Serious Privacy

Up Close and Personal: Paul's Favourite Privacy Topic (surveillance)

• K Royal and Paul Breitbarth • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Welcome to our 21st episode of Serious Privacy. There is no better way to celebrate 21 than to return to our basics and have a kitchen table conversation with our own Paul Breitbarth. This week, Paul will discuss his favorite privacy topic. We limited it to one topic - will he go for two topics? Does he have one overwhelming favorite issue in privacy?  With Paul’s background with the data protection authorities, he has more of a legal scholarly slant - so this should be a very interesting treasure hunt to find out what resonates most with him.

Paul’s favorite topic incorporates elements of politics, fundamental rights of individuals, legal discourse, and the international relationship among countries. In this episode, we cover counterterrorism and whistleblowers - bodycams and cell phones. All of these center into one overarching topic that is fascinating and controversial, but also necessary in modern life. 

Join K and Paul in this episode of Serious Privacy to discover Paul’s favorite privacy topic and in-depth discussion about the issues inherent in that topic. Please let us know if you have comments about the episode or the podcast in general by contacting us at serousprivacy@trustarc.com. 

Resources

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

K

welcome to our 21st episode of serious privacy. There is no better way to celebrate 21 than to return to our roots and have a kitchen table conversation with our own Paul

Breitbarth. And I'm

K

excited to do the introduction this week, which probably surprises you not to hear Paul's wonderfully mellow voice, bringing you into the session. We limited it to one topic. He's going to discuss his favorite privacy topic. Do you think he'll go for two

topics like K. Did, does

K

he have one overwhelming favorite issue in privacy? With Paul's background with the data protection authorities, he has much more of a legally scholar slant. So this should be a very interesting treasure hunt to find out what resonates more with Paul.

My name is K Royal. And

Paul

I'm Paul

Breitbarth and welcome

Paul

to Serious Privacy.

K

Awesome. Okay, Paul, that's going to be the question. What is your favorite privacy topic? I really am burning to know cause I'm

sure my two surprised

K

you.

So, K. Before I

Paul

answer your question, let me start with the unexpected

K

Ooh, role reversal.

Paul

time it is then your unexpected question to answer. What's for dinner tonight.

K

It is Friday night, so we will

probably cheat and order pizza.

K

And my pizza options are very limited because I'm allergic to gluten, but there is a local, well, most of the pizzerias now offer the cauliflower crust pizza, but I'm also very picky about my toppings. I don't do mega or Supreme or anything like that. It's usually bacon and cheese

Paul

Sounds like a good dinner for Friday nights.

K

And you? What's free dinner for you?

Paul

I have no idea. It will be a surprise dinner.

K

That's okay. That's not an answer. You're cheating.

Paul

No, it's not. I'm going out to dinner with friends. It's, a dinner and dance. we have bought these tickets well before Corona and have been living in limbo in hope that it would, would be able to go on. it is outside. The weather is nice, so it will, it will take place. But the dinner itself is a surprise. it's at a place called Greens in the Park, which means that they cook everything out of their vegetable garden. but that's about all I know. And then there will be 12 ballet solos

strapped on tonight.

K

That is fantastic. You do know that Arizona rate of COVID infection is like the highest in the world right now.

Paul

Yes. I read things about

K

Yes. We had a rally this week for the president and neither the president nor the governor wore mass, which, you know, president Trump. Doesn't like wearing masks. I thought governor Ducey did though, but he didn't, I was not at the rally, but I saw pictures of it and very few people were wearing masks. So I anticipate that our rate of infection is going to go up even more over the next two

weeks. I can imagine that.

K

Yay. Okay. Wonderful. All right. Now let's get to the privacy topic. What is your favorite privacy topic? I really am dying to know.

Paul

If I only can pick one, then it probably will be government

surveillance. Government Surveillance. Are you

K

talking officially government surveillance for things like COVID or are you talking black ops or are you talking about monitoring the general public?

