Challenging Public Private Surveillance Partnerships: A Handbook for Civil Society
As states around the world seek to expand their surveillance capabilities and harness the power of data to deliver public services, they are often tempted to use the services of private technology companies – through public-private partnerships (‘PPPs’). These collaborations are taking on a new form, diverging from traditional public procurement relationships and becoming much more co-dependent.
The privatisation of public responsibilities requires more scrutiny than ever to ensure human rights are not quietly abused. This is particularly true when the systems deployed are used for surveillance and mass processing of personal data. Private companies have been known to play with the limits of what can legally and ethically be done with individuals’ identities and data, without the same level of accountability required of public authorities – a significant affront to fundamental rights when used to deliver a public service.
Civil society has the power to expose the risks and issues that emerge from these partnerships, through investigation and public reporting. But identifying concrete risks and potential human rights abuses is not an easy task for anyone as it requires a multilevel understanding of the tech, law and governance mechanisms involved. Building on our own investigative work and on the expertise of our partners around the world, Privacy International has designed a handbook for civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, academics and individuals to navigate these partnerships, providing keys to obtain crucial information, understand the technology at stake and identify privacy and governance concerns.
To support anyone trying to find out more about a public-private surveillance partnership and identify key risks and issues, this handbook is divided in to four main sections: the first section covers investigative risks, the second section explains how to gather key information related to the partnership through a variety of means, the third section provides some methods to investigate the technology at play in the partnership, and the fourth section looks into governance concerns and safeguards, including international best practice, data protection issues, and other governance mechanisms.
The checklists provided at the end of this handbook can be used as an overview of key things to investigate, and to help you keep track of your work.
This handbook is intended to help you:
Investigate a public-private partnership, find out relevant information
Ask the right questions to the partners involved (private and public)
Identify concerns related to the technology involved and the governance of the partnership
Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) is a civil society organization based in Argentina that, since its foundation in 1995, works to defend and promote of civil and human rights in Argentina and Latin America.
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Investigating a public-private partnership comes with a number of legal, technical, and human risks that must be assessed before undertaking any action. These risks change with your research framework and the broader context within which the partnership operates. We suggest you identify and assess the risks related to your investigation project before anything else. To assist you with this task you may refer to the non-exhaustive lists below.
Obtaining adequate information about a public-private partnership is often difficult, especially when sensitive areas of government are involved, such as intelligence and law enforcement. Information about such activities is often purposefully withheld from the public and guarded by excessive laws and punishments.
Technologies at the heart of a public-private partnership can be surrounded by secrecy and opacity making it hard for external actors to assess the risks. From buzzwords to obscure technical terminology, getting a real sense of what the technology at stake is and what it actually does isn’t an easy job. This section is designed to guide you in finding more information about the technology, understanding it, and identifying potential flaws.
Through our investigative work and the work of our partners around the world, we have identified a number of persistent governance issues common to public-private partnerships. We have detailed each of our concerns, and relevant corresponding safeguards, here. In this section we provide some high-level guidance on how to identify these types of concerns.
