Privacy is crumbling on two separate but equally urgent fronts. On one, law enforcement agencies are weaponising the data that flows constantly from the smart devices embedded in our daily lives. On the other, a handful of technology companies are silently controlling what information citizens can access through their televisions and voice assistants, sidestepping regulation designed to protect competition and fairness.
The first threat draws from a troubling legal reality: the technologies of mass surveillance have outpaced the law protecting against it. Local police officers and federal agents use personal data from cellphones, cars, fitness trackers, drones, doorbell cameras, and other apps and devices to conduct searches, identify suspects, and surveil entire communities, yet this spying may sound like it should be illegal, but all too often it isn't, because today's technologies didn't exist when the Fourth Amendment was written, and few federal, state, or local laws have been updated to expand centuries-old protections from government searches to encompass digital data.
According to reporting on law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson's recent work, this proliferation of private data in combination with public surveillance networks promises new ways to solve previously unsolvable crimes, but also leaves us vulnerable to governmental overreach and abuse. The problem extends beyond simple snooping. These methods of policing aren't just better or faster versions of traditional investigative techniques; rather, they're "categorically different" because they alter what police can do, enable large-scale racial profiling, and tip the balance of civic power away from people and toward the government.
Meanwhile in Brussels, a different but related battle is intensifying. A coalition of Europe's leading commercial and public broadcasters issued a formal plea to European Union antitrust regulators demanding that the scope of the Digital Markets Act must be expanded to include the operating systems of smart TVs and voice assistants controlled by Big Tech.
The broadcasters' concern is direct: Android TV increased its market share from 16 percent to 23 percent between 2019 and 2024; Amazon Fire OS rose from 5 percent to 12 percent over the same period; and Samsung's Tizen OS controls 24 percent market share. These platforms don't merely deliver content. They're the means through which audiences access streaming content on their TV sets, with the power to promote content and services within their interfaces, and they tend to run their own free ad-supported streaming TV platforms, giving them power over the discoverability and visibility of channels within that interface.
What makes this gatekeeping invisible is that it operates through software rather than hardware. This represents a new frontier in the battle for digital competition, shifting the focus from smartphones and search engines to the "living room gateways" managed by Google, Amazon, and Apple. The broadcasters argue the lack of designation of virtual assistants creates a regulatory void, allowing powerful AI assistants to become de facto gatekeepers for media content through mobile phones, smart speakers and in-car radio infotainment services, without being subject to DMA obligations.
Neither problem has a simple fix. The police surveillance issue stems from legal vacuum: the fact that government agents can glean so much information from our things does not mean that they should be able to do so at any time or for any reason. Yet without warrant requirements clearly written into law, that remains exactly what is happening. The European problem reflects regulatory lag: 22 services across six companies deemed "gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act were identified in September 2023, but smart TVs and voice assistants were never included, leaving a gap that grows wider as these platforms gain market dominance.
For consumers and citizens, the combined effect is suffocating. Police can track your movements through your smartwatch. Tech companies can shape your information diet through your television. Both occur in legal grey zones where consent is presumed rather than required, and accountability is minimal. The uncomfortable question facing both law enforcement and regulators is whether they're willing to act before the trap closes completely.