Peter Bradwell
Researcher
Peter Bradwell is a researcher at Demos. He is interested in digital identity, technology and the ways that information and knowledge is shared...
at 10:09am
on Thursday, 15th November 2007
"The aim of border control is to sort traffic into legitimate and non-legitimate and maximise the effort directed against movements that would, without action by the state, be detrimental to the UK, while minimising the burden on those that would not. Gathering and use of information is at the heart of this."
'Security in Global Hub'; Cabinet Office
Yesterday the Prime Minister announced various anti-terrorism measures, including updates on the 'e-borders' program. There's a comment, about the speech and approach generally, from Timothy Garton-Ash here. I thought it was worth mentioning the e-borders news, especially in the light of our upcoming pamphlet on personal information.
A big part of e-borders involves the use of information about passengers and cargo, with the aim of making better decisions about what is legitimate and illegitmate traffic, or what is risky or not. The Mail have gone big on some of the new proposals, picking out that it is significant that 53 pieces of information will be needed from travellers.
It seems to me that the amount of information is less significant (it probably won't be things that aren't available anyway) than the changes to what happens to it - who gathers it, where it is stored, how it is used and who has access to it, what kind of risk assessments are made on the basis of what sort of watch lists. But the reports, press releases and statements I have seen so far have been typically vague on those questions. Transparency and openness are really important, much more so than saying these things will help reduce risk and stop crime. Especially when the scale of information and the consequences of its misuse are so significant. The report Security in a Global Hub continues:
"(it will mean) better use of data, with more information being collected at an earlier stage in order to better inform risk profiling...Based on early analysis of electronic passenger data collected directly from carriers, (the e-borders programme) will transform the way that data is used to support border operations..."
Risk profiling and intervention means that such large amounts of data needs to be analysed and cross-checked with watch lists, established profiles etc. The contract (about £1.2bn) to manage this has been awarded to a consortia led by Raytheon.
The reports use quite breezy statements about some weighty problems - profiles, watch lists, intervention and risk assessments. Without more transparency on personal information use and how it will be inform these processes, they will seem more like policies designed exclusively to safeguard against blame, and less like ideas to find democratically legitimate ways to treat personal information and make decisions on the basis of it.
'Security in Global Hub'; Cabinet Office
Yesterday the Prime Minister announced various anti-terrorism measures, including updates on the 'e-borders' program. There's a comment, about the speech and approach generally, from Timothy Garton-Ash here. I thought it was worth mentioning the e-borders news, especially in the light of our upcoming pamphlet on personal information.
A big part of e-borders involves the use of information about passengers and cargo, with the aim of making better decisions about what is legitimate and illegitmate traffic, or what is risky or not. The Mail have gone big on some of the new proposals, picking out that it is significant that 53 pieces of information will be needed from travellers.
It seems to me that the amount of information is less significant (it probably won't be things that aren't available anyway) than the changes to what happens to it - who gathers it, where it is stored, how it is used and who has access to it, what kind of risk assessments are made on the basis of what sort of watch lists. But the reports, press releases and statements I have seen so far have been typically vague on those questions. Transparency and openness are really important, much more so than saying these things will help reduce risk and stop crime. Especially when the scale of information and the consequences of its misuse are so significant. The report Security in a Global Hub continues:
"(it will mean) better use of data, with more information being collected at an earlier stage in order to better inform risk profiling...Based on early analysis of electronic passenger data collected directly from carriers, (the e-borders programme) will transform the way that data is used to support border operations..."
Risk profiling and intervention means that such large amounts of data needs to be analysed and cross-checked with watch lists, established profiles etc. The contract (about £1.2bn) to manage this has been awarded to a consortia led by Raytheon.
The reports use quite breezy statements about some weighty problems - profiles, watch lists, intervention and risk assessments. Without more transparency on personal information use and how it will be inform these processes, they will seem more like policies designed exclusively to safeguard against blame, and less like ideas to find democratically legitimate ways to treat personal information and make decisions on the basis of it.
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