Surveillance society effects
From Blindside
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[edit] What is it
In a surveillance society all or a substantial part of the entire population is under surveillance. It may be with or without the consent of those under surveillance, and it may or may not be in their interest. Monitoring for disease in epidemiology might be viewed as a benign form of mass surveillance. A network of secret police informers would not. (see: Wikipedia )
The intention of a surveillance society might be to help authorities keep people safer, for example with earlier detection of social trends or specific criminal intent and solving crimes after the event. Systems whose primary purpose is quite different - public transport ticketing systems or congestion charging - might have unintended consequences when designed in a manner that captures and retains personally identifiable data which is not core to their purpose.
Liberty distinguishes between three sorts of surveillance:‘Mass informational surveillance’ relates to the retention and dissemination of database information. This would cover databases such as the National Identity Register (NIR), created by the Identity Card Act 2006 (IDCA) and the children’s index set up by the Children Act 2004. ‘Mass Visual Surveillance’ relates to the use of CCTV cameras. ‘Targeted Surveillance’ refers to the use of intrusive powers such as communication interception by means of the framework created under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). The central distinction between these types of surveillance is that targeted surveillance is commonly used as part of an intelligence led investigation into illegal or unlawful activity. Mass visual and informational surveillance does not take place in anticipation of a specific investigation into impropriety but will often be claimed to have some crime detection or (in the case of CCTV) crime prevention purpose. Information is retained and disseminated in anticipation of being of use for investigation. Mass informational surveillance will also take place for purpose unrelated to investigation such as assisting access to public services. Mass and targeted surveillance techniques have usually been distinct. However, in the last few years this distinction has been blurred by increasing use of ‘data matching’ and ‘data mining’ processes. These techniques are based on the use of automated processes which analyse or match seemingly innocuous data in order to throw up anomalies or inconsistencies. When used in relation to information about people this is more commonly known as ‘profiling’. The blurring of distinction arises from the fact that there is no human or intelligence led initiation of suspicion. Human investigation will follow after initial matching or mining.
It is not easy to engage in constructive debate those convinced by such dangers with those whose views are driven primarily by the sense that society is an increasingly dangerous place, that the forces of law and order need every tool at their disposal we can offer them and that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.
Meanwhile, as the Information Commissioner said in 2006, Britain has awoken to find it has become a surveillance society.
[edit] Impact & Maturity assessment
The Impact Level of this is 3, our highest level. Although the business case for each surveillance technology tool may be easy to make, the cumulative effect (erosion of public trust in official information gathering) is already being seen in normal UK society, and ranges from destruction of monitoring cameras and defeating the congestion charge at the lowest level to a polarization of policy debate between major political parties at the highest level. There are a number of threats to information assurance programs involved--if public opinion turns decisively against monitoring, they may choose to either not enter information or enter false information on official documents. They may engage in single or organized attacks on information gathering devices. Society as a whole may decide to reject this subsector of technology.
As there are few published success stories regarding surveillance, and numerous accounts of failure to exploit technologies in place, should HM government truly believe in the efficacy of surveillance technology, it will need to make a new and separate case for it in the court of public opinion. As this has not yet happened, we assign this a Maturity Level of 1.
Surveillance is said to be endemic in the UK [347=x-347-545269 by Privacy International]
[edit] Information Assurance issues
There are a first level of issues to do with the surveillance technology itself. Is the CCTV footage admissiable, can it be spoofed. Is surveillance technology effective for its primary stated purpose.
The deeper questions are about the longer-term effects or unexpected consequences of the accumulation of such data. One danger is the "chilling effect" on the marginalised or apprently unreasonable people on whom progress in any society depends (see Shaw below). Another is the concentration of too much power without clear and proper accountability. There could be a wholesale erosion of trust and in authority because of the undignified manner in which people feel they are treated, with ever-decreasing willingness to co-operate.
These are entirely to do with human impact of the technology. People may differ about what is desirable and realistic, but there is sufficient evidence of danger to say it is irresponsible to go down this path heedless to the human consequences.
