e-ignite

The results of this year’s Privacy International report are in and it doesn’t make comfortable reading! Many countries including the USA, China, Russia and the UK have been described as “Endemic Surveillance Societies” - a sobering thought when you consider that China (widely criticised for its web censorship and monitoring of citizens) is in the same category as the US and UK!

The report can be found here on the Privacy International website and I’d recommend you take a look and see how your own country got on.

Here’s a summary of the report’s main findings for the United Kingdom:

• World leading surveillance schemes
• Lack of accountability and data breach disclosure law
• Commissioner has few powers
• Interception of communications is authorised by politician, evidence not used in court, and oversight is by commissioner who reports only once a year upon reviewing a subset of applications
• Hundreds of thousands of requests from government agencies to telecommunications providers for traffic data
• Data retention scheme took a significant step forward with the quiet changes based on EU law
• Plans are emerging regarding surveillance of communications networks for the protection of copyrighted content
• Despite data breaches, ‘joined-up government’ initiatives continue
• Identity scheme still planned to be the most invasive in the world, highly centralised and biometrics-driven; plan to issue all foreigners with cards in 2008 are continuing
• E-borders plans include increased data collection on travellers

It’s particularly interesting to note that the UK has been divided into two “regions” - the main part of the report on the UK refers to England and Wales, and this got the rating of Endemic Surveillance Society”. The section referring to Scotland gave a lower rating of “Systematic failure to uphold safeguards” and the following comments were made:

• Inherited constitutional and statutory protections from UK Government and only some of the policies
• National policies are not judged, e.g. Communications surveillance, border and trans-border issues
• Stronger protections on civil liberties
• DNA database is not as open to abuse as policy in England and Wales
• Identity policy is showing possibility of avoiding mistakes of UK Government
• Scottish government appears more responsive and open to informed debate than local governments in England

This segmentation of the report for the UK was not done in previous reports by Privacy International, although it shows that some improvements or differences have actually been achieved by the devolution of Scotland’s parliament.

Of interest to some readers is the following summary for the United States of America:

• No right to privacy in constitution, though search and seizure protections exist in 4th Amendment; case law on government searches has considered new technology
• No comprehensive privacy law, many sectoral laws; though tort of privacy
• FTC continues to give inadequate attention to privacy issues, though issued self-regulating privacy guidelines on advertising in 2007
• State-level data breach legislation has proven to be useful in identifying faults in security
• REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structures
• Extensive data-sharing programs across federal government and with private sector
• Spreading use of CCTV
• Congress approved presidential program of spying on foreign communications over U.S. networks, e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, etc.; and now considering immunity for telephone companies, while government claims secrecy, thus barring any legal action
• No data retention law as yet, but equally no data protection law
• World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flows
• Weak protections of financial and medical privacy; plans spread for ‘rings of steel’ around cities to monitor movements of individuals
• Democratic safeguards tend to be strong but new Congress and political dynamics show that immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle
• Lack of action on data breach legislation on the federal level while REAL-ID is still compelled upon states has shown that states can make informed decisions
• Recent news regarding FBI biometric database raises particular concerns as this could lead to the largest database of biometrics around the world that is not protected by strong privacy law

The report does not make comfortable reading when you consider this is a documented erosion of privacy worldwide. With only one country (Slovenia) out of all those reported upon whose privacy safeguards are actually improving, it is distressing to think that all others are either staying the same or deteriorating.

My advice would be to read the report and think about how this may affect you. You could make small changes such as taking steps to communicate securely, or you may let these issues affect the way you vote in various elections. Either way, don’t just ignore it - be aware and be informed.