Tech gives the rich new toys while perpetuating the criminalization of poverty

[Newsjock]

Source: PandoDaily

The New York Times published a report on Thursday about devices used by subprime auto lenders to track someone’s location, issue warnings about an upcoming payment deadline, or remotely disable the vehicle when their driver is even just a few days late in paying those bills. ... But this is about more than exploiting people who are in no position to fight back: it’s also about how tech often seeks to help the wealthy while ignoring those with lower incomes.

In many cases, tech isn’t made for poor people. Just take the recent obsession with health-monitoring tools: Are these applications really made for people who have to stretch out every paycheck or government-provided assistance just to make sure they have something, anything, to eat? When your options are not eating and getting something from McDonald’s or the frozen section of the grocery store, sodium levels and carbohydrates don’t seem like such a big deal.

... It’s hard to get excited about smart homes when you can’t afford to make rent, or about wrist-worn computers when you can’t even make the payments on the smartphone you probably shouldn’t have bought in the first place. So much of what people get excited about in tech means nothing to the people trying to make ends meet instead of worrying about the latest-and-greatest products.

In the meantime, companies will continue to produce new technologies that make it easier for people comfortable with their homes to connect appliances to the Internet, remove the need to swipe a card at a grocery store, or make cars that drive themselves because it’s safer than letting everyone onto the road. The rich get new toys while the poor get devices that can make the vehicles they need to get to one of their jobs or to reach the emergency room all but useless.

Read more: http://pando.com/2014/09/26/tech-gives-the-rich-new-toys-while-perpetuating-the-criminalization-of-poverty/

[yeoman6987]

1. Both auto and housing has exploited the poor

Regulations are needed desperately. Start with government rules on requirements of getting a loan. Average credit score is 650 so nobody below 600 can get a loan. Average wage is 52 thousand. Nobody under 40 thousand can get a loan. This predictors lending has to stop. It is extremely unfair to the poor and working class. This should stop the dishonest banks and car dealers in their tracks. Hurt them in the bottom line or they won't learn that treating the poor that way is unacceptable.

[closeupready]

2. Okay, but what about if you're in traffic, on a highway?

Are authorities going to ignore the obvious safety hazards at issue with this technology, to cite just one example? If history is a reliable guide, they absolutely will permit their corporate overlords to buy whatever state of affairs they want, even if it puts the public at risk.

[daredtowork]

3. I was working on an article about this!

I have a whole list of ways tech could be implemented to help people in poverty - but I doubt much of it will be implemented, because a lot of it works against the interests of government bureaucrats. For instance, I'd like to see an app with Planet Feedback-like features for tracking the performance of Social Services and other agency workers. I would like elements of their job (performance reviews, pay, bonuses - whatever they get) - tied to the service of their clients. I would like clients to be able to report workers not calling them back, phone wait times, dropped services. I'd like them to be able to put on public display the ramifications of a bureaucratic error that took away food stamps for 2 months and made them go through a ridiculous appeals process. Why doesn't anyone create tech that EMPOWERS THE POOR within - and, if need be, against - the system???!!!!

Why is all the monitoring unilateral! Why can't the poor monitor UP for fraud and waste? Right now I've been without Medi-Cal for a month because my Social Services case worker simply hasn't bothered to process my Medi-Cal paperwork and put me in the right database. He can do that at any time. But there is no incentive for him to do it. There are no consequences for him not to do it. I've been making trouble for him since I've been pointing out how Social Services punishes people for working, so he is opting to withhold Medi-Cal from me. Neither he nor his supervisor have to return my calls. How can I "monitor UP"? I cannot: the taxpayer will only pay for technology to track and monitor DOWN.