Paul

All of the above

K

Give me more about that. Why?

Paul

because, it is, it is a topic that is at the crossroads of politics, which I love is, as you may know, of privacy and data protection, of fundamental rights, more in general, of very complex, legal discussions and also how countries relate to each other, the international diplomacy. So like, like your topic last week, it has lots of angles that you can approach the, the government surveillance issue from. And it, it all started from me in, the summer of, I think 2013. I mentioned it before the, the Washington post articles, on top secret America. when I spent probably most of the summer analyzing all those articles that, the Washington post came out with, and, analyzing them from a data protection perspective from an EU data protection perspective, what is going on in the United States and how does this impact, what we are doing here in DEU and any possible data transfers. to the United States, and then came Edward Snowden and, I got to dive in even further and then came to shrimps one decision and I got to dive in again. so, and now shrimps. Two in a couple of weeks, we'll have a special episode on that as well. but all those, all those summers and, winters to some extent, working on these issues, made me realize how much we don't know of, what is, what is going on, what our governments are doing. and trying to know about us. and of course, when you talk about government surveillance in general, the assumption is that you are speaking about, the security and intelligence services looking at what citizens of foreign countries are doing either in your own country or abroad and, and to get, national security related or nationally economy related information that could then be used. But it is also, for example, here in the Netherlands, what the tax authorities are doing, they have, some sort of a catchall provision in the tax legislation that at least in according to their claim allows them to request copies of any database, that the government maintains, whether that is the automated number plate recognition that they could then, used to verify what are the appropriate taxes have been paid for company cars, to, to more generic discussions, to, do the cameras above highways to see again, to verify all those, all those cars, looking at phone records and, and also the phone location data to be able to find out, where people were sleeping to see if they are not. Getting, government funding while, while not sleeping in their own bats. And, and when, so trying to, to, mislead social security, so all kinds of government surveillance and,

K

What parts of it, do you think are good?

Paul

I do understand that governments want to take a look at misuse of government funds and that they want to try to keep the nation secure, and, and protect the citizens against harm. I think that is important, but the way it is done that is concerning to me.

K

And I know that the Snowden really made a big scandal over the United States, which frankly couldn't really have surprised people who are in this area or study this area. But do you think it was unfair that all of the focus landed on the United States when more likely than not every other country was doing? Just about the same thing?

Paul

Yes. And no. let me start with the, no,

because I t to a large

Paul

extent, it was fair because you would expect that, there is a difference between how your allies behave and how your opponents

K

That is

Paul

And the scale, of the government surveillance perpetrated by the United States government, under both democratic and Republican presidents. So the political preferences don't make any difference here, was so vast. and so intransparent, and so secrets, that I think it rightly shocked the world.

K

well, wait a minute. Shocked the world. Shocked the world or shocked Europe.

Paul

No shock the world, shock the world. I think, also outside of Europe, there were, there were lots of concerns raised about the scale of government surveillance. it shocked Europe more probably, because of our fundamental rights approach to personal data. And the impact has certainly been bigger here in Europe than in other jurisdictions. But I do think. there was a wider shock, similar to the shock of the disclosure of the diplomatic cables by wiki-leaks, that proceeded all of this. That, that is also part of that, that whole discussion. What can you disclose? What can whistle blowers this close? What are, what are the boundaries? What are the limits of what governments should do, could do, may need to do, So to that extent. Yes. I think, it was, it was a shock. do old governments do similar things? Yes, of course. national security is something that every government is responsible for. And that is also part of the, the criticism that I have, to, on my own government and on the European member States. It's if you look at the intricacies of, of two European treaties national security is not a topic that falls within the remit of legislation of the European union, because national security is something that belongs to the member States, according to, to the treaty. However, Counter terrorism is something that has been regulated by the European union since nine 11. And especially since the follow up attacks in London and Madrid in 2004 and 2005. And nobody can explain why. Counter-terrorism would qualify just as a criminal law topic or a serious criminal note and not as national security. So in my view, by legislating on counter terrorism issues, the European union has the facto included national security, in their legislative remedy as well. And that also means that for, from a data protection perspective, big European union should be able to legislate on what security services can and cannot do with data of other European member States, how this should impact third country assessments, things like that. I do believe that that should be taken into account because to some extent, it's very hypocrite that we say to the United States. We don't like it. that any data that we transfer to you might end up with the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, or any of the other, security services.

