Guest editorial
| Date | 14 August 2017 |
| Pages | 182-182 |
| Published date | 14 August 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-03-2017-0020 |
| Author | Simon Rogerson |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information & communications technology |
Guest editorial
A covert future?
It has often been reported that GeorgeOrwell’s involvement with the Spanish Civil war was
the defining experience of his life. It greatly influenced his writing of Animal Farm
published in 1945 and 1984 publishedin 1949. Both books were about systems of oppression
and oppressive regimes.In 1968, Alexander Solzhenitsynwrote in Cancer Ward:
As every man [and woman] goes through life he [she] fills in a number of forms for the record, each
containing a number of questions. There are thus hundreds of little threads radiating from every man
[and woman], millions of threads in all. If these threads were suddenly to become visible, the whole
sky would look like a spider’sweb[...]people would all lose the ability to move [...].
Once a significant level of technological interoperability was achieved big data existed. Big
data is not new. At present, we simply have Even Bigger Data making possible the horrific
societies which Orwell and Solzhenitsyn wrote about.In the not-too-distant future with the
cloud, big data, and maybe 80-90per cent of the world’s population online and connected the
scope for systems of oppression seems limitless. Consequently, we must consider and
counter what oppressive regimes of tomorrow’s world could and might do in their drive to
subjugate humankind(Rogerson, 2015).
In 2013, the Edward Snowden disclosures, for which he has been described as a hero, a
whistleblower, a dissident, a patriot and a traitor, shocked the world. Here was clear
evidence of how technology was being used covertly to survey and control citizens. The
impact of these disclosurescontinues to reverberate worldwide. It is thereforeappropriate to
devote a Special Issue of the Journal of Information,Communication and Ethics in Society to
this topic. It is based on an internationalproject led by Andrew Adams and Kiyoshi Murata.
As such they are the guest editorsof the special edition.
The project comprised studies in seven different countries to analyse the impact and
perception of the social and ethical issues raised by Snowden. After a scene-setting
introductory paper, each study is reported in detail in separate papers. The data sets collected
have been consolidated to enable a comparative analysis to be undertaken which forms the
basis of the final study paper. The special issue is unusual in that the co-authorship of several
papers includes both the guest editors. This is unsurprising given the close cooperation of the
project’s team of international researchers. For this reason, the anonymous review process was
overseen by me, as Editor of JICES. The order of authors for each paper is based on the
contributions made. The special issue concludes with a paper from Robin Wilton in which he
reflects on the study and the implications for us all, as we move in to a future which may or
may not be dominated by covert surveillance and societal manipulation.
Simon Rogerson
Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR), De Montfort University,
Leicester, UK
Reference
Rogerson, S. (2015), TheETHICOMP Odyssey: 1995 to 2015, Self-published on www.researchgate.net,
12 September,doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2660.1444.
JICES
15,3
182
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.15 No. 3, 2017
p. 182
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-03-2017-0020
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