Useful mass surveillance?

Data collection has become a major weapon in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime. In turn this has prompted a number of legislative attempts to get hold of information about people and to regulate the use of that information.

The US, Australia and Canada collect data on airline passengers flying into their countries. South Korea and EU member states are expected to follow suit soon. Based on this data, the US uses what it calls an automated targeting system to assess the threat that passengers may pose. Soon even those EU citizens whose countries are part of the visa-waiver scheme for entry into the US will have to supply information online about themselves before they depart for the US, under a system known as electronic travel authorisation, a system which Australia already uses.

In 2005 EU member states and the European Parliament passed a directive on data retention - which came into force on 16 September - that forces telecommunications companies to store data on emails and phone calls for use in counter-terrorism investigations.

But some civil liberties groups have questioned whether the mass collection of data actually works in catching terrorists. MEPs have questioned the lack of evidence supplied to prove that mass data collection is useful.

"We keep asking, ‘show us the proof on how effective PNR [passenger name records] are, what terrorists have been caught?’," says Sarah Ludford, a UK Liberal Democrat MEP, adding: "It needs to be intelligence-led rather than this mass surveillance road we are going down."

"What is it used for? Is it to find the needle in the haystack?" asked Peter Hustinx, the European data watchdog, about the collecting of passenger name records.

But others believe the data collection is useful. "Yes, it does work," says Jonathan Faul, the European Commission’s director-general for justice, freedom and security. He points to recent law enforcement successes in preventing terrorist recent attacks in Denmark and Germany.

Data collection has become a major weapon in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime. In turn this has prompted a number of legislative attempts to get hold of information about people and to regulate the use of that information.