K

ones we may

Paul

Well, the other way around. We make no problem about it. and, and we don't put any restrictions on our security services. that is, that is a bit unfair, but that is the reality of, of the law. at the same time, our courts have also been very clear about what is, and isn't allowed, from a national security perspective and. Because of the fundamental rights approach that we take, whether that is the council of Europe convention, on fundamental rights, or the, EU charter on fundamental rights in both situations, all those rights are attributed to mankind, to humankind, and not to people coming from a specific jurisdiction.

K

Right.

Paul

Whereas in the United States, as we all know, there is a distinction being made by between us persons and non us persons or anybody not having a us passport or a habitual place of residence in the United States. just isn't as protected, as people who have I'm I do.

K

right. And we know that there are countries whose government surveillance is even more intrusive than the United States. So do you have any thoughts? And I'll just randomly bring one to mind China, that

Paul

Very random.

K

random, right. Just kind of popped into my head, but it's interesting because, I have some Chinese friends and they've told me that the government is not truly surveilling its population the way countries outside China seem to think they're doing. And that in particular, the social score is the one that, that gets me, which I understand is it's government surveillance, maybe not quite at the level of counter terrorism, but really ultimately it feeds into that as well. Any thoughts on. That system keep it PC. So we don't have to put a disclaimer may not be appropriate for young audiences.

Paul

Not again. You want to say,

K

I have a thought on that too, by the way.

Paul

Let me, let me see. No, in, in general, I think, the social credit system is very scary. obviously for anybody

who has. seen it, it reminds

Paul

me very much of a black mirror episode. that became reality way too quickly. You haven't seen it. We'll link to it in the, in the show

K

heard about it. Yes.

Paul

it's, it's very scary. But. The, the social credit system for me is a form of government surveillance. I also do understand that a lot of people in and from China considered that differently because the cultural approach is also quite different. they. Are very much brought up in the tradition that, the government is there to take care of you, to protect you, but enabled to, to allow them to do that. They also need to know about you, about who you are, what you do, in order to, to actually be able to take care of you.

K

The difference between a big brother approach and a loving father approach.

Paul

Yeah, I think that that's a fair comparison. and I think if, if we look at the social credit system with our Western mindset, not having, it's been brought up in the full Chinese cultural tradition. and for me then in addition with the whole fundamental rights that have been drilled into my head since day one in law school, and probably even before that, you do get probably a distorted view of, of how the Chinese see it and what the intentions of the government

K

Everything has our bias applied to it.

Paul

Yes, of course. And I'm think to a large extent, if you, if you try to look at it objectively or as objective as I can, I do think that there are elements in the social credit system that are really intended to, to improve society. Because you are also nudge to doing the right things, to behave yourself in traffic, to go visit your parents.

K

for jaywalking.

Paul

Well, you know, there are things that I like less, but I mean, the, the, the, the encouragement to be a bit nicer in society, all in, in, in, in, in general, I do think that that is, that is. A laudable approach. I don't like the way that it has implemented it. But that we could all be a bit more friendly and respectable towards each other instead of always being angry. Might actually be nice.

