Mass Surveillance
Peter, Fraser, Chris and Nick discuss mass surveillance. Is it a good thing, allowing better analysis or is it a dangerous erosion of privacy.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering podcast produced by Tell Me Studios for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm Fraser McGruer and I'm here with Peter Coghill, Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing mass surveillance. So Peter, can you lead us in please? Yes, this is particularly topical
Speaker B: xecutive Powers Act in the UK: Speaker A:Well let's start off with you and your opinion then. So are you concerned about some of these
Speaker B:changes? Well I am. I mean I think we live in a very privileged place in western society where we have a great deal of freedom and there's little constraint on us and we generally, most of us aren't starving and we're not in imminent threat to life. So I think we potentially get in a place of complacency and we think the world is fine and everything's going okay and if the government wants to look at more of our data or our ISP wants to sell more of our data that's fine because it doesn't sound too threatening. So I think that really these changes are potentially quite small. They will have big impacts for certain individuals and they are there intended for the greater good but the direction is an erosion of privacy and individualism that is potentially, if unchecked, potentially quite dangerous. I mean history has taught us that small incremental changes can lead to big catastrophic impacts. So think back to sort of pre-Second World War Germany. It was incremental changes that brought about the rise of the Nazi party into power that had they been challenged earlier may have changed the course of events quite significantly.
Speaker A:And Chris you look like you want to come in but before I come to you just sorry to come back to you again Peter. From your experience all of you have worked in government but do you have a sense that in government that it's not considered in the same way or that you know can this come as a surprise to those working in government if people push back against this sort of thing?
Speaker B:No I don't think it's a surprise. I think the people in government are generally a very high standard morally and sort of intellectually and they understand these constraints and none of the people I've ever worked with would want to use things inappropriately. They're operating within a certain rule set. They make frustrations and constraints which make it difficult to do their job so the Executive Powers Act will help the police catch more criminals no doubt but it comes at quite a great social cost and I'm just I'm concerned that it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the UK parliamentary democracy system allows in some nutball who become who tries to position themselves as more of an autocratic leader and we're in a bad situation and these previously passed structures allow them to get there and then allow them to do bad things.
Speaker A:Chris?
Speaker C:Yeah so I suppose I'm less concerned from the point of view of the capacity of in the case of government having access to online data just in terms of the capacity for it to be processed and the potential for invasion of privacy. So I think most people are probably most concerned by the thought of another person scrutinizing a private communication or online transaction that they've conducted and thinking about it in terms of you know government's capacity to spare people to look at communications and the volumes of communications. I was doing some back of the envelope calculations and you know assuming organizations like NSA and and GCHQ it's UK equivalent you know given their the number of employees that they have and the the fact that not all of those employees will be employed to read bits of information about people some of them are technologists and managers and all that kind of stuff and the number of hours in the day and the number of the amount of time it might take to scrutinize something then you're talking about you know tens of a maximum of tens of thousands of people looking at this at this stuff. And you know on any given day estimates vary but you could have hundreds of billions of online transactions, communications, social media events occurring. So just from the perspective of the capacity for another human being to look at that I think you know my calculations were suggesting you know for any given transaction or communication you send there is a far lower than one in a million chance of it being scrutinized by a person in which case I'm not particularly concerned about that. However that's because I am part of a group of people for whom because let's assume that they are not randomly scrutinizing online activity that there is a specific focus to it and certain activities are more likely to be scrutinized than others. Now were I one of the individuals in you know let's say we operated in a society where secular rationalists were persecuted and were considered a threat to the regime then perhaps you know us recording these podcasts and getting them out might be an activity that would be scrutinized and restricted by government and we could end up in a dark jail somewhere for doing that. Then I would probably be more concerned about that but within our own society I just feel for those people who are sat listening to this thinking oh the you know sinister government listening into my communications my suggestion is that the reality is that's not going to be you know if you're doing something depraved like buying a you know a Justin Bieber album or something you know then then that's that secret is not going to be is not going to be discovered by another human being. So I think for those people who are who have this notion of government being able to other people being able to look at everything I think that's a very mistaken sort of outlook. The problem is if you are one of the people who is doing something which is legal within us or within a society which is persecuted and you don't feel that's a bad thing you feel what you're doing is a good a good thing. Yeah I think it's partly that I think it's a
