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European Data Protection Supervisor has (False?) Teeth

Posted by chrissmith in AnonymitY, Humanity nature and activity, Uncategorized, threats at October 8th, 2007

Its good to see that Peter Hustinx EDPS (here and here) is following in the footsteps of our own Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, (here) by biting at the heels of government, reminding them of their privacy obligations. Balancing the security of the citizen vs the privacy rights of the citizen is not an easy one, but it seems to me that it’s healthy to have advocates in both corners of the debate, particularly when one corner has Uncle Sam as a strong proponent. Mr Hustinx has again reminded the EU not to let political expediency dilute the aims of data protection (here and here). However I do wonder what recourse Mr Hustinx has to ensure the EU institutions do pay due regards to his warnings.

Any views on the security of the citizen vs the privacy rights of the citizen are very welcome.

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One Response to “European Data Protection Supervisor has (False?) Teeth”

  1. Ian Brown Says:
    October 8th, 2007 at 9:17 am

    Privacy vs security is a false dichotomy :(

    See (amongst many) Bruce Schneier on this subject:
    http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200209/mann

    To forestall attacks, security systems need to be small-scale, redundant, and compartmentalized. Rather than large, sweeping programs, they should be carefully crafted mosaics, each piece aimed at a specific weakness. The federal government and the airlines are spending millions of dollars, Schneier points out, on systems that screen every passenger to keep knives and weapons out of planes. But what matters most is keeping dangerous passengers out of airline cockpits, which can be accomplished by reinforcing the door. Similarly, it is seldom necessary to gather large amounts of additional information, because in modern societies people leave wide audit trails. The problem is sifting through the already existing mountain of data. Calls for heavy monitoring and record-keeping are thus usually a mistake. (”Broad surveillance is a mark of bad security,” Schneier wrote in a recent Crypto-Gram.)

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