K

a theory out, or there was a study done that showed that people were more honest when they felt they were being watched. And this was proven out, even if there was just, you know, a picture with them. Apart a face with eyes on it as a brochure right there on the counter and say like, I'm a superstar kind of store, that's sorry, like a corner grocery Mart with gasoline and everything. And that people were more honest. If they felt they were being watched. I kind of took that to extremes and posted a six foot set of eyes on the wall of one of my offices don't know that I disproved or prove the theory, but. This also feeds into what we hear. A lot of police complain about body cams that wearing body cams impacts the way they do their jobs. Now it seems like here in the U S it doesn't seem to be impacting the way they do their job at all, but, that body cams are interfering with how they perform, because they feel like they're always being watched. I'm not sure. I think that's a bad thing. Your thoughts on body

Paul

I think it's very ironic that the police is complaining about being watched, where they are the biggest proponents of having surveillance cameras for their citizens everywhere else. It's cynical.

K

not the local police that have cameras watching everyone else.

Paul

Well, that depends on where you are in, in, in, in the Netherlands. The cameras are often run by the police. and it's not just the police wearing body cameras, also our local security personnel and, and, ticket checkers in, in trains and, and the conductors and yeah, everybody

K

know that

Paul

Yeah. Also for security purposes.

K

know, I want to point out you have not. Once during this podcast heard me go, Oh, that's fantastic.

Paul

True. True. so no it's, for me, all of this. invisible more or less surveillance. indeed has an impact on who we are and what we do. And this is also what, in the words of the European court, causes a chilling effect, but it also causes limitations to people. try trying that people becoming who they want to be, because if you are brought up in a state of fear, that you are not able to express yourself freely because you are always being watched and you're always mindful of the impact on anything you do. then how, how can you develop freely into the human being that you are supposed to become, or that you may want to become. You are always held back and can never make a mistake. How do you learn from your

K

right

Paul

People need to make

K

They do. And are your body cams over their own 24 seven? Like the whole time someone's on the job they're on or do they affirmatively have to turn them on and off?

Paul

They have to turn them on and off. and there is a visual indicator that the camera is on. but I've also encountered already situations where, somebody came to check my ticket on a train and the camera was on.

K

Got it. The reason I was asking is because it feeds into what you were just saying about how can people learn and make mistakes if they're, you know, always being watched. And if the cameras are running 24 seven, people tend to forget they're there. Eventually you become, Oh, what do you call it? Not, desensitized. You become desensitized to the cameras being on and you act as your normal self, but if the camera's affirmatively have to be turned on and off, then you're, you're not allowed that, that opportunity of decent servitization

Paul

I didn't fully agree. because.

K

the not being sensitized.

Paul

The not being desensitized. I think it's, if you know that you are always under observation, that will impact your behavior. If anything, you do can always come back to you. And especially if it is, if it is also happening that indeed follow up is given to, what is being, being recorded, being seen, that will have an impact. And, there are cameras now everywhere, whether it is above. The highway to, to check speeds or to check traffic jams, or to indeed use he, the ANPR cameras, the automated number plate recognition for, I dunno, congestion charges in, in big cities or, to. Like a, a tool system too, that you'll need to pay, in order to get into city centers, during, during rush hour, during the day, like a, an environmental zone, in it to enter a London, the city of London by car, I think by now you pay about 10 pounds a day.

K

there's no like toll booth or big thing you pass under. This is total charge now.

Paul

No, there was just a camera on, on during roads. And, that's linked to your license plate.

K

Now

Paul

the same in Stockholm.

K

that we don't have that amount of cameras here. This is not something the United States is accustomed to. we don't have cameras mounted on all the streets. As a matter of fact, there are some city cities that stand out because they've implemented some camera systems like Chicago, San Francisco, things like that, but they stand out because this isn't common across the United States for States or for cities or counties that actually have toll systems. Most of them are still on the old system of having tollbooths. and even now, if they have the speed tolls that you can skip around the boosts and go through it still, the entire whole elaborate set up that you can tear where it is. We're not accustomed to having cameras here and where, where we do have them. They are very much well known. That the government is taking this extra step and there's lots of debate and discussion over it and everything. So I will say it's interesting that given, and this is something that comes up in the law class. I teach all the time too, given the difference between the fundamental right to privacy in Europe and the United States, Europe has much more mass surveillance than the United States does that we know of, I guess.

