Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will guard the guards themselves?



 Breaches of our private lives are now a daily occurrence. These breaches can range from simple public record checks such as electoral roll and land titles searches about an individual which are freely available if you know where to look or if you are willing to pay for the service through online providers.

Then we have the unauthorised access of controlled public information’s files like database and intelligence files by police officers for their personal use. Just ask ex bikini model, Renee Eaves whose police file was accessed by 300 different police officers a record 1475 times1 since 2006 which she only found out when filing a request for "Right to information". Renee is currently suing Queensland Police Services for $400,00 in damages.

From an official point of view to dig even further into how the government accessing our privacy, the police can conduct covert search and entry warrants whilst you are not in your home which are more commonly referred to as "sneak and peek"2. In addition to this can now commit criminal activities whilst also legally use false identities and they have immunity from prosecution. The caveat on these actions is that they must only be used when the term of imprisonment for the crime is 10 years or more. The crazy thing about this is if you haven't been charged or convicted then the sentence period cannot be known. The USA takes this even further and convicts in absentia and without your knowledge through the Grand Jury system and only the prosecution gets to present a case.

Intelligence agencies have also free rein under the excuse of “National Security” to access our stored electronic data through targeted hacking. The most recent WikiLeaks release provided the details of documents and software used by the CIA to hack into personal handheld devices and computer systems. Why they want to look at my selfies and food blog pictures beats the hell out of me. 

Finally, after all these semi-legitimate hacks of our privacy we arrive at the one group that we are warned about by all these other parties, the cyber-criminal. At least we know what the cyber-criminal wants our private data for, to make financial gain. I am glad that one group, the cyber-criminal finally actually has an honest agenda. the sale of private data3 is available through the Dark Web. Unfortunately there is no honour amongst thieves and the criminals hacked the AlphaBay marketplaces4 as well.
Intelligence agencies have spent billions developing methods to access our electronic devices maybe they could have just purchased it on the Dark Web marketplace as well!!

So who decides who gets access to what and what rules govern the use of their access?

1.     Agius, K, 2016, Queensland Police access social justice advocate’s personal file 1400 times 2 September accessed March 2017, www.abc.net.au

2.     Allard, T, 2007, New secret search powers the Sydney Morning Heralds,  1 August, accessed March 2017 from Sydney Morning Herald.

3.     Robinson, R, 2017, The Dark Web Marketplace: A Shopping Centre for Attackers, January 26 accessed March 2017 from www.security intelligence.com.

4.     Khandelwal, S, 2017, AlphaBay Dark Web Marketplace Hacked; Exposes Over 200,000 Private Messages, 24 January accessed from The Hacker News.



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