HANNAFORD: Driving home Jordan Peterson's worst fears

Here’s one for the conspiracy theorists. For once, they may be right.The diligent reader will recall that last week, Western Standard columnist Linda Slobodian commented sympathetically on Jordan Peterson’s recent testimony to a US congressional sub-committee. The gist was that governments and corporate agents are colluding to “develop a picture not only of our actions, but of our thoughts and words, so that deviation from the desired end can be mapped, rewarded and punished.”Cue eye-roll: 'Oh yes, there goes Peterson again, always sees the worst. Probably exaggerates.'Well, not so fast.If you have GM’s OnStar ‘Smart Driver’ software for example, you might want to be aware of all that it can do, so to speak...Yes, if you’re upside down in a ditch a hundred miles from home, they’ll find you.But, as my friend and colleague Shaun Polczer wrote at the weekend, GM’s OnStar ‘Smart Driver’ has also been surreptitiously funnelling data on drivers’ habits to third parties including insurers, which then use the information to jack up premiums. This realization comes after dozens of US drivers reported receiving exorbitant premium hikes without explanation or even knowing why.Now, that single thing is not the end of liberty.However, if the insurance companies can buy that data, so can any agency of government — or demand it.In other words, here from daily life you have one small example of Peterson’s collusion of governments with corporate agents. If the government wants the data, GM (and the other car makers doing it) are happy to sell it. It’s something of a niche example to be sure. But, it needs to be understood in the knowledge that for more than 10 years, the Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada — DIACC — a Petersonian coalition of more than 100 governments and businesses established at the behest of the Government of Canada, has been cooperating to integrate personal, financial and legal information into a single digital identity.So what are they going to do with that, when they have it?DIACC includes Canada’s federal and provincial governments, federal agencies such as Canada Health Infoway, Visa, Mastercard, Interac, all the major banks and credit unions, the Canadian Real Estate Association and some foreign-owned entities — the Chinese-owned technology group Lenovo, for example, through its membership of DIACC’s affiliate, the FIDO Alliance.In other words, these people are serious and an enormous amount of personal information on Canadian citizens has already been aggregated. The fact that the process is not complete, is no reason to deny that it’s happening or the implications of its ultimate completion. Many are good; the ones that aren't are what Peterson worries about.Peterson then, and now perhaps members of the Smart Driver program. This much we can say about GM’s Smart Driver program… it is voluntary. (Or somewhat so, at least: see Motor Trend.) And all the rest of it? What do you think?

HANNAFORD: Driving home Jordan Peterson's worst fears

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