Paul

public sector, mass surveillance by run by government. You have much more private sector mass surveillance that is done on behalf of

K

Right. So in that, that kind of, it's interesting in that economy, because of course, if the government was doing mass surveillance that we didn't know of, we wouldn't know of it, but eventually everything here in the United States hits the sheets anyway. But,

Paul

Okay.

K

I think it is interesting. so I know one of them is that in the GDPR, there is that element under high risk data where mass surveillance of a public areas considered one of the high risk areas, that element in itself. Makes no sense to most people here in the U S.

Paul

No, I do understand that, but here it does, because there is so much monitoring of public spaces going on. and also private spaces by the way, because almost every office building nowadays has, has CCTV cameras as well. so. From, from the GDPR perspective, I'm happy that that part is there. at least it provides a bit of a threshold before, surveillance can be implemented, at least that's the hope. but, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a concern.

K

that's not something that the, that is very common in the U S to be accustomed, to there being mass surveillance of, of public areas.

Paul

no, maybe not. I. I must say that I've never really paid attention to cameras in the streets while in the U S and we'll do so the next time that, that I can come across. but it's, it's about more than just the cameras. what probably surprised me most of all the Snowden revelations,

K

Oh, this ought to be

Paul

fact that, well, the fact that there is a secret court with secret judgements. the FISA court, that is something that goes so much against everything I learned in, in, in law school, that everybody should know what the law is all about. that he should have rights of redress that he. Should be able to defend yourself when accused of something. and to just have a court that sits, without hearing from both parties, issues, rulings that are kept secret issues, guidelines that are kept secret. How are you supposed to know what to do if you are not able to read the law?

K

Well, that is true. And the, the foreign intelligence surveillance court, came about in 1976. It came because of, again, some FBI documents that were released to the public, in 1971. And I think it was a Senator I'm looking it up here. Senator Frank Church started investigating it. It was actually called the church committees and that committee was, investigating abuses. government of uses, especially. And so following that they created a committee on intelligence, which later became, or was joined by the FISA and they work to limit the power of the agencies, ensuring that the surveillance fell within the rules of the law. Now I'm not sure how successful they were, But that was interesting. So it, it is a, a secret court with secret judgements, but actually you can, get. Request information from, from FISA request, but it is supposed to regulate the government. And that's why here in the U S inherently, they keep it quiet is so information about our government activities. Aren't released to foreign powers in order, you know, that would open up a vulnerability. That to us makes sense to us.

Paul

when you say that you can request information from the FISA court, you can request it. I can't, because I have no standing being a non U S

K

Right, exactly. But I will say, what does it make sense to people who actually look into it was the USA Patriot act that was passed after nine 11 that, Very very intrusive and very, very broad. And I know it was passed quickly. I know the acts, the actions that the entire world took after nine 11, based on the activities were very strong and immediately, and. We're there for a purpose, but the USA Patriot act went a little further than probably what it should have done. And I think it would even surprise a lot of people in the United States to realize how far the Patriot act went because you know, most, I I'm sure this is the same way in Europe. Most of us don't buckle down and actually read the laws. We just listen, unfortunately, to what social media tells us. The law says.

Paul

Yeah. How much you should be angry

K

Exactly. And if we're not angry about it, there's enough bots out there. If you got 30,000 bots telling you what to be angry about, you weren't going to be angry about it, but now you should, because you're seeing it everywhere.

Paul

So, if everybody is angry, then probably you should be angry too.

K

believes that it's bots, but we all know it's bots.

