Personal Privacy vs. Public Safety
It has been a long-standing dispute on whether world governments should get access to personal data. In 2015, a case of gun violence in America killed at least fourteen people and caused more than seventeen injuries, which is the worst mass shooting in the past three years. In order to further track this case, the FBI asked Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one suspect, while the company refused to cooperate. It has ignited a broader discussion about individual privacy and the public good, and about 46% of Americans support Apple, while 35% disagree.
It is not the last time that we can see a conflict between tech giants and governments. The “Five Eyes” governments have ever demanded that tech providers grant them backdoor access to their users’ encrypted data “or face measures to force companies to comply,” according to the report of TechCrunch. Technology companies build trust with users by means of encryption, while it seems to thwart the trust between government and citizens.
Security is prior to privacy.
“We live in an extremely dangerous world.”, Warren Buffett says, “Something is gonna happen, and the security surpasses our privacy.” He agrees with Apple’s aim of privacy keeping, but he also reckons that Apple should not refuse to give a hand for crime control. The USA, as we know, is a country that can barely count the number of murders, let alone other crimes. It seems that citizen protection is more important than personal privacy currently in the US. The supporters of this opinion argue that tech companies, who have directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly held tons of users’ data due to their monopoly of the internet and used for profit or others (even some are presented in their so-called outward user-contracts that you have to agree, or you cannot use their products) unbeknownst to us, sprawl for a long time without regulation. And the government, the representative and defender of citizens, must deserve more trust rather than commercial corporates. By analogy to the physical world where the police have a warrant can get in a criminal’s house and search for evidence, it makes no difference. With the opening of private data, not only for crime control but the government will also have a better ability to make a public decision. And it will also improve innovation for start-ups using sharing data in view of its non-rival feature.
Despite their consent to the government’s intervention in personal data if necessary, some also worried about inadvertent leakiness and misusing. It follows that they incline to look for a third way instead of the binary approach to deal with this dilemma. Kartik Agarwal, a co-founder of Technosip, suggests that the government should have access to anonymous data and retrieve personal information when any set of data raises an alert. Correspondently, we should have a public and independent agency who can assess whether the requirements of authorities are reasonable and necessary. All in all, a formal policy and transparency are what they want.
Champions of personal data.
Many opponents think it not a question of “if” we should hand over our data. The access is already rampant. The government is proven to misuse our data for some illegitimate purposes, singling out protestors, surveilling the opposition, and tracking citizens’ locations or whatever. Therefore, it is naive to think that the authorities will show exactly how data is being used, let alone their promise that only use data by themselves but not malicious parties. The government, moreover, has failed to show any evidence that criminals or terrorists use encryption more than others. So, a few criminal cases should not be an excuse that people ask the masses to give up privacy.
On the technical aspect, there are more criticisms. It is more urgent to protect users’ sensitive data on the internet, such as accounts of social apps and online banks, etc. Large-scale and driftless activities of hacking and cyber attacking are getting more common. One of the most effective ways is encryption. However, secure algorithms of encryption usually are irreversible, which means that decoding is impossible or nearly unreachable till quantum computers come out, because of extensive computing requirements. Hence, unless we lower the security level, backdoors were impossible. Even if a third-party holding onto the encryption keys is no different. “There is no real way to devise an access mechanism to a system that would not be susceptible to being attacked by an unauthorized party.” says the Chief Security Officer Vijay Bolina at Google DeepMind.
No end to this dispute.
Unfortunately, I would like to say sorry if you want to hear a proper solution. We will never have a correct answer to the question that who is right. It is a complicated and confusing situation involving the interests of tech giants, governments, and citizens from diverse groups. Companies need to build their credits so that they actively help users encrypt their data, though they also pursue monopoly and profit, which gives them a willingness to abuse personal data. Most world governments dedicate to protect their nationals from criminals and terrorists, while they also want to go further. And distinct groups have their own demands, intentional or not, and malicious or not. All we only could do is find a balance among these interests. Most of the time, the public good is more important in a major public emergency. However, privacy also matters. What is certain in uncertainties is that the dispute will never have an end.
