Relations between Security, Technologies and Citizens

1. Relations between Security, Technologies and Citizens EUROCITIES FSF-Telecities Summer EventICT FOR SAFE DIGITAL CITIES June 2007 Dr David Murakami Wood d.f.j.wood@ncl.ac.uk Global Urban Research Unit

2. Outline • Concepts: • Technology • Security • Citizenship • 9 Steps Towards Ambient Surveillance? • Examples • 5 Models of Society • Problems and Prospects • Technological Lock-in • Dehumanisation and Insecurity • Enabling Environments or Automated Societies? • Concluding Challenges

3. Concepts 1: Technology • Traditional view of technology: • Linear Cause-and-Effect ‘Impacts’ on Cities • Predictable e.g.: Cities will spread out or 'die‘ because of Internet • Utopian version = Technological determinism • If it can be done, it should be done • People should fit the system • ‘Silver bullet’ view: technology ‘x’ will solve problems e.g.: CCTV and crime • BUT: Technological relations are also social relations • Produced for particular reasons, in particular contexts • Support mobility and control for capital and social elites • Uneven geographies reworked not eliminated • Create new forms of social divisions • Technological capacity ahead of policy capacity

4. Concepts 2: Security • Predominance of risk and risk management • Militarisation: • Military concepts move to civil arena • Increasingly permanent State of Emergency / State of Exception • Security becomes ‘trump card’ over liberty, privacy, human rights etc. • Security = safety? • The Return of Mass Surveillance • Surveillance has always been part of government • Care and Control are not in opposition • Targeted v. mass surveillance

5. Concepts 3: Citizenship • Components of Trust: • Accountability • Bias • Predictability • Affect • Competence • Problems of Privacy • From individual to social / group privacy? • Problem of Data • Data still treated as simply ‘information about…’ • State sees right to acquire data as paramount? • But: ‘Data Doubles’ as important to life chances as physical bodies? • Data = valuable commodity, c.f.: image rights debate • Problem of Transparency • Surveillance and Freedom of Information = reciprocal

6. Towards Ambient Surveillance? 1-3 • Digitisation – information in searchable and remotely accessible databases • Creation of Data Doubles - digital citizens composed of the information, stand for ‘real’ selves in transactions with the state. • Profiling • Social Sorting – based on risk / profit • Automation – algorithms analyse collected data • Simulation • Pre-emption –anticipating and preventing • Heuristics – learning systems, self-programming? • Connection – telecommunication combination with computing • Connection between previously separate systems • Information sharing – convenience but increased danger of unauthorized use • Wireless – WPAN – WLAN – WWAN – WGAN?

7. Towards Ambient Surveillance? 4-6 • Increasing Power • Moore’s Law: processing power doubles approx. every 12 months • Greater intensity of surveillance • But also: speed – real time • Miniturization • From room-sized machines to almost microscopic in 50 years • Combination of greater power in smaller chips • ‘Smart Dust’ sensors / ‘Motes’ c. 2x2mm • Nanotechnology – molecular machines • Towards workable quantum computing? • Distribution • Technologies no longer have to be single objects in boxes • Dispersed networks of (invisibly) linked components • At-a-distance surveillance and analysis

8. Towards Amient Surveillance? 7-9 • Infrastructurization • Technologies moved from being highly visible to being buried or moving within • Components become assumed and taken for granted • Mobility • Devices no longer have to be in one place • Mobile with user • Remote Controlled • Independently mobile? Robots and ‘Swarms’ • Addressability • Standard ‘address’ – URL, protocols and languages • Location - where are you? • Verification – are you entitled? • Identification – who / what are you? • Protocols are the key…

9. Example 1: Biometrics • Technologies that ‘recognise’ human bodily traits or movements, e.g.: • facial recognition • iris scanning • movement recognition etc. • Already widespread • Some more reliable than others • Problems with face recognition • Need to reorganise space to ‘make it work’? Privium System, Schiphol Airport, Netherlands (Schiphol website)

10. Example 2: (Trans)National Databases • Growing numbers of national databases • Police DNA Database (NDNAD) • FIND • Connecting for Health • National Identity Register (NIR) etc. • Many questions, e.g.: NDNAD • Preponderance of black men’s DNA • DNA of innocent • Children’s DNA • New problem: cross-border sharing • With USA – e-borders projects • With EU – agreements on data-sharing (just signed) • Where are systems of accountability, consent etc.?

