SURPRISE: European Public more likely to find effective surveillance as non-invasive of privacy

European Public more likely to find effective surveillance as non-invasive of privacy

Yet more ploughing through the SURPRISE results on European public’s attitudes towards Security-Oriented Surveillance Technologies (SOST) finds that the more effective a SOST is perceived to be, the less it is regarded as privacy-intrusive.

This nine-nations European study on the European public’s attitudes towards Smart CCTV, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), and Smartphone Location Tracking (SLT) finds that the perceived effectiveness of SOSTs negatively influences substantive privacy concerns (Pavone et al. 2015: 140).

Unfortunately for intelligence agencies, they will not tell us how effective their surveillance programs are. They do not comment as they argue that this would compromise their sources and methods, as well as tipping off terrorists. On this basis, it’s unlikely that intelligence agencies will be able to persuade the public that bulk data collection doesn’t compromise their right to privacy.

Pavone, V., Esposti, S.D.  and Santiago, E. (2015). D 2.4 – Key factors affecting public acceptance and acceptability of SOSTs. Surprise. Surveillance, Privacy and Security: A large scale participatory assessment of criteria and factors determining acceptability and acceptance of security technologies in Europe. Retrieved from http://surprise-project.eu/