Private data security

After Cambridge Analytica, this game about government surveillance feels quaint

What if the government could dig up information on you, and use that information to discredit you? Not because you broke any laws, but because they just didn’t like what you were saying. This is the central conceit of Orwell: Ignorance is Strength. It’s a sequel to 2016’s Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You, a game about how much you’re willing to invade someone’s privacy on behalf of the government in the name of security. The sequel diverges slightly, having you again invade someone’s privacy on behalf of the government, but in order to discredit them on social media.

Both games play out through the interface of a fictional research and surveillance program called Orwell, run by a country called The Nation. The software is powerful, but somewhat limiting, letting the user only dig through information that it deems as being relevant to the case at hand. This data is then put into a dossier which is shared with an adviser who is allowed to draw conclusions about the data and act on it. Data added to the dossier also opens up new documents and websites to sift through as the program deems them as being related. In the world’s fiction, Orwell is constructed this way to be the best case scenario ethically for invading people’s privacy. On a more practical level, it also serves as a way to keep the player from being overwhelmed.