Speaker A:question of increments as well and also just to use your example you know without going to extremes but let's say if we were for example in the UK if we were perfectly law-abiding citizens who also happen to regularly attend mosque in the east end of London let's say and and still we live perfectly normal blameless lives and yet I don't know I suspect those people might come under a little bit more scrutiny than we might and that's why you know people start to get uncomfortable a bit when that sort of thing happens. I don't know if that's a too blunt a too sort of simplistic
Speaker D:way to look at it but anyway Nick. Yeah well I think I'm probably I think it's fair to say actually from my experience in working in the security sort of government security area is that most people there very much see the benefits of better surveillance more regulated surveillance being a you know bit having access if needed to you know to phone records of potential terrorists and to email traffic and so on. There's generally you know a belief that those those things are valuable resources that we should for the sake of security for potentially saving lives you know should always try and make sure we have access to. I certainly would be sort of judged the slightly zanier end of being a bit more concerned about governments certainly less blasé about what governments might do because we're not talking about the current government. I know some people might be worried about the current government you know reading their emails but but it's really the scare it's the scary potential future government and we don't have to you know look very far to see examples of fairly you know what we might consider fairly extreme governments coming to power you know in and and it's it's then the question of you know so the so the question is what powers do we want to not give the government right so we're talking about actually preventing them from being able to do things they would otherwise be able to do you know and we the question is how we find out what the right answer is you know how much how much is privacy worthwhile on its own so people do obviously like they prefer not to have the government reading their email quite apart from the potential benefits it might have you know people people do put a value on privacy it's hard to say how much that is because actually we've completely put up with having CCTV everywhere in in Britain and you know the the new Investigatory Powers Act has passed with pretty minimal controversy you know there have been and there have been a few examples I found examples where local councils have used investigatory powers to to find out for example who was illegally feeding pigeons there are you know anecdotes about about individuals within organizations like the police or NSA who have used you know intelligence resources to look up information about people they know which are completely unconnected with any investigation you know these things happen and but you know so far people don't seem to be hugely outraged so it's you know there's there's that question of how much do we care about privacy per se but then you know how much should we care or worry about the powers that a bad government might might use you know we already they already have the armed forces that's a pretty significant thing to have if you're a government you know is this is this less of a big deal than we think or more of a big deal than we think you know what can they do that's worse than what they can do already so two things and one of them is more an
Speaker A:observation and the second is a question so I think one of the things that we're very privileged in this country is we've got a a long quite a long tradition of democracy that's been more or less uninterrupted for quite a long time and also that you know a continued state more or less over a thousand years let's say now that's maybe a bit of an overstatement but I think there's a sort of a lot of stability and trust in UK society which means that with we're quite happy with what seemed like quite small changes were not because it's always been okay in the past and not thinking about what a future government might look like that's the first thing I think the second thing is what interests me is is given what Nick has said and is anything changing right now that's what I'm interested in is anything changing right now that we could be alarmed about Peter no I don't think
Speaker B:so but I think it's the potential is there and that's what we're we're warning against we're not we're not trying to move our podcast recording underground and start the revolution but that because they're running imminent threat but but Nick's right this the libertarian movement in the UK is quite sort of is almost non-existent really I think but in places like Germany and and the United States who have had a more recent history of escaping some kind of oppressive regime the in the United States case it was us the British they have a very strong libertarian attitude and these debates are much more public and much more vocal and it and it and it chimes well with their overall attitude of the sort of calvinist the kind of work hard play hard and you'll you'll do well in this sort of open marketplace we we just don't have as much of a recent history I think you know had we had had the the Nazis been in successful and invaded the UK and we'd throw them out then things might be different but we we I think it's just that we we are too comfortable and we allow I'm not saying we reverse these things but I'm saying that we we should perhaps talk about them more so the prevalence of CCTV and things you know it slips in and people don't mind and they see the benefits so getting on a bus in London is much safer than it used to be because there's cameras on all of them but at what cost or what potential
