The Eyes Are Watching: What Are Information-Sharing Alliances and Why Should You Care

When was the last time you watched a spy movie, where the government employees, the ultimate good guys of the movie, saved the day by combining intelligence with muscles, luxurious black suits, and firearms?

You may think that those types of movies are a dramatization of government work, but intelligence collection is a real phenomenon, playing a crucial part in how modern countries function, and the individuals involved are not always the heroes they are portrayed to be. Today, countries don’t just collect intelligence on their own – there also exist alliances of countries that share the intelligence information they collect with one another. 

The Five Eyes

One such alliance is the Five Eyes, an international intelligence alliance including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Initially formed in the Second World War, the Five Eyes (and its expanded versions, like the Nine and 14 Eyes) are committed to protecting shared national interests and democratic values through means of intelligence collection and cooperation.

At least that’s what they want you to think. In reality, while members of the alliance do work together to combat international threats and ensure collective security, this cooperation comes at a cost. From where I stand, the price is a reduced expectation of online privacy for the general public, including people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing, like you, me, or your next-door neighbor.

In 2013, the scale of this issue became impossible to ignore. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed classified documents revealing how intelligence agencies in Five Eyes countries collected and shared vast amounts of internet and communications data. 

One of the most notable programs was Tempora, a surveillance system run by the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Tempora intercepts data traveling through fibre-optic cables, allowing intelligence agencies to access enormous volumes of internet traffic, much of it unrelated to specific ongoing criminal investigations. Documents showed that this data was shared with the U.S. National Security Agency.

For many internet users, this was the first clear sign that mass surveillance wasn’t a hypothetical future risk; it was already happening.

They’re Watching You

You may think that your life isn’t that interesting, but in a world where we spend most of our lives online, your digital activity (browsing history, metadata on emails, phone calls, online shopping, social media activity, etc.) is all tracked and potentially read without your knowledge or consent.

Yes, you may have called your ex-girlfriend three times last night and posted an Instagram story from a coffee shop this morning. While it’s not a matter of national security per se, it gets swept up in the same wave of digital data collection related to actual criminal activity. 

The government won’t read your newest Facebook post, or track your Spotify playlists (we all listen to Glee covers from time to time, there’s no shame in that), but nearly everything you and I do online is still collected in one fell swoop. It’s less “Big Brother is watching you” and more like someone quietly saving your entire browsing history forever, even though 99% of it is absolutely unremarkable (Googling your cold symptoms and the spelling of “necessary” included).

When Surveillance Crosses the Line

Discussions about intelligence-sharing alliances often remain abstract, but history shows that these systems don’t always operate with perfect restraint.

Beyond Tempora, Snowden’s work exposed several other mass surveillance programs used or shared amongst the Five Eyes alliance partners. PRISM, for instance, is a code name for a program that allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect internet communications (like photos, emails, and videos) from various U.S. internet companies, like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, Facebook, AOL, and Apple. 

And while Skype and AOL have already become relics of the past, tech giants like Google and Apple are still very much part of my daily routine. And I’m sure they’re part of yours as well.

Another program is DISHFIRE, exposed by Snowden in 2014. It’s a joint effort run by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that collects hundreds of millions of text messages from around the world. According to a leaked document from GCHQ, DISHFIRE gathers pretty much every bit of data it can extract from a text message. 

Apparently, it helps to determine potential criminal targets before their actions actually draw the attention of law enforcement. How would you like to be watched by law enforcement “just in case”? I know I sure wouldn’t want that.

Is It Worth It?

Back in 2013, former U.S. President Barack Obama (in)famously argued that people can’t expect to feel 100% safe online and in the streets without experiencing any inconvenience and also maintaining 100% of their personal privacy. He claimed that as a society, we need to make a choice on what’s more important. Essentially, Barack Obama’s opinion was that mass government surveillance was a necessary evil we have to live with in order to catch terrorists and other types of criminals.

In general, supporters of such data-collecting allegiances claim that if you’re not doing anything wrong (and no, calling your ex doesn’t count), you have nothing to worry about. However, wanting some privacy isn’t about trying to hide wrongdoing; it’s about your autonomy and consent. You and I are entitled to privacy online, and we should be able to have a say in how much of our personal information is subject to monitoring.

Why This Still Matters

I understand it might be tempting to brush these uncomfortable revelations under the carpet as part of history. But we shouldn't let it slide because the infrastructure that enabled this is still very much around. Our internet usage has continued to grow, and data collection is becoming increasingly sophisticated by the day. 

I think the most concerning aspect of this massive data collection and sharing is not the parts we’re already familiar with – it’s the parts we don’t know yet. Surveillance programs are rarely (if ever) made publicly available on the government’s accord, and public debate on such issues is often caused by leaks and their consequences, not proactive decisions taken by privacy advocates.

In a world where our online adventures are inseparable from everyday life, the Five Eyes alliance raises a fundamental question: how much of government surveillance is acceptable in the name of security? There’s no easy answer, but ignoring the question entirely comes with real consequences.

You may not be a spy or a criminal, but your data still matters!