PATS

Privacy Awareness Through Security Branding

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'While it can be assumed that the security industry and organisations will increase their efforts to keep and to strengthen trust relations with citizens, the question however remains: how can one raise more awareness of social conflicts and privacy concerns among those public and private agencies that undermine privacy necessarily on a daily basis in their mission to provide security? PATS follows an approach known as Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA). One central attempt of it is to broaden the design process of new technologies through dialogue between innovators and the public so that developments meet social needs and mismatches, wrong investments, and possible social conflicts can be minimized. The aim of PATS is to increase privacy awareness across various sectors, from firms to government agencies focussing especially on the development and use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) and biometrics. On the basis of a socio-technical mapping the idea is to create security brand indicators that refer to the value of privacy. It is well known that neither laws nor other organizational practices can exclusively provide a reasonable level of protection for privacy today. There is some evidence that its protection may well be linked to higher levels of trust and that is a powerful motive for serious self-regulation. What is necessary is to build into the security agencies and actors itself a reflexive capacity that encourages more critical communication and awareness among the stakeholders. The overall objective of PATS is to demonstrate how certain standards of privacy can become a brand label for security organisations on a voluntary but binding basis. Using more reflexive measures such as open expert interviews, dialogue work shops, expert evaluations/focus groups and two major conferences PATS seeks to initiate not only an informed but a constructive debate between stakeholders in order to enable rather proactive than reactive for future policies.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Security surveillance is ubiquitous, and many feel it has gone too far. An EU project studied how the security industry sees its role, finding little awareness of privacy issues but also establishing a productive dialogue.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Fighting crime and maintaining security increasingly rely on pervasive surveillance, which also means secret databases. Many in the community feel that such actions infringe civil liberties with little accountability, and that the situation seems likely to worsen.

Hence, the EU-funded project 'Privacy awareness through security branding' (http://pats-project.eu (PATS)) attempted to determine how security industry players see their role. The consortium included five European partners plus one each from Israel and the United States, and ran from August 2009 to March 2012. The group also investigated how the industry might become more aware of and concerned about public worries.

The first phase of research involved detailing the current security regimes of partner countries (Finland, Germany, Israel, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States) and also at European-level. The information was compared against the respective historical/cultural contexts, varying national notions of security and modern international situations. As a result, the project devised a classification system for industry players, covering security providers, technology producers, research organisations and other relevant groups.

In the second phase, work included interviewing security representatives, which revealed a generally low awareness of privacy and occasional rejection of responsibility. The project identified the following reasons for this: industry players are not inclined to discuss privacy, nor does the issue feature in their representations of themselves. Additionally, economic forces do not encourage data protection, meaning that self-regulation is poor.

PATS' main contribution was a multi-dimensional branding/communication strategy that promotes the value of privacy. A resulting roadmap for development will provide security companies wishing to work towards privacy awareness with a plan for doing so. Using the above concepts, the consortium devised policy recommendations for national and EU frameworks.

The study group organised several dialogue workshops, focus groups and two sizeable conferences. Discussions from these gatherings resulted in a major book, numerous journal publications and a series of newsletters.

As a consequence of project work, the status of the industry regarding privacy concerns and self-regulation is much clearer. Additionally, a productive dialogue was initiated among industry players, with some constructive relationships forged between players and activists.