A multidisciplinary collaborative research project funded by the European Commission has led to the creation of a methodology that uses a nuanced approach for determining security benefits of surveillance technologies against financial costs, moral hazards and impact on fundamental rights.
For the first time, this comprehensive methodology, the SURVEILLE methodology, takes into account the impact of different surveillance technologies on fundamental rights like the right to privacy and freedom of expression. At the same time, it measures effectiveness, including cost. The methodology is informed by local conditions and scenarios and will simultaneously protect people’s security and fundamental rights.
The project was undertaken because surveillance technologies used in the prevention, investigation and prosecution of terrorism and other serious crimes are ubiquitous. However, policymakers are having a hard time weighing the actual security benefit of any surveillance technology against the potential financial cost, moral hazard, or resulting intrusion into privacy and other fundamental rights.
A policy brief has been written to explain the benefits of the methodology and how lawmakers, police officers, prosecutors, and judges can use it.
The findings of this research which led to the methodology emanate from research undertaken by the European University Institute, University of Warwick, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Delft University of Technology, Albert-Ludwig-University Freiburg, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Université Libre de Bruxelles – Institute d’Etudes Européennes, the European Forum for Urban Security, Merseyside Police, and the University of Birmingham.