From ʼneed to share’ to ʼneed to care’: Information aggregation and the need to care about how surveillance technologies are used for counter-terrorism

The power, reach, and depth of surveillance technologies have expanded considerably in recent history. This presents both a benefit and burden for counter-terrorism. As more and more modern life is integrated with information technologies, the state’s capacity to include individuals in surveillance practices has increased considerably. On the other hand, however, those engaged in counter-terrorism operations are themselves now potentially subject to surveillance by terrorists, military rivals, and political adversaries. The paper argues that individuals need to be careful with their own personal information, and that they need to be careful with other people’s personal information, even if that information is publicly available and/or relatively innocuous. Ultimately, I suggest that we need to shift our attitude to personal information from ʼneed to share’ to ʼneed to care’.