Speaker C:cost very difficult to reverse these things as well Chris yeah I mean I suppose I'm far less fearful of of government you know we do in this country we you know it's it's not the stars he aren't operating generally generally that data is being used to benefit our security and and you know genuinely you know genuinely so but what what I'm far more concerned about is commercial entities and their use of my data and that becoming more and more intrusive and more and more empowered I mean governments at the end of the day whether a government has a power to do something or not an authoritarian regime will grab powers it will find a way so whether it has the power to listen to your emails or not or read your emails or not at at some point it will engineer a situation where it can do that so the the existence of legislation or not is you know you can talk about slippery slope and all those kinds of things but but I'm less concerned about what government in this country is doing today I'm far more concerned about what various organizations are doing with you know geolocation on my phone with the use of cookies with understanding my internet purchasing history and my viewing on tv and and not only that but the capacity for them now to process that information and to then at the moment make offers to me about things they think I want you know that that may I may or may not find that useful but at some point something I I'm much less trusting of those commercial entities than I am of the UK government and not only that I feel they have far more capacity to process things and they've got far more of my data that I'm just giving them you know government bends over backwards to get rid of of uh of data it holds on yeah mainly by leaving it on trains yeah that's
Speaker D:right I I yeah I know I think though but I think you'll I I'm not sure it's as clear cut as that because first of all companies have a commercial incentive which is pretty existential uh in a way that doesn't really exist for government employees you know to make sure that your data is is used in a way that isn't gonna you you as a customer you know it's not going to lose you ultimately as a customer we're going to lose market support and certainly isn't going to um you know raise any legal liabilities um and um you know there's not I don't think I think there's you know plenty of evidence of um accidental data loss or data leakage from government as well as from the commercial sector but the other key point is you do have the choice with um you know with uh a company you you're transacting in a way that you know means they are going to get your data if you want to play angry birds you're going to have to put up with um with them you know using geolocation services on your phone and harvesting that data and selling it but you can ultimately choose not to um I I think the I think the big danger isn't I mean it's not I was just touched on this but it's not really malice necessarily on the part of governments it's you know if you give someone the power to to co-locate a whole bunch of of data um it's you know that data is then much more vulnerable and and one of the provisions of this act is that companies have to retain um internet connection records for every uh every every user so you know every internet service provider uh has to keep your records for a year of every domain that you visited not the individual web pages but the domain now um you know you can imagine how that could be well it'd be you know potentially embarrassing or uh you know to have those released for a lot of people um if they're all in one place and being kept somewhere and on a government database you know it's possible to imagine a Ashley Madison style leak where all of that data suddenly becomes available you know with the with really the best practical controls that you can imagine there is no way of stopping that you know even if it comes out in a Snowden sort of uh uh type leak you know if that data exists it it's it is vulnerable to being leaked and then you know that's every everyone in Britain potentially had all their internet usage exposed that's that seems to me a much more plausible danger um than than at the moment at least than a government you know uh hunting you down that's and that's something else we have to consider we can't just consider you know the intent we have to consider what the unintentional consequences
Speaker A:might be well just let's i mean we've concentrated on the negatives so far um and i know you want to come with something chris but coming back to nick you've talked about the the potential negatives there what are the potential benefits uh of holding that kind of data for for government
Speaker D:well it's for i mean for invest investigatory purposes so to be able to track down um uh criminals more more easily and to identify them and to gather evidence that will either you know will absolve or convict um criminals by by showing you know that they had their phone at a certain time in a certain place they sent sent someone else a text message you know that they visited a website looking for uh you know for for for bleaches and other cleaning materials you know on the day that someone mysteriously uh you know got murdered and and you know all of those kinds of things which actually um you know are really really vital i think to to modern day uh policing
Speaker A:so that being the case i mean if we just sort of get this down to you and what you think and so given the benefits that you've outlined there against what you saw as the potential biggest biggest negative side which is um um data getting hacked let's say where i mean where do you come
