Prism and the UK: Nothing to fear?

“If you are a law-abiding citizen of this country going about your business and your personal life, you have nothing to fear,” said William Hague on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. But despite his desire to allay any public anxiety over the Prism data surveillance scandal, the Foreign Secretary’s appearance failed to impress some.

A joint statement released yesterday evening by Privacy International, the Open Rights Group, English PEN and Index on Censorship expressed consternation at Hague’s choice of phrase. They described it as, “the sort of justification of population-wide monitoring that we might expect from China, not the UK.”

“Mass surveillance chills freedom of expression and undermines our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and privacy,” they added.

Hague was both more elaborate and more careful in his statement to the Commons on Monday afternoon. Claims that GCHQ was using its partnership with US intelligence authorities to obtain personal information illegally were described as “baseless.”

While the government scrambles to deliver a satisfactory response, what should British citizens and web users make of the surveillance scandal?

Few would be surprised if it were revealed that the UK received some information from Prism. As close military allies with a history of sharing intelligence, it’s to be expected. The suggestion that British law has been circumvented is naturally much more serious. However, there is currently no evidence for this, as Hague has insisted.

But despite the Foreign Secretary’s address in the Commons yesterday, Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert told me that he feels several important questions regarding British citizens’ rights remain unanswered:

“What are the rules around what data the NSA [National Security Agency] can collect about British citizens; what can they use that information for afterwards? Our government should be making it clear to the US that it is not acceptable for them to collect such information on British citizens and British companies willy-nilly.” He added that it was right for Britons to be concerned about their personal data online.

Secret multilateral surveillance programmes have long been a concern for those who question whether such schemes are subject to sufficient oversight. Take Echelon, a global network of satellite communications interception facilities, one of which is believed to be at RAF Menwith Hill in Yorkshire.

And how do nation states safeguard their citizens from privacy abuses by other countries? For example, under American law there is currently no provision for foreign citizens outside the US to be protected by the Fourth Amendment. This part of the constitution states that Americans are to be free from searches or seizures that do not carry a judicial warrant.

Ultimately, it’s no real secret that the National Security Agency is eager to expand its massive stores of information. Without knowing how that information may be used, and being aware of a potential lack of legal protection for non-US citizens, there are certainly grounds for scrutinising the mass accumulation of our personal data by a foreign power.

But there is also reason to reconsider, as I suggested on Friday, the nonchalance with which we submit so much sensitive personal information to networks that may be frequently scanned by governments and other less publicly accountable organisations.

We may indeed have nothing to hide. But that isn’t the point. An abuse of power, an administrative error, data theft by criminal hackers… Despite what smiling cabinet ministers tell you, we may still have cause for fear.