[edit] Timescale
[edit] Origin and development of the concept
See
Jeremy Bentham's original panopticon design
Guy Debord: The Society of the Spectacle
Michel Foucault - Panopticon as metaphor for modern society (in Discipline and Punish)
Gary T Marx (homepage; Wikipedia entry) - work on social sorting
David Brin (homepage; Wikipedia entry; - The Transparent Society
David Lyon - Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life
Also worth Googling: emerging concepts of sousveillance (from below) and entreveillance (from between).
[edit] Examples
See Wikipedia on data retention in the UK
EDRI on data retention in the EU
[edit] Comments (attributed)
The UK could "sleepwalk into a surveillance society" as a result of ID cards and other plans, UK information commissioner Richard Thomas has warned (BBC August 2004)
Fears that the UK would "sleep-walk into a surveillance society" have become a reality, the government's information commissioner has said. Richard Thomas, who said he raised concerns two years ago, spoke after research found people's actions were increasingly being monitored. Researchers highlight "dataveillance", the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information, and CCTV. Monitoring of work rates, travel and telecommunications is also rising. (BBC November 2006)
Data tsar attacks surveillance UK The increasing use of electronic surveillance to track everything from a person's sexuality to their spent criminal convictions is eroding trust in society, according to the man charged with protecting the public's privacy...The decision by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, to warn of the increasing risks associated with a 24/7 surveillance society in which more and more institutions hold personal data comes amid concerns about the way people's electronic records are being used. (Guardian April 2007)
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell.and
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
[edit] Organisations
[edit] Documents & research papers
A Report on the Surveillance Society for the Information Commissioner by the Surveillance Studies Network, September 2006
Role of Northern Ireland conflict in development of UK official pro-surveillance orthodoxy
Military theories of surveillance
FIPR site on Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
[http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy07/home-affairs-ctte-surveillance-society.pdf Liberty’s response to the Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into ‘A Surveillance Society’]
ICAMS http://www.i-cams.org/ and report http://www.i-cams.org/ICAMS1.pdf Tony Bunyan - Statewatch http://www.statewatch.org/ (since 1991) [http://www.justice.org.uk/reports/undersurveillance.html
JUSTICE - Under Surveillance: Covert policing and human rights standards (1998) - Surveillance and Society journal]
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/index. Duncan Campbell - http://duncan.gn.apc.org/ and http://duncan.gn.apc.org/echelon-dc.htm US report (1973) - http://www.epic.org/privacy/hew1973report/ Work of Lord Phillips of Sudbury in House of Lords - http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?s=surveillance&pid=13594 Anti-Terrorism Laws and Data Retention : War is Over (2003 - no it wasn't) http://www.cyber-rights.org/documents/data_retention_article.pdf Bowden and Akdeniz - http://www.fipr.org/publications/cryptfree.pdf (1999, anticipating RIPA)
Legal/Constitutional
ECHR jurisprudence on Art.8(1) - right to respect for private life, subject to tests of proportionality, necessity, forseeability "powers of secret surveillance of citizens are tolerable under the Convention only in so far as strictly necessary for safeguarding the democratic institutions" (Rotaru v. Romania, §47, case 28341/95, judgment 4.5.00)
What does proportionality mean in the age of blanket data retention http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2002dltr0005.html http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2002dltr0007.html http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol3-4/rauhofer.asp (conflict between purposes for which data collected and subsequent use)
Why is it important to understand data retention policy history - because it set a precedent for blanket data collection of transactional data for an entire population
UK track record of hostility to privacy interests Younger Ctee (1972) - nobbled ToR, limited to private sector intrusions, clear recommendation to legislate, shelved by HMG Lindop Report on Data Protection (1978) - similar story feeble Data Protection Act of 1984 (Thatcher instructed de minimis approach only to be able to join EC Single Market, law not conceived as about privacy)
UK leading charge for Data Retention in EU since 2000
