By Timothy Loftus, Editor & Publisher | Sergeant Bluff Advocate
(SBA) - I like technology. I use it every day to put this newspaper together. Digital photography, online research and publishing software allow a small newsroom to do work that once required far more people and equipment. I would have a hard time meeting a Monday press deadline without them.
But lately, I find myself asking a question we don’t ask often enough: Just because we can connect, record and analyze nearly everything, does that mean we should?
Why do we need so many data centers? Why do we need license plate cameras along so many roads? Why does a car need to collect information about every trip? Why does a refrigerator need artificial intelligence to tell us we are low on milk?
Each advancement arrives with a promise. It will save time, improve safety or make life easier. Some of those promises are real. The costs are real, too, even when we can’t see them on a receipt.
I feel one of those costs whenever I search for something online. Maybe I am looking into health insurance, a new car or an ice cube maker. Have you seen the ice maker that makes big round ice balls? I want one. Some day. Right now, I’m not going to spend $500 on one. However, the next time I log on, there it is again: 5 different ice cube makers, different brands, different ads telling me they're having a special and to buy now before the price goes back up. All I wanted was some information. Somewhere along the way, that search became a signal to advertisers that I might be ready to buy.
It irritates me. I didn’t ask the search engine or an advertising network to keep reminding me what I looked up. I may have been helping someone else. I may have been curious for five minutes. A search for health insurance, in particular, could reflect a personal concern I have no interest in sharing with companies that want my business.
The Federal Trade Commission explains that websites and apps can use search history and other online activity to show personalized ads, including through companies that track people across different sites. Knowing that I can change some privacy settings does not make the experience feel any less intrusive.
Now consider the data centers needed to store and process an ever-growing amount of information. We need data centers for banking, medical records, businesses and online newspapers, among many other services. But large facilities require substantial electricity and infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Energy has projected a sharp rise in their electricity use. That makes the cost of growth a fair question for any community asked to welcome one.
Around Salix and throughout Woodbury County, the possibility of data center development has prompted strong opinions. I understand why. A company may see available land and an opportunity to build. Residents see their roads, utilities and the place they call home. They deserve clear answers about what a project would use, what it would provide and who would pay for any improvements it requires.
Then there are Flock cameras. Sergeant Bluff’s Police Department provides a link to its Flock transparency information, and I appreciate that. License plate readers can help officers find a stolen vehicle or pursue a serious investigation. If someone I loved were missing, I would want police to have useful tools.
Still, a camera that reads a plate creates a record that a vehicle passed a particular place at a particular time. Most of those vehicles belong to people going to work, buying groceries or driving home. They have done nothing wrong.
One camera tells part of a story. Many cameras, especially when agencies can search one another’s records, can reveal much more about a person’s movements. How long is that information kept? Who can search it? Who checks whether a search was justified? Flock has announced new safeguards, but the company says existing customers may keep their current retention periods. Local rules and oversight matter.
I don’t have to assume bad intentions by our police officers to want strict rules. Good people working with powerful tools still need clear limits.
Cars raise another set of questions. I appreciate a backup camera and a warning that might prevent a collision. But somewhere along the way, a car became a rolling computer that can gather information about where we go and how we drive. The FTC alleged that General Motors and OnStar collected and sold precise location and driving behavior data without adequately informing drivers or obtaining their consent. The agency finalized an order requiring greater transparency and consumer choice.
I’m also hearing about technology being developed to detect whether a driver is impaired and, potentially, prevent that person from operating the vehicle. On its face, the goal is hard to argue with. If a system could reliably keep a drunk driver off the road, it might save lives.
But what happens when the system gets it wrong?
Picture someone rushing an injured loved one to the hospital. The driver is frightened and exhausted. Their eyes are moving quickly between the road and the passenger. Could a system that judges behavior mistake that distress for impairment? What if the car refuses to start or limits the trip when every minute feels urgent?
That's a hypothetical, and I don’t know of a proposed system that would make this decision from an elevated heartbeat. But the underlying problem is real. In a 2026 report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration discussed camera-based approaches that examine such things as eye movements and facial features. It warned that false readings could wrongly prevent sober people from driving and said current technology has not demonstrated the reliability needed for a federal requirement.
Safety technology needs careful testing before we give it that kind of authority over a person’s choices. It also needs a way to handle mistakes and emergencies.
Inside our homes, connected appliances may alert us before food spoils or a machine breaks down. That can be useful. But I do not want to create an account, agree to a long privacy policy and connect another device to the internet just to use a basic household function. A washing machine should be able to wash clothes even if I decline to share information with its manufacturer.
Televisions, phones, tablets, webcams and smart speakers bring us closer to the concern that troubles many people most: Are these devices listening?
We need to be precise. A microphone does not prove that a device records every conversation or that a government agency can hear everything said in a home. Claims like that require evidence. But devices with microphones and cameras can collect sensitive information, and they can be misused or compromised. The FTC has brought cases over the retention of Alexa voice recordings and inadequate safeguards for private Ring videos.
Those documented problems give us plenty of reason to ask what a device records, where the information goes, who can access it and whether “delete” means it is gone.
Pricing is another area where our data may work against us. I have seen reports about digital price tags at Walmart, and I understand why people wonder whether a store could charge one shopper more than another based on what it knows about them. The ability to change a displayed price quickly raises questions.
But we should separate that possibility from what Walmart says it is doing. The company says its digital shelf labels display the same price to everyone in a store and have no cameras, microphones or facial recognition. I have not found evidence that those labels change a price according to the person standing in front of them.
The larger concern does not depend on that claim being true. The FTC has found that personal information, including browsing and shopping history, can be used in tools that influence the prices or offers individual consumers see. It’s now considering guidance on when companies must tell shoppers that personal data was used to set a price.
That’s the question I want answered before I buy something: Am I seeing the price of the item, or a price calculated for me? If two people receive different offers, they should know why. A shopper should not need to investigate a company’s data practices to find out whether the price on the screen is fair.
For me, convenience begins to feel like control when a person cannot use a product, drive down a street or shop online without creating a record they never knowingly agreed to create. It feels invasive when consent is buried in pages of legal language or when the only practical choice is to share information or give up the service.
We can insist on better terms. Before a community approves a major data center, residents should see clear estimates of its demands and benefits. Before a police department expands access to camera records, the public should know the rules. Before a manufacturer collects information from a car or appliance, its owner should receive a short, understandable explanation and a real choice to block them from receiving your info. And if a company uses personal data to influence a price, the customer should be told.
I’m not asking us to abandon technology. I am asking us to stay in charge of it.
The best tools help us do things we’ve chosen to do. They don’t quietly turn our daily lives into information for someone else to store, study or sell. In Sergeant Bluff, Salix and every community facing these decisions, we should be able to welcome a useful advancement and still ask what it costs.
If the people selling or installing a new technology cannot answer that question plainly, we should slow down until they can.
