Privacy and Security of Data : A Quick Look to Other Side of The Coin
We know that new information and
communication technologies (ICT) offer governments a new world which is full of
opportunities to serve its people efficiently. Presedent Obama’s open government
initative is one of the best examples. His words to Mr. Kundra are very
explanatory: “Ensure public trust, establish a system of transperancy, public
participation and collaboration.” Government activities should be more visible
to public so that they can check them, question them, contribute in preparation
and implimentation stages of policies”. In order to achieve these goals,
information in the government’s hands should be accessible in a usable format
to people anytime and anywhere they want. One of the key question here is of
course “What kind of information should be provided to public?” The bureaucracy
traditionally tends to reveal only tip of the iceberg. There may be some fair
reasons for that hesitation such as national security, personal privacy,
copyrights, legal issues or practical ones like need of backround information
to interpret data. But at the end in one way or another it is possible to find
a way to distinguish which is classified and which is not. However, if we want
people to participate to government activities and eventually aim to increase
our democratic standarts, there is another obstacle we need to overcome in
terms of privacy and security.
Concidering they are are more vulnerable
than government, people’s security and privacy concerns are as important as
government’s. When we jump into digital world and start to use facebook,
twitter etc. we begin to share something about us. We can try to take measures
although it’s not realistic to expect every person can do that effectively. But
even after those measures have been taken, some personel information would go
on leaking. Beginning from stepping into this world we are inevitably a part of
the big data and preys of the hunters of this land who are using advance
techniques to process all that information about us. Apart from commercial and
the like examples, this might be a real problem in terms of public
participation to government policies. The danger I want to explain here might
not posing a real or severe threat to mature democracies where check and
balances are working. But if democratic system is already vulnerable and prone
to work improperly, there should be real problem. Recent developments in Turkey
regarding this argument would be useful to understand the situation.
The Turkish government has been struggling
with allegations of corruption and some other political abuses for 10 months.
Regardless of the accuracy of claims we can say that they are serious enough to
send the government to jail for years. In the begining, the government acted
like other western governments for a short time. But after understanding how
serious the concequences might be, the government banned media to publish or
broadcast the allegations, using the “principle of privacy of indictment until
it will be accepted by judge” as an exuse. Social media stepped into scene when
traditional media was prohibited. Then allegations and voice records of
government members were started be published in an anonymous way and whole
country begun to follow live broadcast of allegations in twitter, facebook and
youtube. At first the goverment tried to be silent, hoping that not so many
more people use the social media tools and learn the story. But statistics
showed otherwise. In the meantime the newspapers and TVs went around the ban as
if they were mentioning rumours in twitter and youtube not the indictment.
At this stage the government tried to
refute claims by government spokesmen, underlying that those are unproven
claims. Then the government understood that its strategy serves only spreading
of accusation and the more they try to explain the more secrets reveal. The
situation were getting dangerous for them since there is an election ahead
which may cause them to lose control if they can not win. At this point goverment
was so desparate that thay banned youtube and twitter, risking their country to
be considered in the same category with North Korea, China and Iran. Yet, the
mos problematic part of the story just begun. The government passed a new
legislation which made impossible for members of national intelligence service
(MIT) to be brought to court without permission of prime minister, even they
commit an obvious crime in a live broadcast.
After that following legislations came
which allow MIT to monitor, record every kind of media and send reports to
prosecutors. Obviously activities which are among people’s natural rights, are
no more legal by new laws, these reports became real threats to people who
voiced against government in social media. Then they reorganized Presidency of
Telecommunication and Communication (TIB) which is responsible for the
determination of the communication that are made by telecommunication,
listening, evaluation of the signal information and recordings”. Second top
director of MIT was assigned as president of this very important institution
which enable them to record evrything in the country. (Remember no one can
touch him without Prime Minister’s permission). With a recent regulation
president of TIB has personally privileged to shut down any web site or page in
four hours without any permisson or court order. Now they have every chance to
behave arbitrary. Then they tried to force Twitter to give them account holders
personel information, threatening them never allow them to open Twitter again.
At the and Twitter didn’t agree to give information but they started to blur
sites, names of which were given by government (chilling effect). The World
only showed some weak reactions, conniving and encouaging them.
There are some problems which are
different than routine issues and considering their importance to society,
participation of their preparing and implimentation process. But they also have
the potential to cause serious concequences for a government. Imagine that you
are person living in a such environment and expected to participate these kind
of government activities, how come you participate under such circumtances,
knowing that every word you say is recorded and stored somewhere to be used
against you if desired. And we are talking about being isolated whithin people,
marked as enemy of country, to be fired so easily or sent to jail. They are not
some stories from old times. There are real peoples experiencing each of these
examples right now in the country. 2 milion government employees, their
relatives (who are afraid of cousing harm them by speaking), businessmen who
are easily can be subject to public sanctions and all people who wants to
express themselves in social media are out of game as long as such
circumstances persist. You may have fancy new mobile gadgets, twitter accounts
etc. but can you participate about explosive matters? How can another
government find a way to gain public confidence and convince them to touch
significant but burning issues of public and to improve and enrich the
democracy. Of course history of mature democracies are full of struggles. There
were always ups and downs. An improved democracy is not something that one can
has with a snap of his fingers. I hope this a temporary madness or paranthesis
in our history like other negative periods. Since crises come with
opportunities, I believe that there is no need to be hopeless for the Turkey as
long as a significant part of the society is committed to protect their rights.
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