The Internets ability to collect and distribute people’s demographic and purchasing information through their online activities has raised questions about ‘electronic footprints’ in cyberspace. The unintentional collection of data and insights into personal behaviour can be stored monitored and used in the future.
New technologies and particularly the Internet represent a fundamental threat to our privacy. Society has become more privacy conscious as a result of the growing awareness of IT-induced surveillance and the threat to online security in particular financial transactions. The average British today can expect their personal details to be held on at least 300 different databases and electronic and networked data storage systems growingly control important areas of daily life such as credit ratings and medical records to employment related data and information about shopping habits.
The problem with privacy shows there is an inclination to think of people not as individuals with civil rights, but as individual consumers with data rights. However data protection laws are not really privacy laws. It is more correct to say they are information laws protecting the data rather than the people. They only deal with the way data is collected, stored, used and accessed.
At the present time, privacy is regarded as a matter of balance. The decline of what were once maintained civil liberties are now begun to be seen as the price worth paying for the promise of security from the Government. Some argue that Civil Liberties should not be rights that overrule all others, and society should be able to invade privacy when the public good is at stake. The increasing acceptance of this argument has robbed privacy of its defining feature: that privacy means the privacy of the individual from surveillance and intrusion by the state.
Recently in London there have been posters along bus routes showing a red double Decker bus crossing a bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky, showing the eyes’ pupils to be the symbol of Transport For London. Perry Haviland, an active Libertarian was appalled by this said “Basically what they’re saying is that we’re watching you and you should be happy about it”.
The narrow consumer focus underlying the rise of privacy today points attention on the least important area of privacy intrusion: where companies collect information in order to sell things to their customers, while making breaches on privacy and personal liberties by the state seem legitimate. Despite the recent heightened public anxiety about privacy, there is little outcry about the decline of privacy related civil liberties by the state.
The UK Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act (2000), grants the authorities extraordinary powers to monitor electronic communications. It also ensures that the police and security services can intercept all internet and mobile phone communications. Even if you are not suspected of a crime, you can be imprisoned for two years if you fail to disclose a computer password or encryption key.
It is quite clear the high level of intrusion that this now represents, in the event of a lost or forgotten password, the burden of proof is on the defendant, and the assumption of innocence until proven guilty has gone. However there has been little revolt against the RIP Act, as it has been seen as a way of protecting people from other abuses online.
Liberalism argues to not have any such rights or laws enforced on privacy. People’s privacy should be left alone as it is with no interference from government.
Nowadays, we are forced to live in a world where there are no barriers and in which the global trade of information and communications between people have already become a daily, accepted norm.
Liberalism as a revolution of rights not only meant the conquest of civil rights by society, but also their extension by constitutional means.
Other worsening problems of privacy are that by giving personal data to a company, they will only use the data to try and sell you products and services you may want. The other great fear is that companies would mine this data and sell it resulting in making connections that could be potentially harmful to people.
A current example of this, is that Tesco with their club card scheme, allow customers to collect points when they shop whilst collating your shopping habits and recording what you buy, something which people are unaware of. The motive is to send you coupons and money off vouchers to encourage you to shop there more often. However the problem here is they have knowledge of everything you buy, so if you are buying a lot of tobacco, red meat, alcohol and so on, this could affect other services they provide, namely Insurance. The issue here is that insurance would be a problem if you ever applied, as they would not insure you due to your consumptions of the types of products mentioned.
Another example if you look at the issue hypothetically is that a prospective employer could by having access to your shopping history, know your drinking habits and use this in a decision about whether to employ you. This underestimates the extent to which data mining is costly and time consuming. The most profitable use of tracking an individuals purchasing history is discovering and targeting offers to that individual based on that history, this could be through advertising new products directly to individuals.
The authorities that are the problem in terms of the threat to privacy, which are the authorities of the state often come to be seen as the solution hence the backers of privacy as data protection.
In a recent Guardian ICM poll published in September 2002, it showed that majority of British voters do not trust the government with the details of their private lives. In response to David Blunkett’s plans to extend state surveillance powers, 58% disagree with the statement that the government can be trusted to keep their personal data secure.
British citizens are and continue to be watched, recorded and analysed by hundreds of organisations ranging from government agencies to big business. However the public are showing some tolerance to intrusion into their private lives, only if the measures can prove that they are purely for the protection from terrorists or criminals.
The number of organisations active in the area of online privacy and data protection has grown vastly in recent years. As the growing disregard of parliamentary politics has grown, the government has had to look to consumer and advocacy groups in an attempt to keep up with public opinion.
The Business world is also becoming aware of the importance of building trust for future survival. This is evident with the increasing appointments of a Corporate Privacy Officer which companies such as Microsoft, IBM, American Express, AT &T to name a few have done. The Head of Electronic Privacy Information Centre, Marc Rotengberg sees business’ growing awareness of privacy as a significant development that ‘has become part of mainstream business culture’.
The events of September 11, 2001 had an effect and challenged governments all over the world to rethink the protection of privacy. In trying to strengthen national security and reduce risk of future terrorist acts, governments turned to legal authority and new technology to extend control over individuals. Many of the proposals have had far reaching consequences for the protection of privacy. However it must be noted that these proposals were not new. Before the events of September 11, law enforcement agencies wanted expanded communications surveillance authority anyway.
