After PRISM, Europe Must Safeguard 'Emerging Global Consciousness'
(Le Monde, France)
"Today we can consider the information revealed by Edward
Snowden and relayed by Glenn Greenwald as the herald of a crucial turning
point: the awakening of a global consciousness determined to actively confront
the urgent need to regulate how personal data is harvested, stored and used.
... it is now the task of our old Europe
to lay the foundations of a 'Web 3.0' capable of providing a 'responsible,
shared digital environment' based on permitting everyone to manage all the
information harvested about their Internet use."
Up
to now, the United States has been the central power in the digital economy.
Following innovations and products developed by IBM in the 1960s, which were
later expanded upon by Microsoft and Apple, these creations were, at the turn
of the millennium, the platform on which the “Internet giants” emerged -
Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and so many other companies. These firms
were based on a new industrial model: the use of key words to search for
information, sell products online, and the setting up of Web-based structured
social networks. These were distinct activities that all converged on one
strategic point: the harvesting and storage of personal data to be exploited by
a multitude of commercial applications.
With
continuous growth in the processing power of computers and data storage,
combined with ever more sophisticated algorithms, an in-depth knowledge of our
behavior has developed relentlessly over the past 15 years. The majority rule
of free-of-charge information, on which the global success of the digital
economy is based, has led to the large-scale electronic memorization via hard
disks and server farms of the everyday acts of an incessantly increasing number
of connected individuals.
Through
an accident of history, the attacks of September 11 were committed during the still-uncertain
formation of these unpredictable yet decisive technological and industrial developments. It
was this radically-asymmetric aggression against the planet's leading power by
an “elusive, nebulous group,” that so contributed to putting intelligence
operations at the forefront of politics, defense and homeland security policy. Based
on a profound, in-depth knowledge of the largest number of people, amid
this once-unsorted pile of information, it was now possible to seize on every
potential plan for destruction contained within.
MILITARY - BUSINESS
ALLIANCE
We
are acquainted with the military-industrial collusion that forms part of the
American mindset, which assumes that in the name of national security, a military-business
alliance must be forged in order to promote the emergence of powerful
techologies. The Patriot
Act, which was passed by Congress in October 2001, imposed a new form of
more-or-less consensual and discreet partnership, which enabled the interception
of data generated by all Internet users from all five continents harvested by
large private enterprises.
The
tracking of communications, Internet navigation and online shopping, would form
the main source of American intelligence, and more broadly, that of most of the
world's great powers. This movement has intensified indefinitely, correlating
with the incessant upward curve in the sales of mobile phones, smartphones,
computers and tablets - and just as many interconnected protocols favoring the never-ending
volumes of exponential data generation now referred to as Big Data.
What
successive revelations about the "PRISM" affair exposes is less about
the fact that America's National Security Agency is intercepting data from every
direction (this is something we have known since the setting up of the ECHELON network at the end of
the late 1980s), and more about the dizzying scale of collection carried out
according to measures and procedures that often not only break the law, but are
to some extent beyond our comprehension.
AWAKENING OF A
GLOBAL CONSCIENCE
If,
up to now, a disparate conscience in terms of these practices has been
manifested in various ways by citizens and associations without encountering an
echo to match the gravity of what's at stake, we can consider the information
revealed by Edward Snowden and relayed by Glenn Greenwald as the herald of a
crucial turning point: the awakening of a global consciousness determined to actively
confront the urgent need to regulate how personal data is harvested, stored and
used.
The
first clear sign of this is the desire expressed by Brazil - at the initiative
of President DilmaRousseff
(as a result of these revelations) - in partnership with emerging nations and
the other members of the BRICS, to modify the rules of Internet governance that
are now under a decidedly American grip. This is a project that looks to be the
object of a fierce geopolitical struggle in the coming months.
However,
that is not to say that a multipolar regulation of the Internet, which would
involve China, Russia or other countries whose draconian regimes are in varying
degrees hostile to freedom, would be any more transparent. We can safely bet
that in the long run, the contrary would happen. In this regard, it is clear
that the asylum offered Edward Snowden by Russia is part of an effort to openly
signal a new balance of power in the complex geopolitics of data and the Internet,
rather than an effort to equitably regulate the practices of intelligence
agencies.
EUROPE MUST SET
LIMITS
I
believe that from now on, it is up to the European Union to play a crucial role
in governing the Internet and resulting issues surrounding personal data.
Although the project defined in Lisbon in 2000 to make Europe the “leading
economic power in terms of knowledge” has for several reasons failed, it is now
the task of our old Europe to lay the foundations of a "Web 3.0"
capable of providing a “responsible, shared digital environment” based on permitting
everyone to manage all the information harvested about their Internet use.
It
is also up to Europe to set down boundaries, not out of any disillusioned
reaction to its perceived technological backwardness, but in the name of its
“democratic maturity.” These boundaries would require the submission of consent
clauses to users in a readable, understandable format, so that everyone is
aware of how the agreement would operate. These regulations would also promote
the spread of “opting in” rather than “opting out” - i.e. no longer having
options imposed on us by default, but having to tick boxes voluntarily,
especially when it comes to the resale of data to third parties.
Finally,
it is up to Europe to engage in the implementation of public policies in
support of an “ethical innovation” that favors the creation of new industrial
models that make a conscious effort not to endlessly monetize records detailing
our behavior.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
It
must be possible for Open Data - or the provision of public data for use in an
infinite number of services - to be the active laboratory of a European digital
economy based on three principles: strict respect for the law; the involvement
of the responsible public authority; and free enterprise that takes pains to
respect the inviolable integrity of the individual. Apart from the fact that
this perspective creates new economic opportunities, it is, moreover, likely to
be imitated in other parts of the world, which would contribute to the founding
of another “global ecology,” conscious both of the harmful consequences of excess,
and the potentially fruitful virtues that might emerge from the reality of an
ecosystem revitalized by a shared ethic.
*Eric Sadin’s
latest essay: Humanity plus: the digital administration of the world (L'Humanité augmentée, L'administration
numérique du monde), by Eric Sadin, published in May 2013 by L'échappée (160 pages, 12 euros), won
the prize for the 'most influential essay on the digital world in 2013' at the
Hub Awards 2013 on 10 October.
