Publication of the week: Dr Julian Richards

Julian Richards, “Needles in haystacks: Law, capability, ethics and proportionality in Big-Data intelligence gathering”, in A. Bunnik, A. Cawley, M. Mulqueen & A. Zwitter (eds), Big Data Challenges (Society, Security, Innovation and Ethics) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 73-84. ISBN: 978-1-349-94884-0.

As we move resolutely into a Big Data age, it appears that a sense of “panoptic panic” is growing among sections of the public, boosted by the Snowden revelations, about the expanding capabilities of our intelligence agencies. Law enforcers and security officials will often speak about the need to amass large amounts of data to find needles in haystacks, but civil libertarians and cyber-utopianists warn of a slide towards Orwellian powers of mass surveillance. Big Data certainly implies an epistemological shift in data analysis, and opens up new opportunities for security agencies to become more proactive and pre-emptive. This chapter argues that, while the risks of such a move must be recognised, we must also be able to deliver security responsibly.

Read more on the Palgrave Macmillan website.

Dr Julian Richards is Senior Lecturer in Intelligence Studies at Buckingham, and Deputy Director of the Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS).