Review: The Naked European Citizen: State Surveillance in the EU, a lecture by Dr Douwe Korff
In a recent lecture entitled The Naked European Citizen: State Surveillance in the EU and hosted by Maastricht University’s Studium Generale, Dr. Douwe Korff, a Dutch Professor of International Law at the London Metropolitan University, provided both an educational and worrying perspective on the measures taken by governments in the pursuit of national security which may infringe on the privacy rights that form the core of the democratic ideal.
Facing a packed lecture hall Dr. Korff on 30 October 2007 began his presentation with an analysis of state surveillance in the country which possesses the most advanced surveillance system in the European Union, namely the United Kingdom.
In order to demonstrate the evolution of the UK’s security apparatus, Dr. Korff made a historical comparison between the ubiquitous “bobby” of the early 20th century and its present iteration. The first, displayed below left, is shown using a simple electric torch to illuminate a sleeping street urchin, while directly to the right, the 21st century version replaces the harmless-looking flashlight with a submachine gun implying the possibility of a violent death.
Data surveillance in the UK
The evolution of the British policeman from unarmed peacekeeper to heavily armed enforcer of the law has been complemented by a large increase of electronic surveillance equipment, particularly the use of closed circuit security cameras, which now number 4.2 million in the UK. (The total amount of security cameras in the EU is 24 million).
The growing amount of surveillance cameras in the UK is only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ to the most worrying trend in ‘dataveillance,’ or the digital storage of information in order to monitor possible threats to state security.
While every individual’s privacy rights are threatened by the increase in surveillance technology and techniques, three groups are most at risk, namely children, senior citizens, and ethnic minorities.
The UK National DNA Database, as the name suggests, stores the genetic information of a large proportion of the UK’s citizenry. As of 2005 it contained over 3.4 million entries, many of which are of teenagers between the ages of 10 and 18. These individuals’ DNA records are stored permanently, to be used in criminal investigations and by genetic research institutions for a fee.
The privacy issue raised by the existence of such a database lies in the fact that the DNA information is gleaned from children and criminal offenders without their consent.
The database has also been viewed as inherently racist: according to the Black Police Association, an organisation working for the interests of Black Policemen in the UK, black people represent over 37 percent of the database, while Caucasians only represent 10 percent.
Currently, Genewatch UK and the Human Genetics Commission have lobbied to mandate a deadline for the destruction of all DNA records contingent on the lapse of time after an individual has committed a crime.
Big Brother Awards
In the Netherlands the future is a little less hopeful for underage children as a government proposal known as “The Electronic Child Dossier” won an award for being the most threatening proposal to privacy rights at the 2007 Big Brother Awards, organised jointly by Privacy International, Bits of Freedom and other Human Rights organisations. The “Electronic Child Dossier” proposal explored the usefulness of a database of all Dutch children that would be kept until they reach the age of nineteen. The data would however remain in the system for another fifteen years and provide medical and psychosocial details which, Dr. Korff warns, “could contribute to label children and preserve subjective information on children and parents.”
The larger privacy issue, and one which Dr. Korff stressed throughout his lecture, is the fact that this information is dispensed without the permission of the individual. Why does a government believe that it can take DNA, the most elemental of our distinguishing characteristics and utilise it at its whim? The answer is simple, says Dr. Korff, and can be summarised in the expression: “Bringing Protection Forward”. This type of wide ranging policy statement makes it possible for a government to cover criminal, antiterrorism and non-terrorism fields, as shown in the US through the Department of Homeland Security, and the Home Office in the UK.
Bringing Protection Forward
The ability for a government to “protect” the nation and the citizen has evolved, but what has this evolution meant for our privacy rights? The primary element that has contributed towards “Bringing Protection Forward,” is the internet, and the increasing proclivity of the average citizen in using it for everything from paying taxes to connecting with long estranged friends. All of the information that is sent and received is kept in a database of some sort. Regardless of whether this information is professed to be encrypted, or anonymous, the capacity for someone with enough motivation to access it is never outside the realm of possibility. The use by governments of DNA information has already been mentioned, but extrapolating that to bank records, birth certificates, and other identifying characteristics poses another potential threat to privacy, warned Dr. Korff.
Although surveillance and dataveillance pose serious risks, the increased availability of personal information can sometimes have positive results, admitted Dr. Korff. He explained for example that the UK government’s access to testing information can help it revise education policy. The same could be said of information about child abusers. Both examples serve as what Dr. Korff calls “good intentions by government.” The professor however indicates that those good intentions “have a great chance of going astray.”
While collecting information about exam results might lead to education reform, children who are failing might cast a dark shadow on their parents, who may consequently be asked by the government to reassess their rearing capabilities. This example alone shows that convergence of information to create a diagnosis of a nation’s citizens may, unjustly, harm them even though the primary intention was good.
