A Question of Balance

DHS representatives are often asked whether it is true that whatever is done to strengthen security must be at the expense of privacy, as if it were a zero-sum game. As Secretary Chertoff said in Montreal before an international conference of the data privacy community, such a balance is subjective and fails to recognize that privacy can and must be preserved while securing the homeland. Reasonable people want security and privacy, and would prefer not to assign a relative value to each fundamental right.

Moreover, adopting the balance paradigm effectively denies the ability of our leaders and institutions to craft policies that achieve both of these aims. Why assume the tradeoff, when we can adopt policies and employ new technologies that support privacy and security alike?

DHS policy is to uphold both privacy and security, because both are fundamental rights and one positively impacts the other.

Consider for example, the fair-information practice principle of transparency. DHS posts its System of Record Notices and Privacy Impact Assessments on our website. These documents inform the public what personal information the government is collecting; how it will be used and shared; what consent, access and redress rights the individual may have; how the information will be protected; and how compliance with these protections is audited. Privacy is enhanced by revealing what the government is doing, and security is enhanced by DHS supporting systems intended to protect the public.

In his prepared remarks to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on December 5, 2006, Fred Cate, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, noted that he had been “struck by how closely connected privacy and security really are.” The thrust of Cate’s remarks was that good privacy protection not only can help build support for the appropriate use of personal data to enhance security, it can also contribute to making security tools more effective. I agree with Professor Cate. Protecting privacy while protecting the homeland builds public trust in our institutions. I see privacy and security as compatible and supporting partners in our mission to use information effectively to protect the homeland.

Hugo Teufel
Chief Privacy Officer