IFE C AMERAS
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SOMETHING’S BUGGING PASSENGERS: A POTENTIAL
INTRUSION INTO THEIR PRIVACY VIA AIRLINE IFE SYSTEMS
Words by Ma r isa Ga rcia . Ill ustration by Neil Webb
W e live in strange times when our best aspirations
of how technology might influence our lives are
close to reality, but that technology can also
represent our worst fears. We forgo privacy, willingly,
in various ways, big and small. We share details of our
private lives on social media. We allow technology in
our home that is capable of listening to our intimate
conversations, in exchange for having anything we
need almost immediately on request. We want safety
and security, and have decided that constant vigilance
from an invisible eye is a good trade-off.
We want to be known. We want to be seen. We want
to be heard. But then we don’t…
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
034 SEPTEMBER 2019
That’s the push and pull we grapple with today as news
breaks of personal data exploitation by technology giants,
by hostile governments and by hackers. We worry about
the implications. Then we go right back to using our face
and our fingerprints as identification to unlock our
phones, to pay for our purchases and to cross borders.
Airlines are caught in the middle, wanting to keep up
with the latest technology trends to satisfy passenger
needs while dealing with the great responsibility of
managing passenger data. They want to keep passengers
happy, keep them entertained and keep them safe, but
satisfying those needs makes them vulnerable to
exploitation and customer backlash.
/aircraftinteriorsinternational.com