Transparency in the Digital Age. Discuss the following quote: “ In the age of technology, secrecy must give way to transparency. This should be feared only by those who have something to hide.”

« Big Brother is watching you!»1
We can hear Orwell’s famous metaphor ringing in our ears like a blaring alarm bell. Although his vision is of a radical utopian society, it would be easy to think this is already a reality. The age of “Big Data” is upon us and we must face up to the question of total transparency and its consequences. In fact, the very notion of secrecy and the concept of confidential information have already been put under serious pressure by new technologies. In both public and private spheres this issue has become an ever-growing topic for serious political debate. It is the volume of data and the ease with which it can be treated and analysed that has metamorphosed our society. Sharing personal data has become almost indispensable for the individual to participate actively in modern life. The problem is that the individual is perhaps not always aware how this data is used either individually or collectively once it is in the hands of authorities or businesses, which have their own particular interests at heart. This also leads us to consider the relationship between governments and citizens in this electronic era: Could the State become “Big
Brother”? Would more transparency be advantageous for society? Let’s look at the assertion we are asked to consider; “In the digital age, secrecy must give way to transparency. This should be feared only by those who have something to hide.” The author thus puts forward the idea that now that we are in the age of “Big Data”, we must abandon individual privacy and the concept of confidential information as they are invalidated by technology. He adds that it is only those who have something to hide who would fear this. Should we therefore accept an unrelenting push for total transparency to the detriment of individual privacy? What about governments and commercial companies’ right to keep certain data secret? Can measures be put in place, should we even try to counteract and control this trend? Is it right to say that only those who are doing wrong should fear this age?
To answer these questions, we will begin by studying the notion of transparency and why it is important, then we will look at how technology has changed our concept of individual privacy, which also raises questions about government and economic information, and we will finish by a reflection on secrecy.
As stated at the beginning the issue of transparency is very topical. Be it in politics, in the media, or through specific non-governmental organisations such as Transparency International, the message conveyed is always the same: we need more transparency. How is transparency defined? In the French
Larousse dictionary we can distinguish several meanings. In the figurative definition transparency is the
“quality of that which can be seen and which is clear to all” and “that is clear to all, without distortion or concealment” 2. This figurative meaning seems the most adapted to contemporary society and the expectations of its citizens. We are not really seeking to know everything about the State and businesses but rather desire that everything be clear, justified and done in a logical, meaningful way. The definition given by another dictionary is in line with this thinking as it explains that transparency is the “Quality of an institution that informs completely on its functioning and practices”. 3

