116
6 A Planetary-Scale Threat
are also ranked in a neo-feudal manner. Money reigns in ways that are probably in
conflict with human rights.
This does not mean there are no Citizen Scores run by government institutions
in the West. It seems, for example, that a system similar to the Social Credit Score
has first been invented by the British secret service GCHQ. Even though the state is
not allowed to rank the lives of people,
49 there exists a “Karma Police” program,
50
which judges everyone’s value for society. This score considers everything from
watching porn to the kind of music you like.
51 Of course, all of this is based on
mass surveillance. So, in some Western democracies, we are not far from punishing
“thought crimes”, it seems.
6.11 Digital Policing
This brings us to the subject of digital policing. We must be aware that, besides
political power and economic power, there is now a new, digital form of power. It
is based on two principles: “asymmetric information” and “code is law”.
52 In other
words, algorithms increasingly decide how things work, and what is possible or not.
Algorithms introduce new laws into our world, often evading democratic decisions
in parliament.
The digital revolution aims at reinventing every aspect of life and finding more
effective solutions, also in the area of law enforcement. We all know the surveillancebased fines we have to pay if we are driving above the speed limit on a highway or
in a city. The idea of “social engineers” is now to transfer the principle of automated
punishment to other areas of life as well. If you illegally download a music or movie
file, you may get in trouble. The enforcement of intellectual property, including the
use of photos, will probably be a lot stricter in the future. But travelling by plane or
eating meat, drinking alcohol or smoking, and a lot of other things might be soon
automatically punished as well.
For some, mass surveillance finally offers the opportunity to perfect the world
and eradicate crime forever. As in the movie “Minority Report”, the goal is to anticipate—and stop—crime, before it happens. Today’s PreCrime and predictive policing
programs already try to implement this idea. Based on criminal activity patterns and
a predictive analytics approach, police will be sent to anticipated crime hotspots
to stop suspicious people and activities. It is often criticized that the approach is
49 Deutscher Ethikrat: „Der Staat darf menschliches Leben nicht bewerten“, ZEIT (March 27,
2020) https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2020-03/deutscher-ethikrat-coronavirus-beh
andlungsreihenfolge-infizierte.
50 British ‘Karma Police’ program carries out mass surveillance of the web, The Verge (September
25, 2015) https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/25/9397119/gchq-karma-police-web-surveillance.
51 Profiled: From Radio to Porn, British Spies Track Web Users’ Online Identities, The Intercept
(September 25, 2015) https://theintercept.com/2015/09/25/gchq-radio-porn-spies-track-web-usersonline-identities/.
52 Lessig [9].
6 A Planetary-Scale Threat
are also ranked in a neo-feudal manner. Money reigns in ways that are probably in
conflict with human rights.
This does not mean there are no Citizen Scores run by government institutions
in the West. It seems, for example, that a system similar to the Social Credit Score
has first been invented by the British secret service GCHQ. Even though the state is
not allowed to rank the lives of people,
49 there exists a “Karma Police” program,
50
which judges everyone’s value for society. This score considers everything from
watching porn to the kind of music you like.
51 Of course, all of this is based on
mass surveillance. So, in some Western democracies, we are not far from punishing
“thought crimes”, it seems.
6.11 Digital Policing
This brings us to the subject of digital policing. We must be aware that, besides
political power and economic power, there is now a new, digital form of power. It
is based on two principles: “asymmetric information” and “code is law”.
52 In other
words, algorithms increasingly decide how things work, and what is possible or not.
Algorithms introduce new laws into our world, often evading democratic decisions
in parliament.
The digital revolution aims at reinventing every aspect of life and finding more
effective solutions, also in the area of law enforcement. We all know the surveillancebased fines we have to pay if we are driving above the speed limit on a highway or
in a city. The idea of “social engineers” is now to transfer the principle of automated
punishment to other areas of life as well. If you illegally download a music or movie
file, you may get in trouble. The enforcement of intellectual property, including the
use of photos, will probably be a lot stricter in the future. But travelling by plane or
eating meat, drinking alcohol or smoking, and a lot of other things might be soon
automatically punished as well.
For some, mass surveillance finally offers the opportunity to perfect the world
and eradicate crime forever. As in the movie “Minority Report”, the goal is to anticipate—and stop—crime, before it happens. Today’s PreCrime and predictive policing
programs already try to implement this idea. Based on criminal activity patterns and
a predictive analytics approach, police will be sent to anticipated crime hotspots
to stop suspicious people and activities. It is often criticized that the approach is
49 Deutscher Ethikrat: „Der Staat darf menschliches Leben nicht bewerten“, ZEIT (March 27,
2020) https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2020-03/deutscher-ethikrat-coronavirus-beh
andlungsreihenfolge-infizierte.
50 British ‘Karma Police’ program carries out mass surveillance of the web, The Verge (September
25, 2015) https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/25/9397119/gchq-karma-police-web-surveillance.
51 Profiled: From Radio to Porn, British Spies Track Web Users’ Online Identities, The Intercept
(September 25, 2015) https://theintercept.com/2015/09/25/gchq-radio-porn-spies-track-web-usersonline-identities/.
52 Lessig [9].