Surveillance, Security and Privacy

Charles RaabUniversity of Edinburgh

Presentation at the RSA Fellows’ Media, CreativeIndustries, Culture & Heritage Network

FESTIVAL OF IDEASEdinburgh, 21 March 2015

©Charles Raab 2015

ISC Call for Evidence (2013)

• ‘In addition to considering whether the current statutory framework governing access to private communications remains adequate, the Committee is also considering the appropriate balance between our individual right to privacy and our collective right to security.’

Problems• Formulation mistaken, rhetorical and imprecise; impedes

deeper understanding of what is at stake for individual, society and state

• Three difficulties:‘privacy’‘security’‘national security v. personal privacy’

• Better question:‘In combating terror and other threats through

surveillance, how can we ensure that, by applying more nuanced understanding, the claims for security measures do not always prevail when other values and rights are also

at stake?’

‘Privacy’• Fundamental (but not absolute) individual right • Individual-right assumption ignores its wider importance• Crucial underpinning of interpersonal relationships, of society

itself, and of the workings of democratic political system • When protected, fabric of society, political processes and

exercise of important freedoms are thereby protected • When eroded, society and polity are also harmed• In the public interest, and not only in the interest of the

individual, to protect privacy (Raab, 2012)

Different Types of Privacy

• Privacy of the person

• Privacy of thought and feeling

• Privacy of behaviour and action

• Privacy of location and space

• Privacy of personal communication

• Privacy of personal data and image

• Privacy of association

(Finn et al., 2013)

‘Security’• Also a right• Many ways of understanding this or its cognate,

‘public safety’• Personal security• Collective: international, national, local,

neighbourhood, social group • Objective: probabilities of risk• Subjective: feelings of (in)security

how can these two can be reconciled?

Different Types of Security• In security/privacy debate, narrow definition

Mainly related to terrorism, organised crimeMaybe border security

• For general public, ‘security’ usually much more related to:Physical securityPolitical securitySocio-economic securityCultural SecurityEnvironmental security‘Radical uncertainty’ securityInformation security

• Privacy and civil liberties (or freedoms) valuable because of security and safety (not least, of personal data) they provide for individuals, groups and societies (Liberty and Security in a Changing World, 2013, pp. 14-16; Raab, 2014)

Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (USA)

Liberty and Security in a Changing World (2013, pp. 14-16)

‘We suggest careful consideration of the following principles: ‘1. The United States Government must protect, at once, two differentforms of security: national security and personal privacy. ‘In the American tradition, the word “security” has had multiplemeanings. In contemporary parlance, it often refers to national security or homeland security. One of the government’s most fundamental responsibilities is to protect this form of security, broadly understood. At the same time, the idea of security refers to a quite different and equally fundamental value, captured in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . ”. Both forms of security must be protected.’

‘National Security v. Personal Privacy’?

• Relationship far more complex despite conventional rhetoric of ‘opposed’ rights or values that must be ‘balanced’

• Scepticism about idea of ‘balance’ or ‘trade-off’ if both privacy and security are contested and inter-related concepts

• ‘Balancing’: between one individual right and another?, or

between an individual right and a collective right?, or between an individual right and social or collective utility?a method?an outcome of a method?

• Requires specification and precision if ‘balancing’ – even if inescapably built into our mindset – is to be removed from realm of shorthand and slogan and applied to evaluating and regulating surveillance

‘National Security v. Personal Privacy’?• ‘How much security should we give up to protect privacy?’

rarely asked• Assumptions about risk, equilibrium and common metric for

weighing not clear and doubtfully warranted • How much (and whose) privacy should or should not

outweigh how much (and whose) security? • ‘Balancing’ silent about method by which ‘balance’ can be

determined and challenged, and about who is to determine it • Legal case decisions: source for understanding and disputing

weighing process and arguments used about necessity and proportionality

• Not clear how understandings can be used in strategic and operational work of intelligence and security services, and brought to bear in oversight and scrutiny

PRISMS Project: Selected Survey Findings

• Both privacy and security important to people

• People do not value security and privacy in terms of a ‘trade-off’

• No significant relationship between people’s valuation of privacy and their valuation of security

• Significant correlation between valuation of personal and general security

c.d.raab@ed.ac.uk