In Great Britain, privacy advocates pushed back the unjustified Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Big Brother is not yet welcome in most countries.
An annual Privacy and Human Rights survey is conducted by The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), which is a public interest research centre in Washington, D.C, first established in 1994. It developed to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy. It works jointly with Privacy International (PI) a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and Corporations and is based in London. The survey documents the flow of efforts to safeguard privacy in the modern era.
As mentioned the effects of September 11, 2001 raised issues of privacy all over the world. A major development was the adoption in June 2002 of the European Unions Electronic Communications Privacy Directive. This allows EU states to carry out laws requiring ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and telecommunications operators to keep hold of the traffic and location data of all people using mobile phones, text messaging, land-line telephones, faxes, emails, chat rooms, Internet and any other means of electronic communication devices to communicate. These measures indicate a number of trends including:
-increased communications surveillance & search seizure powers
-weakening of data protection regimes
-increased data sharing
-increased profiling & identification.
The new European Union Electronic Communications Directive, on the one hand has allowed the possibility of data retention in the member states, and on the other has also established safeguards for information transmitted across the Internet. It prohibits unsolicited commercial marketing by e-mail (spam) without consent, and protects mobile phone users from precise location tracking and surveillance.
The Human Rights Act 1998 allows UK citizens to exercise their rights under the Convention in courts and tribunals. With regards to data sharing by public authorities, the legitimacy of any interference with this right will depend on three factors; is it in accordance with the law; does it pursue a legitimate aim and lastly can it be considered necessary in a democratic society.
The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates the processing and handling of personal data which have been lawfully obtained. Personal Data is allowed to be processed for purposes such as crime prevention, policing, insurance, equality monitoring and research.
Laws to protect privacy in the workplace are also gaining more prominence. In the UK the Privacy Commissioner has drafted a four-part code on data protection in the workplace. In May 2002 the European Union Article 29 Data Protection Working Party issued a working paper on monitoring and surveillance of electronic communications in the workplace.
It can be noted that these trends whilst being new also indicate more importantly the speed in which these policies have gained acceptance and became law in many instances.
These laws are conflicting with Libertarian beliefs and ideology that everyone should be free to do as they choose, so long as they do not infringe upon the equal freedom of others. What sets libertarians apart are that they do not make any exceptions to this principle, not even for governments.
Liberalism values individual liberty more than anything else. They believe the role of government is to uphold the liberty, equality, and security of all citizens. Liberals work to end human rights violations and encourage respect for individuals. Because liberalism places such importance on human rights, privacy therefore should belong to the individual and no one should have any right on encroaching upon that privacy.
Libertarians do not want the Internet and Privacy to become controlled by the government. Their views are that the government should have a minimal role in society. They believe that government should allow maximum personal and economic freedom to every member of its society. Libertarians also believe that people are more peaceful and function better if they willingly do things, rather than having the government tell them what to do.
Conclusion
In an attempt to decide whether the state has enforced too much legislation over privacy laws, a lot can be said and argued. There are always differing views and opinions on the matter and it depends on what people regard as their personal privacy and how much they feel the government should have access to. It can be said that laws regarding surveillance, monitoring of emails, telephone calls, messages and so on can only do so much as to help or protect a citizen if a crime or problem arises. Also some people do feel safe in the knowledge that their country is actively doing something to prevent disasters such as terrorism. If it can be seen as a safeguard against terrorism then so be it, we do not want history to repeat itself with the horrific events of September 11 and only if these privacy laws and methods can do anything in eradicating such crime, then people should not fear and trust their respective governments. However as a human right and looking at libertarian viewpoints and freedom fighters, they would argue no matter what the circumstances, privacy is privacy and should be valued and regarded highly. Individuals should be left alone without governments and organisations having their data and using it for their own advantages.
On the one hand if laws are their to protect us and we live in a country where our protection is guaranteed, we should allow the state to do all they can and if privacy laws are there to protect us then so be it. However these laws can also have diminishing effects on our futures with organisations having access to databases, medical records and criminal history which can determine what we can achieve in life and where we can get to. In a democratic society such as the UK where we are given a lot of rights, yes we would like our privacy to remain our property, as this is our basic right. However we choose to live in a country where we expect the state to do everything in their power to protect us, and if protecting us for our good involves enforcing privacy and data sharing laws, then to an extent we must accept this at the same time ensuring we are aware of what ‘Big Brother’ is doing.
Reference List & Bibliography
Books:
1-Severson, Richard, The Principles of Information Ethics, 1997, M.E.Sharpe, Inc.
2-Parker, Donn B, Fighting Computer Crime, 1998, Wiley & Sons, Inc.
3-Hall, S and Gieben,B, Formations of Modernity,1992, Polity Press & Blackwell Publishers Ltd & The Open University.
4-Michael, James, Privacy and Human Rights, 1994, UNESCO-United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation
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11- www.wired.com/news/privacy - Various Articles regarding Privacy including London’s Privacy is Falling Down, Year in Privacy: Citizens Lose, accessed: 02/01/2003
12-www.slis.Indiana.edu/faculty/kling/cc-CNTR4.html – Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices, accessed 30/12/2002
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