Online behavior – both legal and illegal – easily crosses multiple jurisdictions. In work package 4 we compare how different countries approach the regulatory challenges of online surveillance (WP1). In addition, we compare countries with respect to stakeholders’ conceptions of surveillance powers (WP2), and citizens’ online behavior and their perception of privacy, illegality and surveillance (WP3). We also examine the results across the three research stands (WP1, WP2 and WP3). Contrasting findings from the analysis of legal regulation, stakeholder opinions and people’s online behavior and understandings will give us insights to better understand the legal, social and behavioral challenges of surveillance powers. We can also assess what is endemic to the Internet, and what is due to specificities of national legislation, institutions and practice. Our work will discuss the conception of borders from different perspectives, ranging from the legal borders to boundaries between private and public, or between legal and illegal.
Regulatory challenges – WP1
Regulatory challenges of online surveillance powers will be analysed for WP1 from two perspectives: the traditional principles of jurisdiction, and human rights law (especially the European Convention on Human rights). Frameworks of jurisdiction and human rights will serve as a starting point for the comparative analysis.
The comparative analysis between the UK, Norway and Finland will use case studies covering five scenarios, through which we examine how online surveillance powers differ in each country. The scenarios will be focused, for example, on criminal investigations and incidents threatening national security.
Stakeholders articulating surveillance and privacy – WP2
Stakeholders’ perceptions of surveillance and privacy will be studied using the same mixed method interviews with expert informants in the UK, Norway and Finland. The interviews, involve ranking 45 subjective statements about on online surveillance based on personal opinion, using the cards as cues to ground their view. Statements on the cards reflect the contemporary public policy debate on online surveillance. The informants represent a variety of backgrounds, such as politicians, public security authorities, researchers, NGOs and civic associations, the media, private sector and oversight organisations. Some of the regulatory challenges detected in WP1, such as questions related to the human rights and the division between targeted or general surveillance as well as the difference between content and meta-data (Events), are also core parts of the policy debate and are included here.
The comparative analysis will be conducted by grouping the interviewees into groups thinking likewise about online surveillance. Our interviews seek to understand why the formed groups think about the topic as they do. Then, the nationally formed groups are compared across the UK, Norway and Finland in order to detect whether there are country-specific differences. After that, we merge the national data sets into one, and analyse whether previously unidentified views can be detected. The results will be also interpreted with regards to national regulation and the concept of legitimacy.
Understanding, protecting and challenging online behaviour – WP3
This part of the project concentrates on citizens’ online behaviour and perceptions of online surveillance. An online survey on privacy and online behaviour, including some behaviour that falls into legal grey areas, will target students and staff at universities in the UK, Norway and Finland. This data will be complemented by a piece of diary research – measuring what people do online on a daily basis – and interviews to delve more deeply into views about online privacy and surveillance. Comparative analysis of WP3 findings will let us investigate, for example, whether there are some country-specific differences in perceptions of privacy and online surveillance, or in online behaviour.
Final Comparative Analysis
WP1 has shown some similarities, but also some significant differences, in the way in which borderless and technology-enhanced surveillance is conceptualised in the different legal traditions. In WP1, a number of hypothesis were created that could all explain these different attitudes. In this final WP, we will use the results of the other work packages to analyse to what an extend varying public discourses, or varying user expectations, “match onto” the differences between the doctrinal stance their respective countries have taken. This in turn will be analysed with a view on the notion of legitimacy – are there systematic divergences between public debates and/or user behaviour that call the legitimacy of the emerging regulatory framework into doubt, and are there national approaches that are less affected by these trends? Finally, how do these findings relate to the European Human Rights framework, and especially the concepts of proportionality and legality (which in turn refers to the citizens ability to know in advance what the state can and cannot do).