I imagine the security agencies see PR challenges as the least of their worries. Especially after the courts ruled that GCHQ’s surveillance breached human rights laws.
Recently Privacy International and Liberty made use of Edward Snowden’s disclosures in a successful legal challenge. This showed that GCHQ was unlawfully obtaining data through the NSA’s program PRISM.
Some think the general public could not care less about mass surveillance. That big industry will not change until there is some kind of financial incentive. I spoke with Professor Kirstie Ball at The Open University. She is Director of the Centre for Research into Information Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP). Also investigator in the EU Project SurPRISE (Surveillance Privacy Security). We talked about her work on a large scale participatory assessment around peoples acceptance of security technologies in Europe. About how citizens in Europe do care about these issues. About how they want greater involvement in, and more information about surveillance and privacy.
People are no longer prepared to buy the message that they need trade privacy for security.
The embedded audio above is from my Soundcloud account: https://soundcloud.com/documentally
Further Reading: Open Rights Group | State Watch | Electronic Privacy Information Centre | Electronic Frontier Foundation | @CRISPoubs
I’m @Documentally on twitter