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Orwell George, 1984, Penguin Classics, (1949) 2000, London, 352 pages, p.5
Larousse Dictionnary, Larousse, 2008, Paris Cédex, 1811 pages, p.1028
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Dictionnary trésor de la langue française, online : http://atilf.atilf.fr/
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So why do we want this? Why do we need this type of transparency? The Dalai Laima claimed last year that “a lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity” 4. Said in the context of a discussion on the Chinese government and its relationship with Nepal, this quote depicts the real consequences of a lack of transparency between State and citizen. As such, it underlines the fact that there is a real need for clarity so that the individual can feel secure. To put it simply: The State needs its citizens’ money to function and because the State creates laws which citizens are obliged to respect, it has the duty to explain to its people how and why these laws have been devised. Moreover, this type of transparency forces the authorities to be responsible for their actions. In the digital age technology forces governments to be open to scrutiny and even to invite the public to work with it. Indeed, technology allows institutions to share with the public what they do in a completely new and innovative way.
Contemporary society demands this of the authorities almost instinctively. But can governments adapt to this? The culture of secrecy in government is deep-rooted and it will take a long time to change this and reduce it to a new minimum. Furthermore governments have their own interests to defend. Consequently a balance must be found. Strong public pressure helped by the advance of new technology is forcing them to modernise in order to survive. At the heart of the matter is that individuals are humans with basic emotional needs, whereas States and their governments and commercial companies are motivated by other interests judged to be more important, in particular financial and political. It is these other interests that lead them to secrecy.
We could take the example of the News International phone-hacking scandal in Great Britain. In July
2011, it was revealed that one of the biggest British tabloids, the News of the World, had, in reporting on the disappearance of a young female adolescent of thirteen years of age, hacked her mobile voice message box, when she was already deceased. It was an unseemly, shocking revelation in the eyes of the
British public. It has since been discovered that thousands of other phones were hacked5. It is important to point out that it took almost ten years for this information to be revealed. News of the World tried to defend itself by referring to the liberty of the press. However, this was difficult to defend and it was clear that a red line had been passed in a desperate attempt to gain news stories. We know that behind these despicable acts lies a financial motive. Above all, News International has a commercial interest; to sell newspapers. In this example, the financial interest prevails and leads the company to use secrecy to cover up unlawful behaviour. News International completely flouted the law and overrode any thought for the individual’s private life or rights simply to satisfy its commercial interest. We don’t expect newspapers to use such devious means to report stories and especially human and tragic stories. We want companies to respect the law and to be clear on how they work. Thus, to avoid this type of event happening once more and to put companies and individuals back on a level playing field, we must favour transparency.
Governments however struggle with this, as do individuals when they are affected. There are huge political and personal interests involved.
Another example is that of the Patriot Act in the United States. It’s something much more serious with much deeper implications. The Patriot Act is an American security law adopted nearly in one evening, six weeks after the 9/11 attacks. It allows the American authorities to search without authorisation the personal data of American citizens, information such as financial files, past medical history, internet history, travel habits, book purchases, etc. In essence, any activity that leaves a trace. It is thus a law that completely discredits the concept of privacy. The question that we have to ask ourselves is who does this law benefit? From a general point of view, it allows, according to the American government, to protect the American people. But is it really that simple? We must remember that an American president is elected for a period of four years. It was in George Bush’s interest to show that he took measures to combat terrorism after the attacks of September 11th so that he could get re-elected for a second period.
As such, it is likely that a prevailing political interest rather than an altruistic one galvanized him. The
Patriot Act is a law with terrible consequences for the private life of American citizens. The general idea that it protects the American people is completely distorted by the day-to-day reality when, for example, an innocent citizen has a GPS attached to his car without his knowledge and his day-to-day activity is
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The Daily Telegraph, Dalai Lama: I shout and say harsh words, London, May 13th 2012
The Guardian, Phone hacking: number of possible victims is almost 5,800, police confirm, London, November 3rd 2011

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monitored. While this could be justified if this person turns out to be a terrorist or a drugs dealer, what do you do when this turns out to be you`? Although we admonish governments there are no easy solutions.
We do, however expect today more than ever that the State be transparent in coming to the decisions they do We live in an era in which this is more and more possible and important. Not only are the authorities accumulating and archiving an immense volume of our personal data that could one day be used against us, but digital change is evolving much faster than governments can legislate for so it is reactive not proactive. The legal system, particularly in the United States, has not developed along with technology to protect the private lives of the citizens. As such, pressure must be put on governments; transparency and reform have to happen now. But can governments survive without secrecy? They must have some secrets, mainly in diplomacy, in certain national security matters as well as in criminal enquiries. However, State secrets must exist out of need. In other terms: there must be the strict minimum. The State must be transparent by default and secret by demand. However, as Sophocles put it thousands of years ago “Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.” 6 Today we could replace “time” by
“technology”. An example is DNA testing that allows us to identify a person quickly and easily. The
State must thus be careful to protect its secrets that should exist by demand.
Finally the problem is that the majority of citizens do not fully realise yet what is happening around them.
The Patriot Act case exemplifies well the problem: individually we take time to grasp the consequences unless it has repercussions on us personally. This is why we need civic society movements although many of them are not given the importance they should have. Just as we put personal information on the internet, on Facebook for example: we do not realise where and how the data is processed unless one day we are affected, as it happened to a Swiss citizen; who was forbidden access to a country because he told a joke in an email using the words “terrorist”, “plane” and “bomb”. It is the personal repercussions that lead to awareness but how guilty are we all of ignoring this message?
Does a loss of privacy really concern us? Do we really worry about the terms and conditions of when we enrol on Facebook? How has our idea of private life changed with the arrival of the age of technology?
New technology has completely turned it on its head. Indeed, the individual’s control of his personal data has been misappropriated. Norms where privacy is concerned are constantly evolving. They fluctuate between societies and cultures, between generations. The young don’t see privacy the same way as their elders. Born in the digital age, they have integrated the functioning mode of our society, which is to be constantly placed under surveillance. In this context, the idea of privacy takes a defensive form: attacked on all sides, we try to protect the little that remains of it. We could put forward the hypothesis that the young generation is trying to recapture public space, which has progressively been abandoned. This leads to a weakening of the partition between public and private space. The number of Facebook users shows us this very clearly. Private life has thus less of an importance for the young than for the elder. This is also surely due to the fact that young people don’t entirely understand yet the consequences of what they are doing. In sum, we note that the individual’s private life is becoming more and more transparent.
If the private lives of citizens are becoming more and more transparent, could Orwell’s radical “Big
Brother” vision materialize? Big Brother is no longer science fiction. As we have seen previously, the mass surveillance of a whole city, even of an entire country, is henceforth possible by means of new technology. Beyond the risk of the surveillance of individual people, there now exists a real risk of collective surveillance. Let us take a look at Google. It knows what we did this winter, could just as well know our political thoughts, our religious beliefs or even determine the number of pregnant women. It is the inter-connexion of this data that poses an important risk for the individual. If we consider similarly the potential cross referencing of the information a State holds on us, it could well become “Big Brother”. To stop this happening authorities and companies must become more transparent on their functioning and constraints put in place. Wikileaks’ action tries to do this by revealing important information leaks. It is an example that shows us how new technology can be used to denounce abuse and help us protect

