Daily Times

In a major victory for digital rights activists, the US Supreme Court in late June barred law enforcement agencies from obtaining location data from cell phone carriers without proper warrants to link suspects to crimes.

By not bringing traditional surveillance methods into the mix, the court acknowledged both, the leap in convenience that modern telecommunication technologies offer police to catch criminals, and the potentially grave abuses of power imminent if such convenience is not regulated.

Protecting civil liberties is at the very heart of Western democracy, of which personal privacy ranks near the top. However, the scope of these liberties has historically been subject to “national interests” — a term propagated and controlled by the government.

Think of the post-2001 US Patriot Act and its legalisation of mass public phone tapping, which ordinary Americans readily agreed to because they were told it was a necessary measure against future terrorist attacks.

On the far end of the spectrum is China’s “Sky Net”, a sprawling web of 20 million linked CCTV cameras capable of instant facial-recognition that was implemented last year in over a dozen cities. The system records everything citizens do in public, all the time.

Besides presumably snaring corrupt officials, its massive data banks are used to assign and adjust individual “social credit” scores that determine everything from loan approval to freedom of travel, both domestic and international. The government in fact blacklisted millions from boarding intercity trains last year due to poor scores.

While global human rights watchdogs slammed Sky Net as another Orwellian nightmare by the communist “Big Brother”, Beijing merely shrugged and said the system worked for China. And as a sovereign state, it had every right to independently determine and act upon its national interest.

Think of countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, where terrorist incidents claiming hundreds of lives happen with depressing regularity. Think of how a national grid of intelligent CCTVs could help security agencies proactively detain would-be bombers through better coordination. Think of the lives that could be saved

Some level of around-the-clock public surveillance is, of course, now the norm in most countries. Whether through human assets, cyber stakeouts or old-fashioned CCTVs, governments justify this policy as principal for public safety. And unsurprisingly, the rise in extra-legal snooping on citizens by states has coincided with the heightened threat of transnational terrorism.

Some worry though that Sky Net’s technology may soon be available for sale, and acquired by repressive regimes worldwide to further crack down on free speech.

Nonetheless, this alarmist narrative pushed by primarily Western voices assumes the worst-case scenario. Enhanced surveillance when deployed in countries where the public and policy agendas align could offer significant benefits.

First and foremost, it could save lives. Think of countries like Afghanistan and Iraq where terrorist incidents claiming hundreds of lives happen with depressing regularity, and how a national grid of intelligent CCTVs would help security agencies proactively detain would-be bombers through better coordination.

Next, think of international crime syndicates involved in cross border human trafficking and exploitation, etc. that operate in major urban centres with impunity, and again, how this grid would allow law enforcement to bust these rings and bring to book those planning and financing these nefarious deeds.

Moreover, these surveillance systems would have a similarly virtuous effect on curbing police excesses. When officers will always be aware that their every action is being recorded, and may become grounds for prosecution later, they will think twice before stepping over the line.

On the flip side, there is a major drawback to Sky Net-style surveillance that ties into human nature—our inherent need to stereotype.

Racial, ethnic or religious profiling is prevalent in any form of extended observation, either as a means to focus finite resources, or in the case of individuals, make it easier for the brain to categorise information for snap judgments. Finite resources and entrenched negative stereotypes that manifest as prejudices are a toxic combination.

Even in Western democracies that pride themselves on legal equality for citizens, biased profiling by police is a sad reality, and routinely used to suppress minorities and social groups deemed a threat to the status quo. Enhanced public surveillance without checks hence would greatly escalate this behaviour.

Think of Muslims in Europe, Arabs in Israel, blacks in America, Kurds in Turkey, Uyghur in China, etc.—the list is never-ending.

Systematic profiling over time turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy where states internalise the potential threat level of a particular group, act in an unreasonably heavy-handed manner that provokes an aggressive response from said group, and this response consequently reinforces the negative stereotypes in a vicious cycle of oppression and conflict.

A textbook example of this phenomenon is the ongoing face-off between Myanmar’s security forces and Rohingya rebels that followed the former’s genocidal campaign against the latter community.

Demonised as “parasitic foreigners” for decades, while suffering from state maltreatment, that shamefully extended to stripping their nationalities, the Rohingya remained silent until the junta sent troops to forcibly expel them from their homes and burned down entire villages to discourage their return. Only then did they pick up arms to fight back.

The second drawback of Sky Net-style surveillance when linked to a “social credit” system is the flawed assumption that our everyday actions are unquestionably the result of personal choice.

For instance, an individual who litters the street, or cuts the queue or squabbles with the corner shop owner may in fact be provoked by situational stimuli beyond their control like money or marriage troubles without intending to disrupt public order.

Therefore, penalising such people with no regard for intent, even under the three-strike rule, may instead escalate the harmful nature of their stress projection to say, gun violence.

To summarise, enhanced public surveillance tools are essentially value-neutral. They can protect or oppress, subject to the motivations of the government and the situation at hand.

Besides, the ever-present risk of profiling based on negative stereotypes greatly reduces their potential long-term value to most free societies. Accordingly, they can be a temporary band aid and little else.

The writer is an Islamabad-based independent journalist

Published in Daily Times, July 6^th 2018.