Chilling Effect: Regional journalists’ source
protection and information security practice in the wake of the
Snowden and RIPA revelations @PaulBradshaw
Birmingham City University
“This application produced five telephone numbers, all of which were researched for connections with the
[Metropolitan Police Service]. One number was identified as the switchboard number for
Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire. It was established that Officer 15 DPG’s wife Member of Public
3, was employed at that hospital
”Enquiries were made with Siemens in order to identify from the data on the exhibit, which extension within the
hospital the call to The Sun was made from.”
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“Protecting the anonymity of interviewees and their projects
during data collection and analysis is particularly challenging in times of
tight cybersecurity measures and blanket cybersurveillance plans
Milan (in Della Porta, 2014)
Everything has changed…
1. Pre-publication identification 2. Retrospective identification 3. Not just legal defence 4. Indirect targeting
…but journalists haven’t.1. No protection of social media 2. Unclear policies, reliance on visible problems 3. Legal ignorance 4. Network vulnerability 5. No training
“More research is needed…”• Use of law by other
authorities • Workplace surveillance’s
‘chilling effect’ • Ethnography • Source behaviour