Privacy and Government access

I am all for enforcing law, catching and prosecuting criminals and terrorists and preventing harm to vulnerable members of our society.

I am also for protecting civil liberties, freedom, the right to decide how our personal information is collected and used and the right to defend any misrepresentation of our personal information.

So it is hard to square these two and there will always be a tension to get the right balance.

A few news items I have been watching over the last few weeks really made me think (again).

Many countries are enacting more stringent laws to allow governments more access to our data with lower barriers to enter but allegedly more oversight or governance. For example the USA has enacted the Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act (CISA) and the UK has the “snoopers charter” or as it is called “Investigatory Powers Bill” (to be far not enacted but almost).

However how do we square giving more and more powers to the government when we can’t trust them to keep it safe or not to abuse their positions?

The first article is about police leaking your data. The title I think says it all “Safe in Police hands: How Police Forces suffer 10 data breaches every week and still want more of your data”. The full report can be found here.

The report covered a period from 2011 to 2015 so not just recent incidents, its being going on for years.

The other item is a global database of suspected terrorists and individuals linked to organised crime being leaked online. The database size is 2.2 million so not just a few people’s details involved. From this article which in part said:

“A global database listing millions of suspected terrorists and individuals linked to organised crime, which is used by hundreds of intelligence agencies, banks and corporations across the globe, has reportedly been leaked online, exposing millions of suspected criminals.”

I have added emphasis. The key for me is:

  • Leaked: So we cannot trust the listed organisations to keep our data safe, so why would we want to give them even more if they cannot use and keep the data they have safe already?

  • Suspected: So not only is the data leaked but there is no redress for those who are suspected and now known as being suspected.


So I ask myself why we are giving more powers to the government when they are already collecting data on people, using private for profit organisations and not able to keep the data they do collect safe.

Also I am always reminded of what Bruce Schneier (www.schneier.com) said that the government needs to get better at using the data they have before collecting more (for example see his article on NSA and 9/11 mass data here)

 

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