11. Example 3: RFID • Radio Frequency Identificationchips • Current ‘silver bullet’ (smart everything…) • Passive vs. Active • Tags and Implants • Used for: • Cargo • Retail products • Animals • People – from patients to nightclubbers to workers to…? Human RFID implant (Getty Images)

12. Example 4: Mobile Cameras • Increasing development of either temporary, remote-controlled or independently mobile systems • e.g.: • Helmet Cams – and not just for police • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). • Rolling Robots • Swarms – robots working together From the skies over the Gulf to the streets of Liverpool and Milan: UAVs (top – military Predator drone aircraft (USAF); left – r/c helicopter camera (PA)

13. Example 5: Scanners • Only use a small part of the EM spectrum • Developers want to change this. e.g.: • Backscatter X-ray (Rapiscan) • Millimetre Wave (Qinetiq) • Increasingly portable and low-cost • From airports to train stations, shopping centres, schools… • Pinch-points • Brain scanning – moving out of hospitals… Qinetiq’s next generation millimetre wave scanner (Qinetiq Press Release, 2004)

14. Example 6: Smart Dust • Workable sensors at smaller scales • Distributed, wireless, multi-functional • Smallest working sensors from Dust Networks • ‘Motes’ • Will be seen as ‘big’ in very short time • Micro – Nano • Implications for privacy • How to regulate? Tiny ‘smart dust’ mote on US penny (UC Berkeley Smart Dust project)

15. Five Models of the Ambient Intelligence Society • Volunteerism – the ‘British Way’ – muddle-through, compromise etc… • Laissez-Faire – let the market decide • Security State – militaristic paternalism • Transparent Society – everything is known • Reciprocal Society – mutual accountability

16. Model 1: Volunteerism • Development of ambient intelligence and protocols ignored • Lack of fundamental rights • Codes of Practice and volunteerism predominate • Shackled regulators • State able to produced contingent arguments for exceptions and exemptions • Technological advances run ahead of policy • Trust problem not addressed • Costs out of control • Never certain where ‘lines crossed’ • Citizen participation = patchy

17. Model 2: Laissez-faire • All the privacy you can afford • Protocols developed by private sector: • Development of ‘Brandscapes’ • Encourage development of ‘Personal Information Economy’ • Personal data as commodity • State and private sector pays market value of data it wants • But in turn citizen has to pay for access to information • Embedded within existing unequal market relations • ‘Privacy’ set by market relations and technological capacity • Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETS) • Rich become ‘augmented’; poor left conventional

18. Model 3: Security State • Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear • Assume that State of Exception will become the norm • Security trumps all other considerations • Rights contingent on national security considerations • Citizen can obtain what information state feels is relevant and necessary • State can share data as it wishes and can change the purposes to which data is used as it wants. • Protocols developed by state: • Automated systems which cannot be questioned • Space altered to fit system requirements

19. Model 4: Transparent Society • Information Wants to Be Free • Proliferation of quasi-independent automated systems for multiple functions • Open-source protocols developing through interaction Assume all information will flow • Everything you do is public knowledge or liable to be known by the state, private companies, and other individuals • But everything the state or private companies do is equally available • No assumption of privacy, but build specific minimal protections based on contracts allowable in clearly-defined circumstances

20. Model 5: Reciprocal Society • Surveillance and accountability as reciprocal • Liberty and privacy integral part of national security, not opposed to it • Technologies fitted to policies not vice-versa • Mandatory Privacy / Surveillance Impact Assessment for new technologies and systems • Control exercised over developed of Ambient Intelligence protocols – for common good. • Create new legal bases for relationships between state and citizen • Strengthen independent oversight and audit capacity • States, companies are ‘custodians’ of data not owners

21. Problems and Prospects • Technological Lock-in • Choice and implementation of technologies in cities can cut down future choices for citizens • Can’t let ‘system requirements’ precede citizen choice • System failure • Dehumanisation and Insecurity • Does humanizing cities through ambient intelligence means relative dehumanisation of people? • Mass surveillance creates insecurity and division • Enabling Environments or Automated Societies? • Ambient Intelligence can enable the already disabled: sensory environments, interactive cities • Or it could industrialise and automate behaviour c.f.: Lianos’ Automated Socio-Technical Environments (ASTEs)

22. Concluding Challenges • Policy still a long way behind technological development • Need to move from ‘running to catch up’ to ‘getting ahead of the game’ • Need to understand challenges of ubiquity of surveillance • State – citizen • Corporate – citizen • Citizen – citizen • Parastates, Criminals… • Media • Things… • Need to rethink conception of data • Need to rethink understanding of privacy • How to assess technologies? • Not just ‘education’ and ‘making people understand.’ • Need to involve people • Open-source Protocols – interactive environments