The Case of “Illicit Appropriation” in the Use of Technology

In this chapter, the authors play the devil‘s advocate to those who favor strict government supervision over technology itself. The authors’ argument is that technology is a “neutral” mean to an end, and that the use of technology to detract social deviations is dependent on public policy and social behavior. To elaborate their argument they propose the concept of “illicit appropriation”, based on the Human Computer Interaction concept of appropriation. The authors argue that sometimes appropriation can be geared towards activities that can be considered as illicit, and in some cases criminal. They illustrate the use of illicit appropriation through a series of case studies of current events, in which they show that either a state or the individual can rely on illicit appropriation. The authors’ final conclusion is that the use of technology to combat social deviations is not a technological problem, but a public policy issue, where a delicate balance has to be found between the enforcement of the law by technological means (approved by legislation), the user experience, the civil liberties of the individual and the checks and balances to the power of the state. This chapter is written from the expertise of the authors on Human Computer Interaction and Security Studies.