Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

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CHAPTER 14
Social media and Big Data
Finally, it is necessary to address the critical issues concerning the geopoliti-
cal distribution of informational power, which represents an emerging problem for 
Europe. Even though big European companies are able to collect and analyze a large 
amount of data, the main commercial social media are based in U.S. and this element 
puts this nation in a better position to control the world's informational flows gener-
ated by the users of these kinds of services.
From a geo-political perspective, this situation represents a weakness for the 
E.U., in terms of the loss of control over the data of its citizens due to the need to 
entrust the management of strategic information to foreign entities. In order to reduce 
this risk, the European industry is being urged to assume a more important role in 
ICT sector (
Kroes, 2011
) and, at the same time, the E.U. is strengthening the protec-
tion of personal data.
BIG DATA AND SOCIAL SURVEILLANCE: PUBLIC 
AND PRIVATE INTERPLAY IN SOCIAL CONTROL
The risks related to the concentration of the control over information in the social 
media context and in general are not restricted to the democratic access and dis-
tribution of information and knowledge, but also to the potential systems of social 
surveillance that can be realized using this information.
From this perspective, the recent NSA case (
European Parliament, 2013c; 
Auerbach et al., 2013; European Parliament, 2013a; European Parliament, 2013b
)
6
is being the more evident representation of the potential consequences of moni-
toring online interaction, although it is just the latest in a series of programs ad-
opted by governmental agencies in various nations to pursue massive social 
surveillance (
European Parliament, 2001; European Parliament 2013a; European 
Parliament 2013b; DARPA. Total Information Awareness Program (TIA), 2002; 
National Research Council, 2008; Congressional Research Service. CRS Report for 
Congress, 2008
).
7
In western democratic nations, the modern social surveillance is no longer real-
ized only by intelligence apparatus, which autonomously collects a huge amount of 
information through pervasive monitoring systems. The social surveillance is the re-
sult of the interaction between the private and public sector, based on a collaborative 
model made possible by mandatory disclosure orders issued by courts or administra-
tive bodies and extended to an undefined pool of voluntary or proactive collabora-
tions from big companies (
Council of Europe, 2008
).
In this way, governments obtain information with the indirect “co-operation” of 
the users who probably would not have given the same information to public entities 
6 
See the various articles publish by The Guardian. Available: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk
; See also the 
various documents available at 
https://www.cdt.org
[Dec. 10, 2013].
7 
See also more sources on TIA are available at 
http://epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
.

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