Speaker D:on this what's your sort of well i i think you know the approach that we've taken which is making sure that we have oversight controls we've got make make sure there has to be ministerial approval to actually read you know emails which is what we have you know that's all uh fine um what what i think we need to guard against is it becoming considered normal or okay or just routine and um you know we would inevitably for purely practical reasons that that leads to people becoming careless um and that's that's so i suppose you know i'm i'm kind of in favor of it with the controls uh that are in place but we just need to always make sure we realize what the potential downsides are and that we don't certainly people in government don't get over optimistic about their ability to manage or handle or you know prevent prevent leaks from happening
Speaker C:um and we have to plan against those those outcomes i i think for me the um i suppose the the most concerning um scenario is well firstly i think that data is already being hoarded but not by government i i you know by um companies and if you look at the way the u.s uh presidential election was was conducted and the support that were given to to different candidates by um companies you know there are companies some of them based in this country which you know were um boasting about their ability to to generate um sort of uh portfolios on individuals containing thousands of pieces of information about those individuals in order to know how to best influence them to vote in an election um and uh you know you might say well that's no that's no different really to um to going around and uh either polling or asking people about their views at the doorstep except that um i'm not sure the extent to which consent was directly given about the the you know um accumulation and analysis of of this data uh and i think that that ability to to use data to manipulate you either to to buy something or to vote in a particular way um is potentially concerning okay um we need to wrap this up um
Speaker B:peter i want to finish this off with you just to just to dig in a bit more into why why it's concerning so the so in america the the the rules have been overturned by by trump um the the the question of choice whether or not you can use this isp or or another isp doesn't really work for a lot of people because the way that it's the industry is constructed is that you only have one isp that serves broadband services to you and you in the modern world you don't really have a choice not to use the internet even if you had a choice of isps they're all trying to maximize their profit so they're all likely to be operating on the same kind of framework and be wanting to sell your data so your is the choice argument doesn't really work yes you've got a choice not to use angry birds um but you haven't really got a choice not to use email in the modern world because everyone expects you to so you you'd be difficult to get a job without using the internet um so uh the the these questions of whether or not you're giving permission and whether or not you have a choice really don't stand up to scrutiny uh and that's that that's why these incremental changes that don't seem to have much impact uh with each one but in aggregate extremely dangerous is is something that's very very important good um anything anyone wants to say to sum it all up to round it all off but i i like chris and nick i'm not i'm less concerned about the hold on you said did you say you like them or unlike them no i i like them i'm i'm less concerned i thought you were saying you don't like me no so i like nick i like chris that is true but that's beside the point i'm less i'm less concerned about the malice in government and commercial companies i think the major threat to the individual is incompetence of one form another even though they take great pains to protect personal data the the the the criminal element people trying to get hold of data for nefarious purposes are extremely inventive
Speaker A:and actually just sort of finished one of the things you mentioned about actually with you know yes you can make a decision whether or not to play angry birds or not right um but i imagine a world where you got improved insurance premiums because you were a regular user of of of angry birds and that got me thinking um i've played angry birds about two years ago i quite liked it but i know this completely off topic but do you have a favorite uh game from specifically that's kind of that's been come around with mobile devices and so on um have a think about that peter's itching to go already peter well i think the
Speaker B:only safe game to play is snake because it's so old no one's connecting collecting any data what's snake what is snakes you remember the old nokias the lcd screen right snake was the the and one and only game they had which was a little snake you you you cruised around the screen collecting um nuggets and your snake got longer until you crashed into yourself and then it would reset sounds great uh nick you like i don't i don't play mobile games um in fact i
Speaker D:have a slight downer on people who sit on the tube playing mobile games especially especially candy crush for some reason i i uh but that's just me being a snob what should these people be doing
Speaker A:doing the crossword like me right very good chris yep cryptic crossword all the way i like any kind of sniper game actually um and that's worrying and and so especially the real one yeah and you know i remember when i was doing um well first of all so that there's lots of sniper games on mobile stuff which i always quite enjoy but i remember back to when i was doing my master's degree and coming up towards exams is that the way i found release was to go off and play a sniper game in the arcade and um there's just there's something about sniper games that i like is two things one just how far away people are they have no idea what's coming um and and secondly i just like the one-shotness of it you know rather than just you know spray and pray i just like the kind of the precision of it so um so when we start the revolution we know who's going to be a sniper core thank you very much there we go i shall take that call um okay gentlemen thank you thank you as always i'm fraser mcgrew you've been listening to the cognitive engineering podcast with chris wragg peter coghill and nick hare of aleph insights thank you very much indeed bye
