Outsourced National Security: Policy Trends, Freedoms Encroachment and Accountability in the European Union

Abstract

Europeans are faced with a cognitive dissonance. Since the Snowden revelations of 2013, European States have repeatedly been brought by judges to refine and specify the scope of their most intrusive activities. Honing the balance between raison d’état and individual freedoms is fundamental in thriving democratic societies. This includes the right to be free from not knowing when and why one could be surveilled by a European State.

Yet the world is no longer only ruled by States. Historically States have always partnered with private actors, but these partnerships were not omnipresent in citizens’ lives. Nowadays States overwhelmingly rely on information processing to perform their functions. Private service providers have become the primary means to manage such information, via their data processing tools.

Technology is human rights agnostic. Human derived data is processed by technologies that permeate most fundamental public services in European societies. The reliance on such technologies brings unprecedented efficiency, as well as unfathomed distress and risks for citizens. Especially when authorities seeking to improve or preserve national security purposes rely on for-profit entities to process that data.

Accountability is key for digitalisation to not be perceived as inherently tied with polymorphous surveillance and data exploitation. Secrecy is legitimate, but proportionate checks and balances must exist, be functional and deemed fair.

Keywords: ppp, national security, foi, freedom of information, accountability, freedom of expression, public private partnership, eu law, privacy, data protection, palantir