Germany’s educative policy is different as Dr. Korff points out, for it avoids “labeling children according to the information on their performance in Kindergarten”. Indeed, some limitations have been put in place in Germany in order to restrict the way collected information can be used. One of these is known as “purpose limitation,” which states that the information must be used for one purpose. Dr. Korff explains however that while this measure may seem to remove the risk of characterising parents through their children’s grades, it can easily be circumvented because according to the EU commission it is left to the state to decide whether to implement it or not.
Big Brother government
A solution for this type of discontinuous policy making is to unify government, what Mr. Korff terms as a “full societal alliance,” where organisations and government work together in order to maintain security. This is where Dr. Korff drew a parallel with a “Big Brother” government, arguing that the unification of government has brought with it a host of problems.
One of these was the creation of profiles for individuals traveling between the EU and the United States, in agreement with the US Department of Homeland Security’s requirement that passenger manifests on all flights to the United States from the European Union be handed over. Profiling is a wide-ranging area in American intelligence doctrine, known now as Total Intelligence Gathering. In fact, it is used not only to scrutinise passenger manifests, but to look for terrorists through satellite technology. Facial recognition software makes it possible to decipher a terrorist’s identity from high in the sky, a problem being however that it is racially biased towards picking out Asian features more frequently than other races.
After giving this extremely worrying example of US anti-terrorism tactics, Dr. Korff mentioned the EU’s ‘Third Pillar Policies’ that could easily overstep their boundaries. These involve cooperation in police and criminal matters, which is manifested through the use of unified EU databases and institutions, some example of which are Europol, Eurodec and the Schengen Information System.
Dr. Korff, examining the EU’s policy statements with regards to privacy rights, said that several policies designed to serve as possible protective measures to prevent the misuse of personal information, are severely flawed due to policy loopholes that can be exploited by third parties like the United States. An “absolute disgrace,” he stated.
All these security problems could have been easily avoided if the EU policymakers were familiar with the Base-Rate Fallacy (a logical fallacy that occurs when irrelevant information is used to make a probability judgement).
What can citizens do?
Another solution against the growing threat of government incited privacy violation is “the audience, the public,” Dr. Korff said, for while “governments can levy much power in controlling your lives, they are afraid of you.”
It is interesting to note that the Dutch citizen won the individual award at the 2007 Big Brother Awards. Through sheer indifference and lack of interest the Dutch citizen was elected the biggest threat to his/her own privacy in the Netherlands.
Dr. Korff stressed in his lecture that citizens themselves are most often not aware of their being surveilled. So what can they do? According to Dr. Korff UE citizens should be empowered to challenge the insufficient amount of democratic control over the EU’s Third Pillar Policies.
The first recommendation that may empower the individual is the joining of Human Rights organisations or NGO’s such as Statewatch, Privacy International or FIPA. Making it possible for the individual to go to court and claim his rights could also be an effective remedy.
The public needs to be constantly informed. Since audiovisual media are more popular than others, Dr. Korff argued that television broadcasters could play an important role through spreading information e.g. in the form of documentaries. This could be complemented by more interactive internet platforms, such as YouTube and blogs. Very often people are not aware of data protection. Online social communities like Facebook or the German StudiVZ illustrate a relatively carefree attitude towards exposure. Dr. Korff warned that “Facebook follows you around wherever you go,” and a job interview can end badly based on an employer’s viewing of a particularly boisterous evening captured on your profile page.
A question from the audience described the unconscious carelessness through an illuminative metaphor: “Do you believe that growing security concerns will allow the government to violate the privacy rights of the individual in a similar way to how a lobster is cooked?” While cooking a lobster the temperature is increased gradually in order not to shock the animal so that it only realises too late that it is being cooked alive. Dr. Korff agreed that like the lobster the citizens of Europe have not fully recognised that their privacy is being limited gradually.
Can the trend still be reversed? Yes, said Dr. Korff, if the justice system, the constitutional court, and most importantly, the conscientious individual, are willing to respond to the growth of surveillance and to the threat it poses to privacy rights, because only acting together will they serve as the check and balance to government power.
By Louisa Kistemaker and Eliot Rolen
Eliot Rolen (US) and Louisa Kistemaker (Germany) are currently studying at University College Maastricht.
About Dr. Douwe Korff:
Dr. Douwe Korff has a long and distinguished resume which has allowed him to both comment, and have active involvement in political policy directed towards privacy rights. He has previously worked for the furthering and protection of human rights at Amnesty International and the Max Planck Institute and enlightened young minds at our own University of Maastricht. He currently teaches at the London Metropolitan University in International Law.
Slide show of Dr. Korff’s lecture, source: Studium Generale
For more information please see:
An interview with Dr. Douwe Korff along with excerpts from the lecture. Produced by Bernd Kapeller, European Journalism Centre
Websites focusing on the Critical Analysis of the Powers of Government and Civil Liberties in Europe:
www.statewatch.org
www.privacy.org
http://www.privacyinternational.org
www.nbpa.co.uk
