, data
fusion, and situational pictures serve to pertain better
knowledge of the target, in order to gain strategic or tactical
edges in G8 negotiations or for trade agreements.
RECOMMENDATION: PEOPLE OVER PROFIT
If European policy makers take fundamental rights of
man, his dignity and freedom even in times of even more
spreading ambient intelligence serious, they are required
to develop a greater political will and more powerful legislature
to protect European democracies from neoliberal
surveillance capitalism.
To achieve a greater protection ofman in the digital era,
there are many road blocks to overcome. Smoke screens, for
example: Big Tech is telling policy makers that " disruptive
technologies create disrupted laws " [19]. In one respect, this
narrative is even correct: Today, the individual does not
only need to be shielded from the powers of the state, but
from even greater influence of private organizations.
Directly obliging private organizations like Big Tech to
observe fundamental rights would indeed result in a conceptual
and structural innovation of European constitutional
law. Beyond this exception, European policy makers should
refrain from Big Tech's narratives hiding the true intents of
their spreaders: to be a market participant unruled by the
people and their parliaments, and possibly a monopolist or
oligopolist. Still, law is a democracy's sharpest weapon.
Truly, law only adapts slowly to digest the challenges
caused by digitization-not because it could not adapt
faster. More rapid political action is always opposed to economic
interests, in Europe as much as in other nation states
whose economies are built on the concept of profit-making.
JULY 2021
Competitiveness and economic growth often sees priority
over fundamental rights. As an effect, European legislature
is not yet seriously concerned with the question of a new
image ofman in the digital era. Politics rather cover for the
interests of well-capitalized technology giants than the fundamental
rights of citizens. The former are advocates of an
almost religious beliefin the infallibility ofthe market-and
in the economic growth that neoliberalism is supposed to
bring about in its latest occurrence as information capitalism.
The latter are prevented from meaningful meddling in
economic decisions. They do not share the same powers like
Big Tech lobbyists do who influence policy makers at any
given opportunity, lately, since 2017, at numerous (ethics)
commissions put to life by European governments to evaluate
the impact ofmass data availability and artificial intelligence.
But policy makers should understand that societal
change is only partially due to technology development. It is
also driven by ideologies, and namely neoliberalism. Neoliberalism
can be and must be regulated. Otherwise and in
the mid-term, neoliberal information capitalism will only
lead to more capital concentration and greater inequality.
The ultra-rich technology giants are getting richer, and the
informationally exploited addressees of their digital offerings
are becoming even more apathetic, cynical, and aggressive.
European policy makers can prevent this. Keys are
more balanced markets, the regulation of trusts, and greater
protection ofhuman data.
Control rights to personal data are partially provided
by the European General Data Protection Regulation
GDPR, effective across all European countries since May
25, 2018. Whoever collects personal data and fuses them
into human profiles, must be transparent about what he
intends to do with human data, where and how long he stores
it, what conclusions he draws from it and whether and where
he resells data and profiles. But the GDPR only helps to a
limited extent to counter violations of fundamental rights,
because it only focuses on the protection of informational
self-determination. However, it is start, though more protective
regulation needs to follow. Other fundamental rights
remain yet challenged: the right to antidiscrimination, the
right to a fair trial, the right to free access to information-
accompanied with the legitimate requirement of true information-and
the right to do what one wants, provided that
one does not violate the rights ofothers.
One question that has been preoccupying the European
Commission for some time is the question of data
ownership. If a person is the creator of human data, and
the cause for relevant situational pictures and profiles of
such person based on data fusion, is her data and her profile
the property of such person? The member states of the
European Union are not yet determined. The effect would
be severe: Data property would result in of criminal law
becoming applicable to " data thefts. " Then data could be
stolen, with applicability of concealment provisions. Yet,
the European Union's legislature does not follow the idea
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