Reference
1. Council, Editors, Forbes Technology, ‘Council Post: Should World Governments Get Access To Encrypted Data? 11 Tech Experts Weigh In’, Forbes
2. ‘“Five Eyes” Governments Call on Tech Giants to Build Encryption Backdoors — or Else’, TechCrunch
3. ‘Should Tech Giants Slam the Encryption Door on the Government?’, TechCrunch
4. ‘The Fight for Personal Data’, ISchool | Syracuse University, 2019
5. ‘Why Companies Should Share Their Data with Government | Apolitical’, 2019
中文
个人隐私还是公共安全
长期以来，人们对于政府是否有权获取公民的私人数据争论不休。2015年，美国发生了三年来最大的一起枪击案，超过14人被杀，17人受伤。为了后续调查，FBI要求苹果公司解锁嫌犯的iPhone手机，却被苹果拒绝。这件事引发了关于个人隐私重要还是公共利益重要的广泛讨论。约有46%的美国人支持苹果，35%的人表示反对。
这不是最后一次我们看到科技巨头和政府机关产生分歧。据TechCrunch报导，五眼联盟曾要求科技公司授权政府获取用户的加密数据。科技公司通过加密数据建立与用户间的信任，但似乎这一方式影响到了政府和公民间的信任。
安全胜过隐私
“我们生活在一个非常非常危险的世界。”，巴菲特说，“我们不知道什么将会发生，安全性要胜过隐私。”他认同苹果保护用户隐私的初衷，但也认为苹果应该帮助帮助FBI打击犯罪。我们知道，美国是一个连有多少谋杀案都难以统计的国家，更不用说犯罪了。这样看当前保护公民安全比数据隐私自由更重要。这一观点的支持者认为，科技公司在无监管规范的状况下野蛮发展多年了，他们利用在互联网中的垄断地位，在我们知道或不知道的时候，用直接或间接的方式攫取了大量的用户数据，并利用这些数据牟利，或者进行不为人知的活动（可能这些在他们所谓的用户协议中都有提到，只是你不同意就无法使用服务）。政府作为公民的代表和守护者，比起商业公司更值得信任。类比到现实世界中用于授权的警方可以搜查罪犯的住房，这没有什么不同。不只是打击犯罪，随着私有数据的开放，政府能够更好地做决策，同时由于数据的非竞争性，初创公司可以利用这些分享的数据进行创新。
还有部分人虽然同意政府在必要时获取私人数据，但他们也担心这些数据被无意泄露或者滥用。因此他们倾向于寻找二者之外的方法解决这一困境。Kartik Agarwal是Technosip的创始人之一，他建议政府可以获取匿名的用户数据，并在发现问题时才能获取授权得到用户信息。相应的，我们需要一个公共独立的三方机构来评估执法机关的要求是否合理且必须。总之，他们想要的是正式政策和执行透明。
为隐私而斗争
很多反对者认为问题不是我们是否交出我们的数据，而是对数据的侵犯已经泛滥了。事实证明，政府滥用我们的数据用以非法的目的，比如跳出抗议者，监视反对派，或者追踪公民踪迹等。因此，不能天真地认为权威机关就会清晰展示他们是如何使用我们的数据的，更不用想他们承诺的数据绝对不会被他人恶意地使用了。此外，政府也完全无法展示犯罪分子和恐怖分子比其他人群更多使用加密手段的证据。因此，大众不应该因为一小部分坏人的存在就放弃自己的隐私。
技术层面则批评更甚。目前更紧要的是保护用户在互联网上的敏感数据，如社交软件的账号或者网上银行的账户等。如今大规模无特定目标的网络骇客行为已经非常普遍。最有效保护数据安全的方式之一就是加密。然而，安全的加密算法通常都是不可逆的，或者说因为需要超大量的计算，算法几乎是不可逆的，除非量子计算机问世。因此，除非我们降低安全等级，否则开后门是不现实的。即使第三方机构持有密钥也是不安全的。“根本就没有其他机制能避免恶意攻击。”谷歌DeepMind团队的首席安全顾问Vijay Bolina如是说道。
无止境的争论
很不幸，如果你想要一个合适的解决方案，我只能说抱歉了。我们可能永远不会有关于这一问题的正确答案。这一复杂纷乱的情况牵扯到科技巨头，政府和不同群体的利益。科技公司因为需要得到用户信任，因此会积极帮助用户加密数据，到出于对垄断和利益的追求，他们又有很大可能会侵犯用户隐私。大多数国家的政府都致力于保护本国国民免于犯罪或恐怖袭击的伤害。但同时他们想管的太多了。不同群体也有他们自己的需求，无论出于有意还是无意，有恶意或是无恶意。我们能做的，只能是在这些利益纠纷中找到一个平衡点。大多数时候，在正大公共事件发生时，公共利益更为重要。然而，隐私也同样重要。在这些无法确定的纷乱中唯一能确定的，就是这一争论可能永远不会结束。