The potential for communication brought about by the web is matched only by its potential as a surveillance tool. UN Rapporteur on free expression Frank La Rue recently announced that his next report will be on state surveillance and the web. In the UK, the government has vowed to reintroduce the Communications Data Bill, known commonly as the “snooper’s charter” which aims to give the authorities unprecedented powers to store, monitor and search private data. In Australia, the government has proposed similar powers and also suggested social networks should allow back-door surveillance of users.
It’s not just state gathering of data that worries people, of course. Many people object to the hoovering up and monetisation of data posted on public and private networks by the many private web companies whose services so many of us now use.
The right to privacy and the right to free expression often go hand in hand. Surveillance is bound to curtail what we say, and enable what we say to be used against us.
In Stockholm last week, Google brought together experts from politics, business, policing and civil liberties to discuss the complex intermingling of free speech, security and surveillance online.
Hosted in a former church overlooking Stockholm Harbour, the latest “Big Tent” event was kicked off with a discussion between Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Google’s Global Head of Free Expression Ross Lajeunesse.
Bildt raised a laugh while voicing confusion over the safety of “cloud computing”, asking “Where is the bloody cloud?”
But Lajeunesse insisted that cloud computing is the best way to guarantee safety from hacking and theft, adding that Google’s gmail is encrypted in an effort to protect users from surveillance.
Discussing China’s method’s of web censorship and surveillance (Read Index’s China correspondent here), Bildt put forward the interesting proposition that the authorities use of “50 cent party” a network of thousands of civilians paid to post pro government content in web conversations, was perhaps a sign the authorities had admitted that censorship had failed, as the government seemed to have conceded that you know had to argue your case rather than censor others.
Lajeunesse was hopeful for Chinese web users, simply saying that 700 milllion people who want access to information cannot be held back.
The reasoning behind state surveillance was discussed in a later panel. After Francesca Bosco, of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute gave a frankly terrifying account of cyber crime and web security (in brief, there’s a lot of crime and no real security), Brian Donald of Europol discussed the need for surveillance, citing examples of tracking people engaged in the trade of images of child sexual abuse. He countered fears of dragnet surveillance expressed by Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jacob Mchangama of Danish civil liberties group CEPOS, saying that he was in fact limited in his powers to fight crime by European data protection laws.
Galperin and Mchangama both also expressed concern over the policing and surveillance of not just of crime, but of speech online (a subject of considerable debate in the UK).
It seems like the back-and-forth on these issues will not be resolved any time soon. Security, surveillance and free speech have always been intertwined. But mass use of the web, as our lives move online, makes the debate on achieving a balance all the more urgent.
The potential for communication brought about by the web is matched only by its potential as a surveillance tool. UN Rapporteur on free expression Frank La Rue recently announced that his next report will be on state surveillance and the web. In the UK, the government has vowed to reintroduce the Communications Data Bill, known commonly as the “snooper’s charter” which aims to give the authorities unprecedented powers to store, monitor and search private data. In Australia, the government has proposed similar powers and also suggested social networks should allow back-door surveillance of users.
It’s not just state gathering of data that worries people, of course. Many people object to the hoovering up and monetisation of data posted on public and private networks by the many private web companies whose services so many of us now use.
The right to privacy and the right to free expression often go hand in hand. Surveillance is bound to curtail what we say, and enable what we say to be used against us.
In Stockholm last week, Google brought together experts from politics, business, policing and civil liberties to discuss the complex intermingling of free speech, security and surveillance online.
Hosted in a former church overlooking Stockholm Harbour, the latest “Big Tent” event was kicked off with a discussion between Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Google’s Global Head of Free Expression Ross Lajeunesse.
Bildt raised a laugh while voicing confusion over the safety of “cloud computing”, asking “Where is the bloody cloud?”
But Lajeunesse insisted that cloud computing is the best way to guarantee safety from hacking and theft, adding that Google’s gmail is encrypted in an effort to protect users from surveillance.
Discussing China’s method’s of web censorship and surveillance (Read Index’s China correspondent here), Bildt put forward the interesting proposition that the authorities use of “50 cent party” a network of thousands of civilians paid to post pro government content in web conversations, was perhaps a sign the authorities had admitted that censorship had failed, as the government seemed to have conceded that you know had to argue your case rather than censor others.
Lajeunesse was hopeful for Chinese web users, simply saying that 700 milllion people who want access to information cannot be held back.
The reasoning behind state surveillance was discussed in a later panel. After Francesca Bosco, of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute gave a frankly terrifying account of cyber crime and web security (in brief, there’s a lot of crime and no real security), Brian Donald of Europol discussed the need for surveillance, citing examples of tracking people engaged in the trade of images of child sexual abuse. He countered fears of dragnet surveillance expressed by Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jacob Mchangama of Danish civil liberties group CEPOS, saying that he was in fact limited in his powers to fight crime by European data protection laws.
