Bruce Schneier's Data and Goliath – solution or part of the problem?

Fundamentally ... everything cancels out

Schneier strongly believes that privacy is a “fundamental right” – as if saying so fixes the problem. In fact it may have dire consequences for individuals. Using fundamental rights as a starting point has some advantages – Europe regards doing it this way. But let's look at how these are implemented in the European Convention on Human Rights. I'll use freedom of speech as an example.

The first bit sounds really good:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

Excellent. Then comes this bit:

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

Ah.

So “Fundamental” doesn’t mean “absolute”. It isn't a magic wand. The state grants you a limited licence of expression. And can take it away pretty easily. The implementation here follows the European tradition of a benign state parcelling out freedom bit by bit – the diametric opposite of the British common law based on residual freedom, and the US model. We’re a lot less “free” after incorporating this “freedom” into British law.

So the ECHR’s privacy protection, Article 8, defends the “right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence” but it’s qualified by “except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.

Furthermore, no fundamental right is really absolute. Even property rights aren’t absolute – you can’t shoot somebody who is on your property without permission. In short, calling something ‘a fundamental right’ is barely the start of the story, not the end. If you thought it odd that technology giants are very keen to sign up to Manifestos, Declarations and Magna Cartas – we do not lack these – now you can see why.

Wishful

As I said at the top, the economics is important – individual rights are interlocking.

Google and Facebook hoard and collect data for two reasons: they can infer something only ‘Big Data’ can reveal, so they need lots of it, and because it might be useful one day. Both are pretty dubious, and both get away with such a one-sided exchange because the services are given away for free. Both justifications prevent Google and Facebook from exploring new, imaginative and mutually useful (to customer and provider) ways of doing business. Ways that don’t require data collection and hoarding.

Sadly, the section on highlighting this (called “Incent new business models” – double wince) is one of the more promising avenues to explore. If Google or Facebook only needed to collect and store what economists call revealed preferences – real transactions – then it takes away both incentives. Tesco knows what you’ve bought, and that’s very valuable. It doesn’t need your inside leg measurement or your Wi-Fi network password or your lover’s health history. Its incentive is to sell more stuff, not hoard for the sake of it.

In essence, Google and Facebook believe they are hugely successful because they hoard data – they’re very nervous about doing business openly with us. That’s why they spend so much time pretending they’re not doing business with us – but saving the world. The utopianism is a cynical PR gloss. They never get called out on this.

In other recommendations, Schneier calls for the NSA to be disbanded – presumably the USA would then cease all signals intelligence – the "cyber sovereignty movement" (meaning China and Russia), and invites us to conclude that a global government is required to sort it all out.

For all his excellence as a computer security guru, Schneier doesn’t realistically offer anything that’s going to help change things for the better. The large portions of the book devoted to "solutions" could usefully be replaced with one sentence: "Can all the world doing bad things please stop doing bad things?" ®

Author Bruce Schneier
Title Data and Goliath, The Hidden Battles to Collect and Control Your World
Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
Price £15.29 (Hardback), £10.44 (eBook)
More info Publication web site