Classroom Companion: Business

20.4 · Abuse of Big Data

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20
20.4.1 
 Clandestine Operations
Big data is used by intelligence and security agencies for collection and analysis of 
clandestine information. One example is the NSA-led PRISM program, where the 
US government collects data from various Internet service providers in the USA 
and by intercepting all Internet traffic into the USA. A large part of the world’s 
Internet traffic passes through the USA and is, therefore, the best source there is for 
collection of clandestine information. Close cooperation with the Government 
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the UK also provides them with clan-
destine information that GCHQ collect by intercepting Internet traffic into the 
UK. The program is secret, but the existence of it was leaked by Edward Snowden 
in 2013 and published in The Washington Post and The Guardian.
Most of the large companies in the digital economy have provided input to the 
program, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, and YouTube, just to 
mention some of the biggest contributors.
Another related interception program is he ECHELON project operated by the 
USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for interception of satellite 
traffic, telephone traffic, and the Internet (Gerhard, 
2001
). Its existence was dis-
closed by The Guardian in 2001: “What is Echelon? A global network of electronic 
spy stations that can eavesdrop on telephones, faxes and computers. It can even 
track bank accounts. … Officially, however, Echelon doesn’t exist. Although evi-
dence of Echelon has been growing since the mid-1990s, America flatly denies that 
it exists, while the UK government’s responses to questions about the system are 
evasive” (Perrone, 
2001
).
The biggest problem that programs like PRISM and ECHELON generate is 
that they are not under democratic control and can be misused by the government 
to control and manipulate the population. There are two major types of informa-
tion that is intercepted and stored: the content of messages and conversations 
and the metadata associated with the messages. These concepts are explained in 
7
Box 
20.4
.