The New Couple in 5B

The Windermere is a world unto itself, and its extensive surveillance system acts as a symbol for the networks of digital surveillance that exist in the wider world. Shortly after moving into the Windermere, Rosie learns that the building is monitored by “audio and video surveillance” (48). She is led to believe that only the building’s common spaces have video surveillance, while the apartments are monitored only by a voice-activated intercom connecting residents directly to the doorman, Abi. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that the Windermere’s surveillance room has direct video access to “every single apartment” in the building (349). Along with antagonists Charles and Ella Aldridge, the building’s doorman Abi Bekiri uses the surveillance footage to extort residents of the Windermere.

This extensive surveillance system is explicitly compared to technological “tethers”: The intercom is activated with the phrase “Hey, Abi,” recalling the phrases that activate real-life Apple and Google products—and placing the real person Abi in the same category as the digital helpers Siri and Alexa. Rosie describes herself as a “privacy freak” and explains that she and Chad “don’t have an Alexa [and] never use Siri” or other virtual assistants that convince people “they are so important and must be connected every moment” (82). For Rosie, these technological tools are “a con, a scam, and the whole world has bought right into it” (82). Because she initially considers the Windermere’s surveillance system to be another example of technological tethering, she is not immediately aware of the potential for abuse that is later revealed.