Paul

Maybe I should start writing some bots and also get the U S to get angry. For example, about the U S cloud act,

K

Oh,

Paul

was, which was also rushed through in response to a court case where the U S were not given what they wanted. the Microsoft Ireland warrant case. interesting piece of case law, because it is about the clash of jurisdictions and that's what makes all of these surveillance issues. So fascinating for me, it's about a clash of jurisdictions and there is no real solution. For a class of jurors, clash of jurisdictions, because, it will always be, if you go with one than the other, then you breached the other law, and, and vice versa. But in the Microsoft Ireland warrant case, the U S government subpoenaed information from Microsoft on a suspect of a serious crime or a terrorist offenses. and that information was stored on servers in Ireland. and Microsoft help correctly. In my view that under EU law, they needed a legal basis to transfer that personal data from Ireland to the United States. And they couldn't because there was no legal basis to do so. The only way to do that was through a mutual, legal assistance procedure, which is intended for situations like this, but the U S government thought that, That would be too lengthy and too complex to, to do so. Instead of paying more attention to the whole discussion on how to improve mutual legal assistance, they just designed a way to get around it. And forest companies headquartered in the U S to hand over the information, wherever in the world, it was stored and not withstanding any other legislation. which from the strict us perspective is understandable and a quick solution, but my internationalist mind, thanks. Well, you better try and solve these things at a global level on a diplomatic level to make sure that also in the future, we have ways in which we can exchange this valuable information because. I don't think that any judge would deny us the right to get information on a potential criminal or terrorist, if it is asked for in the right way.

K

I agree. the cloud act unfortunately was just one of the many activities taken in the. The environment in the United States in more recent years that perhaps, many of the public are unaware of, or it just seems to be almost exhaustion of the government taking actions that if we were more aware of, or those that do pay attention to would vastly disagree with, but I have to tell you many of us here. And I speak for myself and many people I talk to are just under exhaustion of government activities. It's almost, as, as someone said, the government could literally do something like shoot people in the middle of fifth Avenue in New York and nobody would care. And I'm not talking about things that are going on in the past few months on the race relations, just more of some statements that have been made from some political figures. And I'm not trying to push political agenda here. I'm more of the privacy to explain that some of this is merely because we're just in a very different political climate than many of us who study law. We're accustomed to being in

Paul

Yeah. And let me be, yeah, let me be fair because I'm not just criticizing the United States. I am. but not just the United States.

K

Well, thank you, but it's okay. We're, we're accustomed to it too.

Paul

I know, but still, also my own government has, has lots to be sorry for, because, what is it about three, three or three years ago? the Dutch government also proposed a new law on the intelligence and security services. that in my view goes way beyond what is allowed under, our fundamental rights agreements internationally. I can paint against that law, because there was a referendum at the time. and I'm. Pretty much against referenda. And in this case I made an exception. I, I campaigned against the law. I wrote a series of articles as well, because I didn't like, like this law. and just to give, give one example, The Dutch, the Dutch security services are allowed to monitor internet and telecommunications lines. and as people may not be aware, one of the largest internet exchanges in the world is the internet change in Amsterdam, which means that a lot of the global internet traffic is also routed via Amsterdam, which. Then in turn could be surveilled by detached security services. and they are allowed to share data with security services in third countries following, a form of an adequacy assessment to find out if those security services, are treating the information that they receive in a decent way. But what they are also allowed to do is to share information that has not been analyzed yet by the Dutch services with foreign services. they also need to stick to, to, for example, taking out sensitive personal information, that is a rule under the law, but they are allowed to share information before they have made that assessment, which means that it's perfectly possible that the Dutch security services catch information online, in bulk. And before they have done the full analysis share, that data set because they consider it to be important with the security services in France or in Australia or wherever, including all kinds of data that they were not allowed to process strictly here on Dutch soil. and that might also create some sort of backdoor because then they could get it handed back from the foreign services again, as information that they discovered. so that's, that's just one of the examples, but, The, the referendum was clear note. the government, a majority of the people here in the Netherlands said this law should not happen. The government decided to ignore the referendum because it wasn't binding. and, any changes that were promised are still pending in parliament. Which means that the law has been enforced for about three years, it has been evaluated. The supervisory authorities on the security and intelligence services have said it doesn't function well. there is, there is way more information going through to services. It's not well motivated, what they are collecting and at the same time, it's all happening.

