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Privacy in public spaces: what expectations of privacy do we have in social media intelligence?

Edwards, Lilian; Urquhart, Lachlan

Authors

Lilian Edwards

Lachlan Urquhart



Abstract

In this paper we give an introduction to the transition in contemporary surveillance from top down traditional police surveillance to profiling and “pre-crime” methods. We then review in more detail the rise of open source (OSINT) and social media (SOCMINT) intelligence and its use by law enforcement and security authorities. Following this we consider what if any privacy protection is currently given in UK law to SOCMINT. Given the largely negative response to the above question, we analyse what reasonable expectations of privacy there may be for users of public social media, with reference to existing case law on art 8 of the ECHR. Two factors are in particular argued to be supportive of a reasonable expectation of privacy in open public social media communications: first, the failure of many social network users to perceive the environment where they communicate as “public”; and secondly, the impact of search engines (and other automated analytics) on traditional conceptions of structured dossiers as most problematic for state surveillance. Lastly, we conclude that existing law does not provide adequate protection for open SOCMINT and that this will be increasingly significant as more and more personal data is disclosed and collected in public without well-defined expectations of privacy.

Citation

Edwards, L., & Urquhart, L. (2016). Privacy in public spaces: what expectations of privacy do we have in social media intelligence?. International Journal of Law and Information Technology, 24(3), 279-310. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaw007

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 10, 2016
Online Publication Date Aug 10, 2016
Publication Date Sep 1, 2016
Deposit Date Nov 30, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal International Journal of Law and Information Technology
Print ISSN 0967-0769
Electronic ISSN 1464-3693
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 24
Issue 3
Pages 279-310
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaw007
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/975011
Publisher URL https://academic.oup.com/ijlit/article/24/3/279/2404493
Additional Information This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in International Journal of Law and Information Technology following peer review. The version of record Lilian Edwards, Lachlan Urquhart; Privacy in public spaces: what expectations of privacy do we have in social media intelligence?, International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Volume 24, Issue 3, 1 September 2016, Pages 279–310 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaw007.

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