It was the big three that received the most news coverage for their attendance at Donald Trump’s January 20th inauguration: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. The CEO of Meta, the founder of Amazon, and the CEO of Tesla were hardly inconspicuous, given both their prominence in the public imagination, and their physical seating arrangements. Indeed, they were physically placed ahead of actual cabinet picks. Other notable attendees included Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.
The political influence of so-called ‘big tech’ is increasingly apparent. This influence exists in both hyper-overt ways, such as Musk’s office within the White House, and through more discreet mechanisms. While figures like Musk hold visible direct influence in political spaces, the broader mechanisms of power extend far beyond individual relationships. Though interpersonal relationships between tech titans and political figures dominate media coverage and cultural discourse, big tech’s influence in lobbying and government relations grows rapidly, particularly in North America.
In the United States, a total of $82,433,604 USD was spent on online lobbying alone, with Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google) topping the list of spenders. According to OpenSecrets, an American nonprofit that tracks and publishes data on lobbying, over 70% of the reported lobbyists in this category are former government employees.
Beyond domestic policymaking, big tech’s influence increasingly extends to geopolitics, where technology conglomerates have become major influencers. In the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Microsoft has actively protected Ukraine from cyberattacks. Google Maps disabled live traffic data, impeding Russian efforts to track civilian and military movements. Similarly, Ukrainian civilians and military growingly rely on Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals. But while these stories are under-reported and under-discussed compared to Musk’s newsworthy salute, these details are still widely available and publicized. In reality, big tech’s presence on the battlefield in Ukraine highlights the ever-growing role of technology conglomerates within the geopolitical sphere.
If big tech’s reach extends into global conflicts, it also raises urgent questions closer to home. Canadians are concerned about corporate control of data, algorithmically worsening inequality, and the role of tech companies in disempowering workers. While tech giants shape international affairs, their influence within our own national borders demands equal scrutiny.
The presence of Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk at Trump’s inauguration was far more than symbolic. It marks a shift toward an era where tech oligarchs hold unprecedented sway, with consequences that extend far beyond the United States. As big tech cements its dominance, the question is no longer whether these companies wield power, but to what extent that power will reach, and, ultimately, whether policymakers will act effectively to contain and restrain it.
The Corporate Control of Data
Personal data has become the new oil. Increasingly, personal data is collected by large conglomerates who can either use it, or sell it for profit. Your data is an asset, and a highly valuable one at that. While the estimates vary on how much an individual’s personal data is worth, some have placed the figure as high as $263 USD per year. Consider that number in reference to the total number of users on Meta platforms, estimated to be roughly 4 billion as of 2023, and one can begin to see the sheer volume of assets at play.
In conceptualizing the commodification of personal data into a product that is increasingly ‘owned’ by a small number of highly profitable companies, we must examine the ramifications beyond browsing habits and social media activity, to even more intimate forms of personal information like biometric data. Unlike browsing or social media activity, biometric identifiers like facial recognition patterns and fingerprints cannot be changed if compromised. This makes data commodification, and the potential misuse of biometric data, particularly dangerous.
Case Study: Amazon’s Role in the Surveillance State
In a Canadian context, the Canada Border Services Agency announced plans in August of 2024 to begin utilizing an app that, via facial recognition technology, will be able to track individuals who face deportation orders. Biometric data in border security is certainly not new, but the proposed app, ReportIn, would be utilizing technology from Amazon Web Services, integrating a multinational corporation into Canadian surveillance practices.
Nor is this even Amazon’s first foray into wielding its corporate power to uphold state surveillance. In 2022, Amazon was revealed to have enabled police access to Ring doorbell footage in eleven distinct cases, each time without the consent of the homeowner. Increasingly commonplace in neighborhoods, Ring doorbells record footage of front steps, front yards, and, in some cases, public sidewalks. It was only in 2024 that Amazon announced that it will now require US law enforcement to obtain a warrant to access doorbell footage from individual users.
Who Benefits from Data Extraction?
Around the world, and here in Canada, personal data, be it browsing history, biometric data, or footage of a neighborhood jogger, is being stored and sold by a few corporate entities. While policymakers have attempted to create effective regulations and safeguards of personal data, such regulatory practices remain a step behind the actual needs of individuals. If personal data is the new oil, then the question must be asked: who is benefitting from its extraction, and at what cost to the public?
Personal Rights, Systemic Inequalities, and Corporate Control
Though often framed as a “great equalizer”, increased corporate concentration in the technology industry is already exacerbating existing inequalities. Case studies reveal the dangers of tech conglomerates aligning themselves with corporate and political interests, increasing precarity under neoliberalism.
Case Study: Gendered Surveillance and Period Tracking Apps
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, concern has grown among American women about the potential legal repercussions of having an abortion. This concern is not unfounded. In a 2024 report by Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of pregnant people, found over 200 cases of legal prosecution as a result of an abortion.
With a real legal risk on the table, period tracking apps that collect reproductive data warrant a new level of scrutiny.
Used worldwide, period tracking apps are a tool most commonly used to track menstrual cycles, though they can also be used to monitor other health considerations. Given the nature of such apps, they also track pregnancies.
Though used to collect highly personal health information, the privacy safeguards around these apps are questionable. A 2022 study conducted on 25 popular apps revealed that 84% of the apps share collected data to third parties, while 64% of the apps share data for legal obligations. These details are often conveniently tucked away in the app’s terms and conditions. So, since abortion became a potentially prosecutable offense, law enforcement across America can now theoretically request and receive the personal health information of persons suspected of being pregnant. A tool meant for health purposes became an asset in the surveillance of women.
While many deleted the apps, or switched to those with better privacy policies, there remain countless American women who are unintentionally tracking the very data that could be used to prosecute them.
