Technology is driving the transparency agenda and charities ignore it at their peril, warns John Tate.

“The spy story of our age”; “The biggest US intelligence breach in recent US history”; “Obama’s Watergate”.

These are a sample of just three headlines from the hundreds last month which covered the allegations by Edward Snowden. He claimed that the US authorities have been extracting and looking at personal details of individuals on websites maintained by the likes of Google and Facebook.

There are actually two stories here. Firstly, the allegation of murky deeds by the US National Security Authority (NSA) and, secondly, the fact that this information was leaked to the international press.

Accessing secure data

Let us look first at the allegation, and assume – at least in part – that it is true. We all know that the NSA is engaged in combating all sorts of terrorist and other threats. Those who work in the technology space also know how easy it is to access large amounts of secure data.

The legal position on ‘snooping’ on personal information in the US is arguably a little unclear. I imagine the deciding factor in allowing the alleged spying to take place was that the authorities thought that they could get away with it without people knowing. So no surprise for me there.

But the fact that someone would leak this, and come out in the open, was a real shock. I appreciate that many thousands of people knew this information (assuming of course it was true). However, in general people do not whistleblow. Behind the façade of most public sector organisations, corporates, and even some charities, murky secrets are known, discussed and shared internally, but rarely does this get into the public domain.

There are, of course, exceptions like MPs’ expenses and tax avoidance by some wealthy individuals and global corporations. But these are unusual cases.

There is a long list of reasons for this. Sometimes whistleblowing is illegal; it can lead to the loss of your job and put an end to your whole career; and in the most extreme circumstances whistleblowing can even be life-threatening. So a whistleblower needs a huge amount of courage to disclose sensitive information.

He or she needs to be confident that it is in the public interest that they make the disclosure; and then break the sacred cultural rule that you keep your mouth shut however unhappy you are with the situation you are faced with.

Some believe that Snowden should never have disclosed his story, as his actions were illegal and a threat to US national security.

Whether you agree with this or not, it still surprised me that he actually had the courage to leak the story. At the time of writing this column he was hiding in Hong Kong, unemployed and probably unemployable in his chosen career, and separated from his friends and family. All because he had blown the whistle.

Nowhere to hide

It has been clear for some years that technology is driving a transparency agenda – with both good and bad consequences. Good in that unsatisfactory parts of our working and personal lives are being uncovered and revealed to the world; but bad in that so much personal information is now held on computer servers about every adult and child, and this is in danger of being used inappropriately.

Computers now hold information on nearly everything, and all this data is potentially just an email or USB stick away from being disclosed. Over the coming years the pace of whistleblowing will increase. How fast this happens is going to be more down to the degree to which the public encourage and accept it than to the rate of change of technology.

Currently, many major companies and governments ‘talk the talk’ about transparency and openness, but all too often it’s the last thing they actually want in practice.

Charities ignore the transparency agenda at their peril. If you have something to hide there is a growing chance you will be found out.

The British weather has been terrible this year. So, if you want to avoid some nasty headlines, there is still the chance for a spring clean to sort out any skeletons in your cupboard before summer kicks in.