During my career as a DBA, I have on several occasions passed data to the police and to national security services. This has always been in an official capacity in response to a warrant, a request for discovery of evidence, or a formal government request. It has always been clear and simple. This clear line is becoming greyer for us because technology moves faster than the legal system. Despite this, with goodwill between government and technologists, we try to steer a straight and narrow path to avoid the worst of the dangers that technology can bring.

Dangers? For technologists, it is the specter of the abuse of government powers for detecting terrorist activity and international drugs smuggling. However, there are other dangers. The England "BlackBerry riots" of 2011, for example, were orchestrated mainly via mobile devices and social media. In fairness, technology assisted greatly in the subsequent identification and prosecution of the looters. ISIL relies on western social media for recruiting and communications. Cybercrime, in its many manifestations, is increasing, and it is getting ever harder to defuse terrorist plots before people get hurt.

The goodwill that exists between technologists and governments is under some strain, particularly in Europe. Without this, it is becoming harder to fight crime. Most large social media companies are based in the US, and to compel a US company to provide evidence, a legal team outside the US must file a request to the US Justice Dept. Under MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty). This can take ages and, as a result, criminal prosecutions are delayed to the benefit of nobody. It is sometimes hard to do the right thing according to the sometimes-conflicting laws between States in the US*, or between European nations. Even in one country, the law can be confused. For a while, in Germany, there were two mutually contradictory laws on the retention of telephone records. You had to destroy them within a year and retain them for five years. Because of the speed of advance in technology, the law is always years behind the current requirements and concerns.

We can't stop technology to let the law catch up. Terrorists and criminals will find and exploit the new opportunities that open up as technology develops. We have to prevent this happening. The technology giant companies of the US cannot, for long, play one jurisdiction off against another, in order to avoid responsibility. Goodwill, collaboration, thoughtful custodianship of data, and sensitivity towards legitimate privacy seem to be the only viable option. We've got to be able to allow governments to perform their function without restriction. Technologists generally make poor politicians.

Phil Factor.

*see: Internet Law: Text and Materials, By Chris Reed Cambridge University press