Case Study: The Racial Implications of Facial Recognition Software
Facial recognition technology has consistently demonstrated biases in which faces it can recognize; the error rate for light-skinned men is 0.8%, whereas that rate rises to 34.7% for darker-skinned women. Because of this, there are now a multitude of cases in which police have wrongfully arrested and detained Black men, misidentifying them as criminals.
And yet, facial recognition technology remains a tool relied upon by law enforcement, including in Canada, with police forces in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto either using or ‘testing’ facial recognition software. In a report by CBC in 2021, it was found that the Toronto Police Department had utilized Clearview AI facial recognition software in 84 investigations.
How the Digital Oligarchy Impacts Labour
The tech industry continues to shape labour norms, both through efforts made by tech behemoths to lobby for decreased worker protections, and through the ways individual corporations treat their respective workforces.
Case Study: Uber’s Lobbying for Worker Exploitation
Uber Technologies has a market cap of roughly $140.56 billion. Through its platform, Uber allows individual drivers to use their own cars to pick up and transport riders, who pay via the Uber app, with Uber collecting a fee for the provision of the platform. On the actual Uber website, the details as to what percentage Uber collects remain nebulous, with corporate speak vaguely suggesting these rates vary from trip to trip.
Uber’s Canadian launch took place in Toronto back in 2012, and since then, Uber has undoubtedly become a mainstay of transportation across the country. Since its Canadian launch, Uber has also become a mainstay in lobbying against worker protections.
In 2022, as provincial governments became increasingly aware of the precarity faced by gig workers, Uber worked tirelessly to lobby for the ability to continue classifying its drivers as independent contractors, not as employees. In doing so, Uber drivers can be excluded from CPP contributions, excluded from eligibility from Employment Insurance, and are not subject to minimum employment standards. In the time since, certain provinces have passed legislation that does support Uber drivers, such as Ontario’s Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022, which established employment standards for gig workers, including requiring minimum wage. However, Uber has broadly succeeded in maintaining its status quo, keeping drivers classified as independent contractors.
Case Study: Amazon’s Union Busting
As of late January, Amazon has a market cap of $2.49 trillion. Also in January of 2025, Amazon announced its plans to close all warehouses in Quebec, ending the employment of about 2000 people. As reported in the Montreal Gazette, “The company said the move was made to save costs, and had nothing to do with the fact Amazon’s Laval warehouse became the firm’s first facility in Canada to unionize last year.” Notably, Amazon has a well-documented history of fighting any and all attempts at worker unionisation. Prior to the successful unionization, followed by Amazon’s decision to fully close the warehouses in Quebec, an Administrative Labour Tribunal judge had to direct Amazon to stop interfering with union affairs, including removing the anti-union posters that the company had put up.
The Threat to the Working Class
Increasingly, working-class people are seeking out employment as Uber drivers, Amazon couriers, and other similar gig-style roles. In turn, they face a precarious lack of employment standards coupled with organized and systemic corporate efforts to counter unionization. With ever-growing workforces and a high degree of political influence, a rising tech oligarchy poses a direct threat to organized labour, and arguably, to the working class across North America.
So What Do We Do?
Those at the helm of big tech continue enmeshing themselves within existing power structures, and refining the relationships between digital innovation and state authority. The result of this centralisation of profits and power is the erosion of rights, particularly the rights of workers, and of those already facing systemic inequality.
Urgent safeguards are needed against the rising threats to individual rights, economic justice, and democratic governance posed by the power consolidation of tech conglomerates. In Canada, particularly with an election on the horizon, now is the time to act.
The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
At present, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the federal legislation that governs the ways in which sector organizations collect, utilize, and disclose personal information, is required to be reviewed every five years. Given our rapidly changing digital environment, this is insufficient. Increasing the frequency of this review will ensure greater protection of privacy in the wake of changing technology.
Data Sovereignty
To promote greater data sovereignty, increased incentivisation of domestic data cloud storage and collaboration with the domestic tech sector are potential federal policies worth exploring. Additionally, funding and supporting the non-profits that act as watchdogs for threats to personal data and privacy should be prioritized.
An additional element to consider is Indigenous data sovereignty, defined as “the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples’ to control, access, interpret, manage, and collectively own data about their communities, lands, and cultures.” As data is increasingly framed as a resource to be exploited, Indigenous data sovereignty is more essential than ever. Leona Star, Chairperson of the First Nations Information Governance Centre, has stated that “Data sovereignty is among the most pressing issues facing First Nations from coast-to-coast-to-coast.” Designated funding for Indigenous-led projects and organizations addressing the multifaceted nature of Indigenous data sovereignty should also be a priority for federal, provincial, and territorial policymakers seeking to simultaneously combat the threat of American big tech intrusions while also investing in Indigenous nations, communities, and peoples.
Within this multitude of government actions, the threat posed by tech conglomerates will not be entirely mitigated, but can be more meaningfully addressed. Such safeguards do make a difference.
New Legislation Holding Big Tech Accountable
Lastly, provincial and territorial legislation to protect workers within the tech industry, upholding their ability to engage with organized labour, is critical. Beyond ensuring that big tech does not have a free pass to engage in union busting, increased efforts to ensure full worker’s rights to gig workers should also be prioritised, particularly given the increasing importance of gig work to the Canadian working class.
Our world is changing, and rapidly. However, we do not need to sit idly by and watch the concentration of power, and the erosion of rights. As individuals, taking the time to parse terms and conditions, to meaningfully engage with and understand what’s happening with our data, are actions that make an impact.
Ultimately, the future of digital rights, of labour protections, and of democratic accountability, is still being written. It’s up to us to decide whether technology remains a tool of the powerful, or if it can evolve into a force for collective liberation.
