Protecting the digitized society—the challenge of balancing surveillance and privacy
By Dr. Janne Hagen, Dr. Olav Lysne
| July 31, 2018
Through technological development and the continuously expanding Internet, the challenges of physical distance, borders and time has diminished, enabling new and more efficient business models and concepts. With this technological development, however, follows an increase in global cybercrime, mass surveillance, internet censoring, and espionage. Terror attacks and cybercrime incidents are now forcing policy makers to balance surveillance and privacy through a paradox: While privacy regulations protect individuals’ freedom of speech and safety from persecution, it may also restrain effective crime and terror investigation. In November 2015, the Norwegian Governmental Committee on Digital Vulnerability delivered an Official Norwegian Report (NOU) to the Minister of Justice and Public Security in which the problematic issue of balancing surveillance and privacy was emphasized. The intricate challenge is that in-between surveillance and the privacy lays the personal data—the new gold from a commercial perspective, a resource in the fight against terrorism from a security perspective, and a future threat of human rights from an individual perspective.
Protecting the digitized society—the challenge of balancing surveillance and privacy