I don’t want Big Sister watching me

“The Hot Tea” is a weekly column dedicated to unearthing the intricacies of London’s social, political and millennial issues in the context of Pittsburgh’s own complex culture.

LONDON- I have my own personal paparazzi — London’s closed-circuit television cameras, a governmental video surveillance system.

According to The Association of Chief Police Officers, cameras catch my mug shot about 70 times on a typical day. In the United Kingdom, roughly 1.85 million CCTV cameras lurk around any given corner, waiting to snap me committing a crime — or, more likely, picking my nose.

Although London is the world’s capital for Orwellian video surveillance, it’s not the cameras that make my skin crawl. I’m more perturbed by the invisible hand of government that may soon spy on all U.K. Internet activity.

Last Wednesday, Home Secretary Theresa May announced draft legislation for a Investigatory Powers Bill, in stark opposition to the United States’ own surveillance policies in a post-Edward Snowden era. In short, the United Kingdom is infringing upon its citizens’ virtual privacy, while the United States has been trying to ease up.

While the draft is necessary — a means of updating investigative telecommunications for the 21st century — it needs some revision before the United Kingdom’s Parliament finalizes it next year. The bill seeks to retain a record of the Internet services a specific device has connected to — like a website or instant messaging application — that is captured by the company providing access to the internet for up to a year. There must be some way to assure that the government does not abuse this information by infringing on the privacy of its citizens.

The United Kingdom should also acknowledge how this bill can affect international relations, specifically with the United States, which places a higher premium on privacy.

Under the Investigatory Powers Bill, the government will require companies to store all Internet connection records, or ICRs, for one year. On Nov. 4, May described these as “simply the modern equivalent of an itemized phone bill.” However, keeping a log of every website you’ve visited is far more personal than simply viewing the numbers you’ve dialed.

While phone records don’t necessarily show the content of your call — just its recipient — a log of all the websites you’ve visited in the past 12 months is inherently personal. Snowden described the proposal succinctly as resembling “a list of every book you’ve ever opened.”

If May is legislating this retention of records, shouldn’t she also make an effort to acknowledge the privacy rights of U.K. residents? How can Britons be sure they have adequate privacy?

The foundations of the bill point toward a United Kingdom with more transparent Internet curation, though with no added measures for privacy. This lack of privacy echoes a British sentiment that is utterly head-scratching to an American whose government has hammered the ideals of “freedom” into her head from a young age.

According to a 2014 TNS poll, a 71 percent majority of Britons believe that the government should “prioritize reducing the threat posed by terrorists and serious criminals even if this erodes people’s right to privacy.” Imagine an American saying that.

In the United States, we are seemingly obsessed with the principle of freedom. According to a study by Pew Research Center in spring 2014, 74 percent of Americans said they should not have to give up privacy and freedom for the sake of safety.

In January, Prime Minister David Cameron made it clear he wanted to increase Internet surveillance in response to the Charlie Hebdo crisis in Paris earlier this year. “We need to work with these big companies to make sure we keep people safe,” he said, according to The Independent.       

The newly appointed U.N. privacy chief, Joseph Cannataci, even described current digital surveillance in the United Kingdom as “worse” than anything George Orwell imagined. He went on to call the surveillance “a rather bad joke at its citizens’ expense.”

Meanwhile, in the United States, the National Security Agency continues to lose power after whistleblower Snowden released classified government documents. The Senate passed the USA Freedom Act on May 26th, which replaced the Patriot Act that expired the day before, largely in response to Snowden.

The USA Freedom Act ended the NSA’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records, restored some expired powers to security agencies and placed record storage decisions in private companies’ hands. It was a huge success for individual freedom and privacy against the prying eyes of the government.

It’s strange that after the Snowden revelations, the United States reacted by increasing individual privacy, while the United Kingdom is effectively squashing it. Snowden damaged U.S. national security and prompted an extensive debate about government surveillance. How is it, then, that the U.K. government can’t pass legislation like the Investigatory Powers Bill?

More importantly, how will a bill like this play out in a global economy where so many businesses are based in the United States but interact with British citizens? Perhaps a British judge gains a warrant to view a U.K. citizen’s conversation with an American, but the U.S. citizen has more rights to privacy. How will the two governments make a compromise in this scenario? Surely without streamlined laws for international corporations there will be mishandled cases.

Before this draft reaches the final vote next year, there needs to be some amendment for not only assured privacy but also a uniform way to handle U.S.-U.K. relations.

Theresa May is right to address government surveillance legislation — it’s been a long time coming. However, it is imperative that the U.K. government respects its citizens’ rights to privacy and transparency in the same way the United States has attempted.

Neither government is perfect. Conversations about security and privacy are inherently complex. But the Investigatory Powers Bill really must have George Orwell turning in his grave. There’s no way he could have predicted the Internet era’s curmudgeon of a watchdog.

To me, Theresa May has effectively earned the title Big Sister — and if Big Sister is watching me, I want to know exactly how and why.

Courtney Linder is a senior columnist at The Pitt News, primarily focusing on social issues and technology. Write to her at CNL13@pitt.edu.