The issue or privacy is never far from the surface. In
November 2013 Britain’s three security agency chiefs appeared before a Commons
Select Committee to explain their wish to monitor and store email and phone
traffic. In the summer of 2014 the UK government rushed through a bill to allow
police and security services to continue to access data as to who calls or
emails who and when (but not the content of those messages) as part of the
armoury against terrorism.
Protests against such “a snooper’s charter” are loud but the
need is strongly defended by security experts. “I always felt uncomfortable eavesdropping
on private phone conversations or covertly watching people at home,” a former
Chair of the Cobra intelligence group has said. “We never did it lightly,” he
added, and concluded that to deny security services “the ability to match the
technological advances of the criminals and terrorists they are up against is
like allowing detectives fingerprint technology but forbidding them DNA. It is
to condemn our security services to fight the last war.” 1
In fact they don’t have the resources to do more than track
a small number of people who are known to be a potential threat and have to
ignore the billions of innocent messages flashing around the world every day. (Although
there has been a more worrying “Big Brother” pilot scheme in China in which
citizens of one city were individually trackable.2)
But as the co-founder of the Carphone Warehouse, Sir Charles
Dunstone, has said, our anxiety is very selective. Large companies know more
about us than we realise. “Everyone is up in arms about GCHQ looking in emails
to see if someone is saying ‘semtex’ and ‘jihad’, but they are completely
relaxed that Google reads all their emails and tries to sell them stuff based
on the words they put in them.”3 To say nothing of the personal data
about our tastes and finances that is collected and shared through store loyalty
cards and finance institutions.
There’s another inconsistency, too, in that many people
choose to waive their privacy in reality TV shows, in films posted on YouTube and
revelations written on Facebook and Twitter. Balanced against the human desire
for privacy is a desire to be noticed by the world. Of course, we have some
control over what we reveal voluntarily, but the exhibitionist or opinionated tendency
seems often to outweigh common sense and personal decorum.
Like many, I personally dislike cold sales calls and spam
email and targeted marketing which use social and commercial data to reach me.
In many ways it’s more invidious than surveillance for security purposes yet rarely
attracts similar opprobrium. We learn to ignore it as best we can, just as we rarely
notice the ubiquitous security cameras on every street corner, the proven benefits
of which are statistically very small.
Biblical angles on
privacy
The debate sent me, as any debate does, back to the
principles enshrined in the Bible which should at least inform (if not
determine) a Christian response to a problem that obviously didn’t exist in the
same way in the ancient world. And three things stand out.
First, individualism.
While the Bible recognises that each person is accountable for their own
actions, it knows nothing of the intense individualism of western society
today. Herded as we are into close urban and suburban environments, we
jealously guard our individuality against the impersonal nature of a mass
society and react strongly to intrusion into our private space; I am a man not
a number. Biblically, however, the emphasis is much more on the individual as a
responsible and active member of a group (village, tribe) which itself is part
of the wider community. It is the interests of the community that take priority
and personal interest and conduct is subservient to them.
Secondly, fear. There
is a strong climate of fear and suspicion within western society. We are
anxious that others will harm us in some way. We suspect their motives. We no
longer welcome strangers and “entertain angels without knowing it” (Hebrews
13:2). It stems from a variety of causes but it reinforces our efforts to
protect our own interests and to build a protective shell around us. Of course on
rare occasions a corrupt person might take advantage of information about us,
but that is not a reason to trust no-one but ourselves.
Thirdly, God. We
can’t hide anything from God. The story of Adam and Eve kicks off a Bible-long
theme that in the spiritual realm there is no privacy. God misses nothing. That’s
not intended (generally) to instil fear although it can do when we consciously
disobey basic commandments; rather it is a message of loving care. He watches,
because he cares; he grieves when we go astray; he applauds our puny efforts to
serve him and the world.
For me, meditating on that puts the current debate into a
much wider perspective. I become more concerned about what God sees than what
some human database records. Yes, Scripture warns us not to take advantage of
each other, and some data gathering in the commercial world seems close to
doing that and should rightly arouse social concern. But it also tells me not
to fear what people might (and equally might not) do to me personally, because
there is a bigger picture and a greater concern to focus on.
Think and talk
1. Discuss the extent
of both individualism and fear in your society, and how it affects our
attitudes to other people, to government and to institutions.
2. See how secrecy can’t
exist in the spiritual realm: Psalm 90:8; Psalm 121; Psalm 139; Proverbs 15:3;
Jeremiah 23:23-24. What comfort, encouragement and challenge do these passages
bring?3. There are promises that at the end of time that all will be revealed. How do you feel about that? Luke 8:17; Romans 2:16; 1 Corinthians 14:25; Revelation 20:12.
4. What effect might such awareness have on our lives? 2 Corinthians 4:2; Ephesians 4:17-5:2
References
1. Colonel Richard
Kemp, The Times, 7 April 2012.2. See David Landrum, “From Big Brother to Big Society?”, The Bible in Transmission, Bible Society, Summer 2010.
3. Interview in The Times, 30 November 2013
