Big Tech is watching you

Technology’s increasing influence over our lives seems unstoppable: from AI and data centres to the rise of wearable tech, it might be time to ask if we really want this level of intrusion. While tech does have its place, it is also fuelling a disturbing rise in the use of smart glasses to surreptitiously film unconsenting people. Big Issue has been learning of videos proliferating on social media in which people experiencing homelessness – and sometimes our own vendors – don’t even know they are being filmed, never mind uploaded for the world to see. Big Issue CEO Paul Cheal said this can leave them “feeling exposed and humiliated, or even pose a real threat to their safety at work”. In this issue we explore the wider issues around tech overreach, including the use of AI in property listings photos, which leaves prospective renters unsure if a home is genuinely a light-filled haven or just a dark, dank basement. And we ask just how many data centres does the UK really need?

Also inside

• Cuts to council services are leaving homeless people with nowhere to turn for support – so they’re presenting at hospitals, putting yet more burden on the NHS
• Modern slavery might seem like a problem that mostly affects undocumented people in the UK. But the truth is, anyone can become enslaved
• Andrew Davies achieved huge success in his TV adaptations of literary works, including 1995’s Pride & Prejudice. He’s just glad he didn’t take his dad’s advice
• Novelist and journalist Mark Piggott has joined Generation Sandwich, and it’s left him in a jam
• Two-time Big Issue cover star Rick Clement survived an IED injury in Afghanistan. His new YouTube channel sees him taking to the hills in his wheelchair, to make the great outdoors more accessible for all
• Darkling is a play that traces the long shadow of the 1984 Bhopal industrial accident that killed thousands and injured half a million more
• Malcolm Jack ought to be the target audience for 6 Music’s Indie Forever station. So why does he find it so unlistenable?
• And James Allerton wants more people to sign Big Issue’s petition to end pet bans in temporary accommodation

And much more

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