ICCA for Consumers: Data as Kryptonite
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: ICCA: Identity Constructed Communication ArchitectureVolume V: Psychology, Autonomy & Digital HabitusPaper: ICCA for Consumers: Data as KryptoniteModern computing presents itself through physical metaphors such as desktops, files, folders and documents. These metaphors create a sense of familiarity and safety, encouraging people to believe that digital systems behave like physical objects. In reality, these systems extract behavioural data, accumulate metadata, construct continuity, correlate events, infer intent, predict behaviour and monetise human activity.As extraction increased, organisations became responsible for the data they collected. Responsibility created legal, operational and ethical exposure. The metaphor of kryptonite is used here in its original sense. In global popular culture, Superman is a fictional character who is vulnerable only to kryptonite, a substance that is harmless to others. Its danger is relational. Data behaves the same way. It becomes harmful only when an organisation possesses it, because possession creates unavoidable liability.Identity Constructed Communication Architecture (ICCA) removes identity visibility, behavioural metadata, continuity, correlation and predictive modelling. When these mechanisms disappear, data becomes inert and cannot be weaponised. This paper explains how data became dangerous, how computing metaphors concealed that danger and how ICCA reconstructs digital habitus around blindness, autonomy and structural safety.
Source: Figshare
Author: Karl A L Smith
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204155284