Galperin and Mchangama both also expressed concern over the policing and surveillance of not just of crime, but of speech online (a subject of considerable debate in the UK).
It seems like the back-and-forth on these issues will not be resolved any time soon. Security, surveillance and free speech have always been intertwined. But mass use of the web, as our lives move online, makes the debate on achieving a balance all the more urgent.
The Guardian today ran a front page story on tech company Raytheon’s RIOT search tool, which promises to integrate social media data to build a complete picture of people’s movements, using geotagged pictures, FourSquare check ins and and other means.
There has been some slightly offputting hyperbole about the software’s potential ability to “predict crime”, with frequent mentions of the Philip K Dick story and later Tom Cruise film Minority Report, in which psychics are used to predict potential crime, allowing police to arrest people before any damage is done.
This is largely down to the Raytheon representative’s boast in the promotional video obtained by the Guardian that RIOT can predict where people will be, based on previous behaviour.
When one looks at what he actually says and demonstrates, it’s seems to me that the programme can not really predict anything. It can identify patterns, from which users can make assumptions.
The example used in the video is that by far the most frequent time and place for the surveillance subject (a Raytheon employee) to “check in” on FourSquare is 6am at the gym. From here, a human user can reasonably assume that the subject will be at his gym at 6am most days. Not quite seeing into the future then.
And not exactly revolutionary, but merely a way of presenting data that users themselves have already volunteered into the public sphere.
Nonetheless, this technology is disquieting. More and more of our lives are recorded, day-to-day, online and publicly. Technology such as RIOT shows how easy it is to build up a very detailed picture of someone’s life, movements, interests etc. All this freely available data could have huge implications for users in the present and the future.
The UK government is currently in the process of redrafting the Communications Data Bill, which faced heavy criticism (not least from Index) for its far-reaching provisions which would force communications companies to retain data, and allow government agencies to track vast amounts of users traffic – not just publicly available social media messages, but emails, text messages phone calls and even letters. Should such a bill eventually go through with similar powers, it’s likely that other countries will follow suit.
Of course, some states are ahead of the game: yesterday it was reported that journalists working in Burma had received warnings from Google of potential email security breaches. Though the Burmese authorities have denied being behind the hacking, suspicions remain.
Surveillance inevitably has an effect on free expression, as people will not speak freely if they fear they are permanently watched and recorded. But we live in an age where tracking has become so easy, and so cheap, that without a principled stand against it, surveillance will become the norm.
Padraig Reidy is senior writer at Index on Censorship. He tweets at @mePadraigReidy
The Guardian today ran a front page story on tech company Raytheon’s RIOT search tool, which promises to integrate social media data to build a complete picture of people’s movements, using geotagged pictures, FourSquare check ins and and other means.
There has been some slightly offputting hyperbole about the software’s potential ability to “predict crime”, with frequent mentions of the Philip K Dick story and later Tom Cruise film Minority Report, in which psychics are used to predict potential crime, allowing police to arrest people before any damage is done.
This is largely down to the Raytheon representative’s boast in the promotional video obtained by the Guardian that RIOT can predict where people will be, based on previous behaviour.
When one looks at what he actually says and demonstrates, it’s seems to me that the programme can not really predict anything. It can identify patterns, from which users can make assumptions.
The example used in the video is that by far the most frequent time and place for the surveillance subject (a Raytheon employee) to “check in” on FourSquare is 6am at the gym. From here, a human user can reasonably assume that the subject will be at his gym at 6am most days. Not quite seeing into the future then.
And not exactly revolutionary, but merely a way of presenting data that users themselves have already volunteered into the public sphere.
Nonetheless, this technology is disquieting. More and more of our lives are recorded, day-to-day, online and publicly. Technology such as RIOT shows how easy it is to build up a very detailed picture of someone’s life, movements, interests etc. All this freely available data could have huge implications for users in the present and the future.
The UK government is currently in the process of redrafting the Communications Data Bill, which faced heavy criticism (not least from Index) for its far-reaching provisions which would force communications companies to retain data, and allow government agencies to track vast amounts of users traffic – not just publicly available social media messages, but emails, text messages phone calls and even letters. Should such a bill eventually go through with similar powers, it’s likely that other countries will follow suit.
Of course, some states are ahead of the game: yesterday it was reported that journalists working in Burma had received warnings from Google of potential email security breaches. Though the Burmese authorities have denied being behind the hacking, suspicions remain.
Surveillance inevitably has an effect on free expression, as people will not speak freely if they fear they are permanently watched and recorded. But we live in an age where tracking has become so easy, and so cheap, that without a principled stand against it, surveillance will become the norm.
Padraig Reidy is senior writer at Index on Censorship. He tweets at @mePadraigReidy
