SciAm On the Future of Privacy

An anonymous reader writes "Scientific American has a special issue this month on the future of privacy, asking the question: 'Can we safeguard our information in an insecure world?' The collection of articles ranges from the already-Slashdotted (Bush's wiretap laws) to a few more interesting ones (how social networking changes our idea of privacy). Most of them are worth at least a skim-through."

Comments

Make it the default

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The only way to safeguard privacy in a world where ever more intrusive collection mechanisms, mass storage and automated processing of data is possible is to have a default policy that personal data cannot be held and then work on the exceptions. We need to understand the old saying that just because we can do something it does not mean we should, to consider what ethical boundaries could or should exist, and to make people, particularly young people, more aware of the benefits of privacy, the implications of giving it up, and the fact that privacy is not a binary switch.

Such an approach will inevitably require a dramatic shift in the assumptions (and sometimes business models) that commercial and government entities operate with today, but without it, nothing else really matters. If businesses and governments are allowed to collect, store and mine personal data with little effective restriction on what data they use and how they get it, then given the inherent imbalance in resources between those organisations and any individual, it will be impossible to reconcile significant privacy with a typical modern lifestyle.

Re:Make it the default

[Atrox666]

We've spent a lot of money training kids to live in little police states we call schools where unelected officials impose bad rules. Through zero tolerance we teach them it's a crime to stand up for yourself and that they have no privacy. Justice is swift and stupid. At least the schools have been able to teach this since teaching reading, math and life skills was a complete bust.
China is the model..we'll all be living like that soon..the kids are already used to living like that.

Re:Make it the default

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think it's just a generally authoritarian regime, with insufficient checks and balances.

It probably comes from a succession of Home Secretaries have each made the last look tame in their willingness to disregard any semblance of due process and respect for personal privacy in their quest to do whatever they felt needed doing at the time. This was carried out under weak leadership that relied on the politics of fear and more generally a culture of spin for several years under Blair, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11 and then the London bombings. Now we have Brown and his administration, who don't have a mandate but many of whom were also involved in the previous government so they can't make a break for new territory. And throughout the past decade the ruling party have held a comfortable absolute majority in Parliament, so few MPs have been willing to rock the boat and challenge any of the legislation.

Having created such a climate of fear, the Blair/Brown administration has essentially denied itself a politically credible way of saying "that was a bad call" and backing away from things like the ID cards and database state. It therefore persists in claiming that long-debunked benefits and obviously optimistic costs will come to pass, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

During the same period, there has been an increasing reliance on automated means of enforcing laws rather than using trained police officers and judicial proceedings on a case-by-case basis. An obvious example is the rise in ANPR cameras, dramatic drop in traffic police numbers, consequent reliance on summary justice and prosecuting technical offences like speeding or mobile phone use rather than actual dangerous or inconsiderate driving, and therefore the ever-necessary spin that this sort of blanket law enforcement actually makes things better. Again, this happens despite all evidence to the contrary and the easy debunking of many of the statistical arguments made by government spin doctors to support their doomed policies. Once the technological framework for enforcement of such blanket laws was in place, authoritarian scope creep was inevitable, and the old line about it being easier to ask forgiveness than permission was never more apt. Similar stories will probably be told about monitoring communications channels, the appalling rise in the use of CCTV (yet again, despite ample evidence showing that it isn't actually helping overall), and so on.

Supporting all of this wherever possible is a media driven by sales, and sadly, a good scare story is great for sales. All too few of the population have ever stopped to think deeply about the implications of our current path, and we are outnumbered by those who will believe whatever the latest tabloid editor tells them.

Pretty much the only government voices opposing these measures are a few judges who retain some common sense, but whose hands are tied by the laws passed by the government (who are not afraid of reconfiguring the judicial system itself if they can get away with it), and the Information Commissioner, who is basically a good guy as far as I can tell, but whose department is obviously hopelessly underfunded and understaffed to cope with all the data protection and freedom of information cases they are tasked with handling. As a consequence, other government departments break the freedom of information laws with impunity, and only when a high profile media outlet gets stung does anyone really make any fuss over this. I sincerely hope that this will change and pressure to increase both the power and resources of the Information Commissioner's Office will result in some improvement in the fairly near future.

Basically, it's all a loaded deck. With those at the top of government more concerned with being seen to be tough on crime and terrorism than actually doing effective things to improve the situation, and a media who love a population in fear behind them, absurdly generalised and draconian powers have been pushed through Parliament, everyone fro