Ethics and privacy in national security and critical infrastructure protection

Protection of critical infrastructures has a growing role in national security issues. These include power and water supplies, traffic management systems, financial services and communication networks. Attacks on any of these can damage economies, cause disasters and may lead to loss of life. Dependence on critical infrastructures in modern societies makes them targets for organized crime and terrorism. Their protection is vital to national security and public safety. This paper highlights the importance of ethical principles in the design of critical infrastructure network protection systems, focusing on privacy and data protection. It introduces our research addressing privacy in the design of one such system funded by the European Commission´s FP7 Programme. Debates surrounding national security and privacy involve policy makers, regulators, academics, security engineers and the public. A proposal from the designer of the Privacy by Design framework is discussed and the paper concludes by challenging policy makers, researchers and the technology industry to review and develop such proposals and enable the protection of national security and privacy.