A Review of Emerging Legal and Ethical Issues in Societal Verification

Experts inside and outside of government who have access to data , mobile devices or analytical tools can now collect, fuse and analyze disparate data streams in new and innovative ways. Advancements in big data, social media analytics and ubiquitous sensing may be able to support efforts aimed at halting the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons through a process often called “societal verification.” While the societal verification concept has evolved significantly in rec ent years, there are still unresolved legal and ethical issues associated with the use of these tools and concepts. This paper will outline a roadmap for how states, outside experts and private citizens might deal with the legal and ethical issues associa ted with societal verification. We will summarize the important lessons learned from a May 2014 workshop sponsored by the State Department's Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and the UC Berkeley Nuclear Science and Security Consortium. We will highlight the open issues that need resolution and report on the government and private sector views on approaches to societal verification. This paper will also explo re public perceptions on privacy and civil liberty issues, corporate data collection and differing views from around the world.