Quantifying people’s trade-offs across liberty, privacy and security
by Ian Brown
An interesting new study from RAND Europe:
This report outlines the results of a stated preference discrete choice modelling study that sought to objectively understand the real privacy, liberty and security trade-offs of individuals so that policy makers can be better informed about individuals true preferences in this domain. Three real-life case studies were investigated where these factors come into play; applying for a passport; travel on the national rail network and attendance at a major public event such as the opening ceremony of the Olympics. A panel of internet users demographically weighted to the UK population were asked to choose amongst different alternatives for each of the scenarios. The data was analysed and individuals were found to be willing to pay for advanced CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology, X-Ray machines & body scanners and various forms of security personnel. Socio-demographic segments in the sample also became evident.
January 26th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
from a very quick look at this, i get the impression that while it is worthwhile, it suffers from two defects:
- it assumes that the security-liberty issue is a sub-zero issue: that you increase security by giving up liberty, and decrease security by enhancing or preserving liberty. but in reality the state often takes away liberties without
any real gain in security. this is linked to the second issue:
- the study seems to assume that people can make a rational assessment of the proposed trade-offs: that they can weigh the benefits in security against the losses in liberty, and then make their mind up about where they are willing to pitch the balance. but in reality even the authorities are lousy at truthfully assessing these gains and losses
(which as just noted are not straightforward trade-offs), and they (knowingly or unknowingly) misrepresent them, and the ordinary citizen is not in a good position to judge.
the study may therefore say something about people’s attitudes to the presumed trade-offs, but does not say much about where we (as a society) should place the balance. my fear is that to the extent that it shows people are willing to loose liberty to gain freedom, it will be happily used by politicians and civil servants, without acknowledging these defects.
January 26th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Security and Liberty like (Security and Privacy) are not
a zero-sum game in that without some measure of security one is not really free (example: if the chances of being mugged while leaving one’s house after dark are greater than a minimal level, many people will be/feel trapped in
their homes after dark). The opposite is also true, that without liberty “security” is the security of the jail cell. This oppositional assumption is at the heart of many, many errors of judgement.
One of the other issues here is that people are known to be very bad at considering all kinds of probabilities. The level of outcome (good or bad) psychologically preys on
people’s minds so much that they ignore, or are unable to grasp, the relative risks in such a way that rational consideration really is often impossible. Hence the number of people who play the lottery when you’re more likely to
die in an accident after buying the ticket than win a life-changing amount of money and yet some of the poorest in society often spend a significant portion of their income on this tax on statistical incompetence. Other
irrational elements such as a feeling of personal control come into play as well, for example when people onsider travel safety – whether measured per mile or per journey, plane travel on airlines run from industrialised
countries (so not Mongolian Air, for example) are incredibly safe compared to driving, yet the feel of control while driving (and the comparative chances
of surviving a serious incident) mean most people can’t make rational choices.