Rich nations’ residents are ‘waking up in a surveillance society,...

and its threat to individuals. Thomas released a Surveillance Studies Network report urging new regulatory attitudes toward privacy and surveillance. “Everyday encounters with surveillance” include monitoring and storing of telecom and Internet data, tracking of mobile device location and automatic filtering for key words and phrases of all telecom traffic passing through the U.K. by the global surveillance system ECHELON, the report noted. Such activities need controls, but most systems for controlling personal data processing evolved solely with privacy in mind and have drawbacks for surveillance, the report said. Regulators tend to handle technological shifts after the fact, focussing mostly on technical and managerial issues. Much regulation embraces a narrow concept of personal privacy, and then only on its value to individuals, with rules applied after scant public debate. Media coverage centers on “horror stories” about privacy invasion and “utopian and Orwellians views about surveillance technologies,” the report said. Current rules are based on “fair information principles” -- such as the requirement that an entity say why it collects data and keep it secure -- founded in laws, international accords or some sectors’ self- regulation. But privacy rules aren’t enough in a surveillance society, the report said, pushing incorporation of privacy impact assessments in the writing of regulations to protect data subjects, and calling for surveillance impact assessments to gauge the potential for societal harm by surveillance.