Discuss and critically analyse the statement below in a 3000 word essay.
“You are under surveillance right now. Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you’re unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.
The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches.
Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained?”
Bruce Schneier, Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World (2015)
Each essay must address the following three points. You will lose marks if you do not address all three points, though you do not have to spend an equal amount of time on each. It is likely that you will spend more time on part 3.
1. It must show understanding of the actual terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. This can be done by discussing Acts of Parliament or public authorities concerned, and then pointing out why, in terms of the HRA, human rights apply.
2. Discuss in general terms the negative and/or positive obligations imposed on states by the particular Convention right. This part of the essay involves giving a general sense of the major Convention right you are discussing.
3. Applications of these negative and/or positive obligations to the area of law discussed in the quote. This is the most important part of the essay and the discussion needs to be illustrated from case law, both of the European Court of Human Rights and UK (not necessarily English) courts, including the (old) House of Lords and the UK Supreme Court.
You will gain credit for evidence of research in primary sources (e.g. cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights and/or the principal UK courts), for careful explanation of the applicable legal rules and principles and for interesting discussion and analysis of important points.
Note that you will need to put your answer into the context of English/UK law. However, please ensure that the focus of your answer deals with the impact of human rights law.
