Data Privacy vs Safety of Society : Which is important ?

Recently there has been lot of debates happening in the area of data privacy especially with regards to companies trying to take a high moral ground in protecting customer data from being exposed to Government Agencies. I am not just talking about the Apple fiasco happening but there have been many such cases in the recent past. Before letting know my view I would like to share my thoughts on the origins (as i perceive) of this problem.

Lets start with Internet (which people say was a short form for inter-networking), it all started with the invent of computers in 1950 followed by the evaluation of closed network computing in 1960’s and 70’s with only government and educational institutions using the networks to exchange information. Client Server computation was the approach with thin dummy clients used as interaction terminals and all computation and data storage centralized at the Servers.

With the invention of TCP/IP in 1978 the whole world of connectivity and applications using the technology exploded with it the users. Closed networks owned by government, defence companies and educational institutions evolved into commercial networks offered by ISP’s and other service providers.

Along the way other evolution were happening fast in the key areas like the computing power (Moore’s law effect), Memory and Storage that enabled the manufacturing of personal computers which were smaller in size and were affordable.

The killer combination of Personal Computers and the Invention of TCP/IP (Ethernet) enabled fast growth in the usage of computers and internet which became the back bone of all computational needs.

Internet Users evolved from few thousands in 1950’s to few millions in 1970’s and few hundred millions through 1980’s and 90’s. Turn of the century saw a major boom in internet users which currently stands at around 3.5 billion users at the end of 2015(approximately 45+% of world population).

This phenomenal increase in people using an open network has helped make the world to be very connected and has led to a information revolution. At the same time there are people who have also taken advantage of the openness and used it for sinister means.

Currently almost half the globe is using the internet not all of them are aware of the dangers involved using the internet due to which they fall prey to various types of attacks. Either getting virus into their computer or getting hacked into their banking accounts or trapped in a fishing fraud and the list goes on. My objective in this blog is not to talk about the impact Internet can cause to the privacy of illiterate internet users who get hacked and personal data taken away but about the people who use the same internet to hide what their doing and harm societies and why giving importance to the privacy of such people will bring harm to society.

As high lighted early the deadly combination of computing power in small devices added to it the access to an open internet provides a deadly weapon for people who would like to cause harm to societies around the world. With such capabilities people are able to communicate with others across the world to plan and execute sinister acts without getting noticed. People are now able to tap on to the computational capabilities available in smart phones or a Tabs or a Laptops to secure their data and communications without much difficulty. Comparing this, a decade back when the computational power of PC’s were equivalent to the power in a feature phone.

People started developing software and services that would help protect information and communications that became handy for the evil minded people. Sharing and Access to information became easy due to the pervasiveness of internet. Policing such a network has become a nigh mare. One can just use a Smart phone to access information, communicate, do commerce etc, they do not require to own a PC or Laptop to communicate and share information. They just need a device in the palm ie. which is the mobile phone or a tablet.

To tap on to the growth of internet and pervasiveness of the internet enabled devices companies started building various types of services to offer to the internet users. Among them the key being communication and social media services. This enabled people to create virtual communities to the extent that the entire online business model and valuation of such companies were based on the number of the user base they have. Facebook for example has almost 1.6 billion active users which is more than the population of China or India. Combined user base of top 10 such service providers is more than the total world population. If we look it from a consumer lens this is a very good news as they have lot of choices. But this has also started creating lot of social challenges. I again do not want to get into a judgement as there are contradictory views prevailing in this subject.

One of the key reason why people end up using such services in large numbers is that they have full freedom to be anonymous in using such services. Even though these are virtual services due to the reach it has its also has become a medium to be used by people to influence other peoples easily. Getting out ones message, irrespective of the stature and background, to huge mass of people has become very easy. At the same time, it is has become very hard to monitor and moderate such communications for various reasons and one of them being the protection given to users by the service providers in the name of privacy.

Definitely there are benefits that the consumers get by using such services the challenge is when people take advantage of the anonymity and try to cause harm to individuals or to society. We have heard of stories at personal level were people impersonate and try to spoil the reputation of other people, we have heard about people who spread rumors that cause major riots, kids preyed on by strangers and more. Since we do not have a structure and mechanism to monitor such acts of crime, protecting from such ill effects has become very difficult. Even agencies with money and resource power are only able to monitor specific leads.

In recent years the most worrying trend has been the act perpetrated by people taking advantage of the privacy protection offered by companies offering communication and social services has been act of terrorism. I do not want to provide you with examples of terrorist incidents that have happened around the world in the last few years but definitely the investigations have provided good insights into how people have used technology and services to carry out their acts of violence. People have effectively used the internet services to propagate messages, recruit people, organize and plan resources and communicate with each other. The security agencies in various countries were unable to monitor such activities as all the communication to perform the activities were protected by the relevant service providers.

The sad part of all this is how the technology providers and services providers are falling over each other to defend they stand on privacy. My question is how would they answer to the thousands of people who have lost their life’s due to these terror acts and in which the technology and services have provided a major support to carry out these acts.

There are many questions for which we have no answers yet to effectively address the challenge. Below are few of them,

1. How do we avoid people taking advantage of the anonymity provided by technology and service providers ?
2. How can the social media and communication services providers can self regulate, moderate and monitor their user base to look for people using it for sinister means ?
3. What kind of structure and regulatory policies governments can work out so that their citizens can have faith in the process when they access citizen data ?
4. How to control activities performed across boarders ?

Below are some of my thoughts on the subject of balancing privacy vs safety to societies,

1. People have to realize and recognize internet and usage policy of the country from where they use the internet. Until citizens follow the same one need not worry about any persecution or impact to privacy.
2. People need to be careful when sharing information in the internet. They need to realize its a open world there and they dont have any control on how the information they share will be used. Hence the key is that they are aware of what they share and who they share with.
3.   People need to realize governments have to do the duty of protecting their citizens. As described above with so much stacked up against them its not fair to blame them if they try to monitor or access citizens data for intelligence gathering pro active action or post incident investigations.
4. Governments need to put in place dedicated agencies which will be responsible to perform the monitoring of citizens internet activities and ensure proper process and security mechanism in place. The agencies need to be regulated by an independent organization which have representation of people and organization trusted by citizens.
5. Companies providing social and communication services are obliged to ensure that people using their services are complying with the policies and guidelines of the country from where the service is used. This can kill the viability of some of these business but it does not mean that it can cause harm to individuals and communities of any country by people using their services.

With the strong feelings around privacy, freedom of expressions, being anonymous etc my above thoughts may not be welcomed my majority of internet citizens. My thoughts are purely based on my belief that if a government or agency can save my life and that involves getting access to my personal data I am ok for such compromise on privacy.Either my internet activity being monitored or I am body scanned or Tap Checked in Airport or My Bags being scanned I always feel its been done to save my life !