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Jebb Richard, The Fragments of Sophocles, Cambridge University Press, 2010, Cambridge, 364 pages

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ourselves against the State’s surveillance. As such, technology can also allow those who are being watched to turn themselves against those who are watching.
Finally, we are advocating transparency a lot and have nearly forgotten that secrecy exists. More transparency translates itself by less secrecy. Can we live without secrets? Have we not all got something to hide? Secrets are an essential part of human nature. Like the Swedish author Stieg Larsson maintains,
“everybody has secrets. It is just a matter of discovering which ones” 7. Without secrets, we lose an intimate part of our private life. We too often associate secrecy with the concealment of a crime or dishonesty whereas it is for the most part healthy and beneficial. Indeed, secrets allow humans to raise their personal power because when using them they can control the way they guide their information flux to another person. As such, keeping a secret is not necessarily bad or harmful. Moreover, it allows the individual to form for himself a critical opinion and to live a fulfilled life. An extreme example of this human need of secrecy appears in the fictional character of Winston Smith in Orwell’s 1984. Orwell depicts a radical vision of the future, in which Big Brother watches every citizen every minute of every day. We follow an ordinary man who takes extreme measures to think for himself. Alone in his apartment every evening, Smith sits in the nook of his room and writes in his secret diary his opinions, at the risk of being sentenced to death. Orwell was trying to show how secrecy is essential to man to be able to live.
As such, we must privilege State and company transparency, which is not to the detriment of the individual’s private life. We notice, in sum, how the intimate sphere of citizens is becoming more and more transparent, whereas States and companies are becoming more and more secretive. It’s important that we save privacy, which is essential to humans and that we demand that institutions be clearer on their functioning. We observe how certain interests push them towards secrecy. The authorities have not yet adapted to the culture of transparency and of new technology, whereas companies, like News
International, let themselves be guided by a financial interest that pushes them to violate private lives.
The cases of News of the World and of the Patriot Act showed us that today is a critical moment in history because the authorities and companies have accumulated an immense volume of our data. As such, they could use it at any moment against us. The State must absolutely become transparent by default and secret by demand, whereas the individual must start realising the enormity of what is happening and how this does affect each and every one of us intimately. We must fight to preserve our private life by putting pressure on institutions. Our idea of privacy evolves constantly but it must respect the bounds of the intimate human sphere. As for “Big Brother”: we must realise that it is not science fiction anymore and that if we don’t act, we might see its appearance. Finally, we must stop believing that nobody has things to hide, because secrecy is an essential part of human nature, the importance of which must not be minimised. The future is in the hands of the citizens. Is Orwell’s vision going to become reality? “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever” 8

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Larsson Stieg, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, MacLehose Press, 2010 (2005), Great Britain, 560 pages, p. 37
Orwell George, 1984, Penguin Classics, 2000 (1949), London, 352 pages, p.334

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