Paper & PPT for Surveillance state & its impact on citizens’ privacy
Surveillance state & its impact on citizens’ privacy
I would like to work on compromising the privacy of citizens with increased surveillance of its people. Whether it is needed to protect the country or to advance the technology, I would like to provide pros and cons to being in a state that monitors user data continuously and its effects on the average citizens. I would also like to go through the laws and acts that were bought up after major incidents like Snowden's allegations with respect to privacy. I would also discuss how the privacy of individuals is affected in present situations and how users are providing data voluntarily without much idea on how exactly the data is used along with how anyone can tamper with results using the data collected.
Any state that is engaged in monitoring activities of its citizens to an extent of compromising their privacy is given a name as a Surveillance state. Several countries come under this category for various reasons which include for the betterment of its citizens, monitoring terrorist attacks, etc. In this process of improvisation, it can be seen clearly that the privacy of a normal person is compromised, and the details are no safer and sounder. Several countries like the US, China, UK bear a tag of the surveillance state. As per the document the term privacy is defined as “the condition of being concealed or hidden” [1] which is now a question of how secure our data is to protect our privacy.
These days the details are all over the internet and are in handy for any other person to know details about any individual. The details on privacy were being considered and worried since the Snowden revelations in 2013. It is mentioned in an article that “IBM estimates we are generating digital information, quintillions of bytes of data every day—a number followed by 30 zeros. This explosion is generated by the doubling of computer processing power every 18-24 months that has driven growth in information technology compounded by the billions of devices that collect and transmit data, storage devices, and data centers that make it cheaper and easier to keep the data from these devices, greater bandwidth to move that data faster, and more powerful and sophisticated software to extract information from this mass of data” [2].
The rules of privacy are still a concern as most individuals fall prey to applications all over the web that collect the data. It is mentioned in an article on how humans consume and produce data for various purposes. It states that “Not only do humans consume more data than they have at any point in history; they also generate more data than ever before. Just as the information explosion of the Internet increased the human capacity to amass data, it also increased the human capacity to generate not just data, but metadata. Governments and corporations collect and store not just data, but also metadata; this increase in metadata collection, retention, and analysis further erodes privacy” [3].
Privacy though cannot be protected completely in a current state, an effort can be made to secure data from being stolen by using VPN when necessary, using encrypted chat apps for communication, physical security. We should remember that “governments capture and store personal information belonging to millions of law-abiding citizens. In some countries like China, this online surveillance is obvious. But in others like the USA and UK, the extent of civilian monitoring only became apparent after the PRISM spying program was revealed.” [4].
Out of all the discussions, It is important to note that maintaining a balance between privacy and governance is really an important topic. One should know that over the past decades, several measures are being considered to bring a balance between privacy and surveillance. It is mentioned that “In the past few decades, privacy protections have been constantly challenged by the government’s push for more information and control such as wiretapping and other intelligence practices under Hoover, but a series of the legislative, judiciary and administrative efforts such as SCA, Katz v. the United States, and a guideline of FBI by the Attorney general were also passed to strike the balance” [5].
References
· (M Walter Echols, 2009)https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-022709-132355/unrestricted/Panopticon.pdf
· (Protecting privacy is a losing game, Cameron Kerry, June 12, 2018) https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-protecting-privacy-is-a-losing-game-today-and-how-to-change-the-game/
· (ND Fortmeyer, April 13, 2018) https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2063&context=gs_rp
· (Panda Security, March 2019) https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/security/how-to-protect-your-privacy/
· (Jing Ran, 2016) https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=spice
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