K

Well, that actually reminds me of the point. I thought earlier, when you were talking about mass surveillance is the carpenter case that came down through our United States Supreme court back in 2018. That a lot of us were just waiting. With bated breath to see what this case was. And it was interesting because it was based under our third party doctrine where you can get information from a third party, not a government because people voluntarily give their information to a telecommunications carrier. So, therefore it's not protected. You gave it up, you waived your right to privacy. And so we were waiting for this decision to come down because historically our government had ruled that third-part party doctrine was protected that even tracking cell phones was allowed because it's the same thing as being out in the public view. Same that your camera's in Europe, if you're out in the public, you have no expectation of privacy. So tracking someone electronically is the same thing as tracking them in person. Completely allowed you have no expectation of privacy with that. But it was interesting because in the carpenter case, they finally came to a decision and for legal scholars own listening to the podcast. Please forgive me if I mucked this up in complete legal technical terms, but essentially saying that yeah, you can monitor someone electronically by tracking their cell phone. It's the same thing as tracking them in person. But you're not going to track someone in person 24, seven for hundreds of days. So that's actually unreasonable to say it's the same thing as tracking someone in person. And so they didn't go as far as I think that privacy people would like to have a, but it went a lot further than, we were afraid they would" So it was, it was really good. It was a good thing. And that's, that's what I was thinking about. The mass surveillance is the telecommunication. So I'm really glad you brought that back up. I think every country has it. I just, frankly, and as we come to a close, I'll say, I think frankly, that our digital age, the capability of our technology, the sheer massiveness of the technology and the fact that the world is a smaller place because of the technology that. It's just really, really difficult to try to maintain or enforce or establish true control from government surveillance when there's just so much of it, you can't get it. I mean, there's just so much opportunity there. How can you possibly not do it? I wish they wouldn't. In some cases, I'm with you. I think it's intrusive, in many cases and uncontrolled in a lot of cases. But it's just, this is something that our, our forefathers, our ancestors people in our own generations would never have imagined 50 years ago.

Paul

No, I agree. It's especially with telecommunications, it's become very hard to, to say unobserved. and again, that is part of caseload of the European courts in, in a number of cases by now on the retention of telecommunications data. And also dare to court refers to the chilling effect. If you are

monitored 24/7,

Paul

that, that is a concern.

K

Yeah, it really is. Well, thank you. I. Would not have guessed that as being your topic, but I guess I could have, I had several running around in my brain as to what your favorite topic might be and you didn't disappoint absolutely fascinating topic. I loved talking about it with you.

Paul

it's a good setup for the episode we'll

do on the Schrems II decision that

Paul

comes out on 16 July. we'll try to have it out as quickly as possible after the judgment comes. so watch out for that in the 17 July weekend.

K

I am very, very excited about that. So again, my pleasure to be able to do the wrap up. If you like our series, please do tell your friends and colleagues about us. Should you have any questions or suggestions? If you even want to be on our show because we welcome that. And by the way, our next show, I'm highly considering doing an open mic. I might have to bribe some friends to attend, but just opening up a zoom call and let privacy people come in and figure out what that is. So look forward to that as well. Now that I've said it, I kind of have to do it. but please reach out to us

via seriousprivacy@trustarc.com

K

and that's arc for arc or via Twitter

at@podcastprivacy, you

K

will find Paul

on Twitter as@EuroPaulB, and you

K

will find me on

Twitter as@heartofprivacy We've thoroughly

K

enjoyed being able to share this with you. We've hoped you enjoyed it as well. And Paul always says goodbye for now. So I have to let him do that. Bye y'all

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Dr. K Royal

Host
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Paul Breitbarth

Host
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Ralph O'Brien

Host