The British public has a growing concern with mass surveillance by the British Government on its own people, as well as foreign nationals. That is according to a report by the IT security product company F-Secure. The ‘Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?’ report coincides with pre-screenings of CITIZENFOUR – a Laura Poitras film documenting the moments Edward Snowden handed over classified documents detailing the mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Research commissioned for the report shows that 86pc of people do not agree with mass surveillance. Snowden’s leaks last year highlighted the extent to which Western intelligence agencies are snooping on the general populace, including their emails, phone calls, web searches, social media interactions and geo-location. Add to this what the report reckons are the UK’s 5.9 million CCTV cameras (one for every 11 people, as opposed to one informant per 65 people in the Stasi-controlled East German state, as the report puts it).
Despite protestations from the Government that indiscriminate surveillance will ‘protect our national security’, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) contravenes Article 12 of the Human Rights Act: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence”, the report claims.
Allen Scott, managing director of F-Secure UK and Ireland, said: “We are in unchartered territory and we appear to have sleepwalked here. Little by little, our rights to privacy have been eroded and many people don’t even realise the extent to which they are being monitored. This isn’t targeted surveillance of suspected criminals and terrorists – this is monitoring the lives of the population as a whole.”
More details
A blog post: http://safeandsavvy.f-secure.com.
CITIZENFOUR in the UK – pre-screening venues: https://citizenfourfilm.com/. CITIZENFOUR will be in cinemas of general distribution from October 31.
