Avoiding a privacy-security telecommunications deadlock under emergency declarations
RIS ID
37417
Abstract
Australian political efforts with relation to security in the past few years seemed to be progressively characterised by the emergence of shared global risks, in a manner we started to observe unprecedented measures forcefu Ily attempted to counter the growing threatening potentiality of all identifiable man- and natural-caused risks. As the consequences of these complex risks have the intrinsic capacity to effect severely on societies, and not merely on individuals, governments' accession to these socially constructed measures have been presented to the public as an absolute necessity to sustai n the uninterrupted order of today's civi I society. At the same time, however, these measures have been perceived by many as a substantial move towards the curtailment of privacy rights and the beginning of a gradual introduction of blanket covert/overt policing practices on every aspect of our lives, leading down the path towards a complete surveillance society. Driven by this, the paper takes a look into some of the implications of the Australian government's anticipated decision to deploy a nationwide location-based mobile phone emergency warning system and discusses what would arguably initiate a possible privacysecurity telecommunications deadlock, evoked by the temporary waiving of the right to privacy under emergency declarations under which the warning system would be primarily utilised. The paper provides few recommendations to partially help avoiding a possible deadlock and finding some sort of balance between security and privacy in the context of emergencies.
Publication Details
Aloudat, A. (2010). Avoiding a privacy-security telecommunications deadlock under emergency declarations. In S. Bronitt, C. G. Harfield & K. Michael (Eds.), The Social Implications of Covert Policing: The Fourth Workshop on the Social Implications of National Security (pp. 79-89). Wollongong: University of Wollongong.