UK Public Attitudes to National Security Data Processing: Assessing Human and Machine Intrusion

Emerging technologies are transforming national security data processing, as many analytical tasks can now be automated – including through machine learning and artificial intelligence. However, despite much discourse on the opportunities and risks presented by these technologies, there is a lack of empirical research assessing the UK public’s attitudes to data processing for national security. This report fills this gap, presenting new evidence from a citizens’ panel and representative survey of more than 3,000 UK adults. The research shows that there is strong overall support for national security data processing, but that support is significantly lower among young adults and vulnerable adults, or for non-operational use cases. The findings suggest that the public do not perceive automated data processing as inherently less intrusive than human processing, and they care just as much about accuracy and fairness as they do about privacy intrusion. Robust oversight is considered a top priority across all data processing contexts, but there is very limited public understanding of existing national security oversight structures. Improving public awareness of the existing oversight regime is likely to significantly increase trust in national security data processing, and should be prioritised in future public engagement.