Interview with Big Brother Watch on Privacy and Surveillance

For all those of you who haven’t heard of Big Brother Watch, it’s a London-based campaign group which was founded in 2009 to protect individual privacy and defend civil liberties.

Big Brother Watch was set up to challenge policies that threaten our privacy, our freedoms and our civil liberties, and to expose the true scale of the surveillance state. The campaign group has produced unique research exposing the erosion of civil liberties in the UK, looking at the dramatic expansion of surveillance powers, the growth of the database state and the misuse of personal information. Big Brother Watch campaigns to give individuals more control over their personal data, and hold to account those who fail to respect our privacy, whether private companies, government departments or local authorities.

Emma Carr joined Big Brother Watch as Deputy Director in February 2012 and has since been regularly quoted in the UK press. The Centre for Internet and Society interviewed Emma Carr on the following questions:

1. How do you define privacy?

2. Can privacy and freedom of expression co-exist? Why/Why not?

3. What is the balance between Internet freedom and surveillance?

4. According to your research, most people worldwide care about their online privacy – yet they give up most of it through the use of social networking sites and other online services. Why, in your opinion, does this occur and what are the potential implications?

5. Should people have the right to give up their right to privacy? Why/Why not?

6. What implications on human rights can mass surveillance potentially have?

7. “I’m not a terrorist and I have nothing to hide…and thus surveillance can’t affect me personally.” Please comment.

8. Do we have Internet freedom?

VIDEO