A poll in 13 countries by Amnesty International reveals how most people oppose surveillance of citizens but are less concerned about the targeting of foreign nationals. Knowing we are being watched may also be restricting our use of the Internet to obtain health advice

Amnesty International has today reported the outcome of a Yougov survey in 15,000 people across 13 countries, studying for the first time international views of mass surveillance and whether the public believe it is changing their own behaviour.

I worked with Amnesty International on part of this poll, helping to design questions exploring psychological attitudes and influences. We were especially keen to discover whether the public would be more tolerant of government surveillance when it was applied to a social outgroup (foreigners) compared with their own ingroup (citizens), and what kinds of behaviour might be affected by the knowledge that we are continually under watch. The results reveal one or two surprises and highlight some intriguing differences between countries.

How tolerant are the public of mass government surveillance?

Just how accepting are people of surveillance in the first place? In short, not very. Across all 13 countries, there was no majority support for surveillance – only 26% of people, overall, agreed that the government should monitor the communications and Internet activity of its own citizens, while a similar number (29%) felt their government should monitor overseas citizens. Only 17% of respondents believed their government should monitor everybody - citizens, foreign nationals, and foreign countries - while twice as many (34%) believed their government should never monitor any of these groups.

The acceptability of surveillance differed markedly between countries. France, Britain and the Philippines were the three countries where people were most accepting of surveillance of their own citizens, foreign nationals, and foreign countries; they were also the only countries surveyed where more people favoured surveillance of all these groups than who favoured monitoring none of them (compare the countries above vs. below the diagonal line in the chart below). Spain and Sweden were the two countries most strongly opposed to surveillance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The strongest held views per country. Symbols below the diagonal line indicate countries where more people strongly oppose surveillance than support it.

Are people more tolerant of the government monitoring foreign nationals than its own citizens?

Yes. In all surveyed countries, more people were in favour of their government monitoring foreign nationals (45%) than citizens (26%). In some countries the rate of agreement for monitoring foreign nationals was more than double that of citizens. For instance, in Canada only 23% believed their government should monitor citizens compared with 48% for foreign nationals. In the US, 20% believed their government should monitor citizens compared with 50% for foreign nationals. These results suggest the presence of a social ingroup bias: surveillance is more acceptable when applied to “them” but not to “us”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In every country, people were more tolerant of surveillance directed toward foreign nationals than toward citizens. Illustration: Chris Chambers

We can also look at this ingroup bias in a different way – by specifically counting the number of people who disagreed with government surveillance of citizens while at the same time agreeing with surveillance of foreign nationals. In most countries, fewer than 1 in 4 people showed such a bias, with Sweden showing the least favouritism toward citizens (approximately 1 in 9). However, the US stands apart as having the highest ingroup bias – nearly 1 in 3 US respondents believed their government should monitor foreign nationals while leaving citizens alone.

The US stood out as particularly prone to ingroup bias: favouring surveillance of foreign nationals over citizens. Illustration: Chris Chambers

Are people more tolerant of their government monitoring people in other countries compared with the US government monitoring them?

Yes. Not surprisingly, all (non-US) surveyed countries were more accepting of their government monitoring people in other countries than of being monitored by the US government. Again, this is consistent with an ingroup bias, together with possible fear or distrust of US intelligence activities.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Non-US countries were happier for their governments to monitor foreign states than for the US government to monitor them. Photograph: Chris Chambers

Is surveillance stifling criticism of governments?

It doesn’t appear to be. In almost all the surveyed countries, most people (60% on average) said that surveillance would not change their tendency to publicly criticise their government. And, interestingly, for those people who indicated that it would change their behaviour, surveillance was usually associated with more criticism rather than less. This ‘retaliation’ pattern was greatest in Brazil, Spain, New Zealand and South Africa.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Surveillance generally doesn’t deter people from criticising their own governments - if anything it may provoke additional public criticism. Illustration: Chris Chambers

Could government surveillance inhibit public use of the Internet to search for sensitive information about health or relationships?

These results were more concerning. Once again, the majority of people across all countries (58%) said that knowledge of government surveillance would not change their use of the Internet. However, for those who indicated that it would change their behaviour, surveillance appeared to inhibit Internet usage, and this was the case in all countries. The size of this effect varied a lot – it was unreliable in Brazil, the Netherlands, and the Philippines, but more clearly present in the other nine countries.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Surveillance appears to restrict the freedom people feel to search online for health or relationship information. Illustration: Chris Chambers

Reasons to be cautious

Polls can be useful for gauging public views and (very) basic psychology, but they don’t give much insight into cognition and actual behaviour. Even where surveillance doesn’t seem to have much effect, such as in curbing government criticism, there could still be more subtle effects that people aren’t willing or able to report. In the same way, we don’t know to what extent some people are really changing their access to health or relationship advice, or even whether they answered the questions honestly - surveys can be prone to eliciting socially desirable answers.

Despite these limitations, these results do raise a number of important questions that could be studied in future research. Why do countries seem to differ so much in their public perceptions of surveillance? Is surveillance really changing online search behaviour? Does surveillance influence risk-taking or other aspects of cognition, such as reasoning or creativity? I’ve written previously on this blog about the psychological risks posed by mass surveillance – evidence that under certain conditions, being systematically monitored can impair mental health, promote distrust, encourage social conformity, and even undermine a leader’s authority.

We now have data suggesting that surveillance is generally unpopular and that it could be changing some aspects of our behaviour. As the UK begins revising its surveillance laws, policy makers may do well to heed such evidence.

The error bars in each chart are 95% confidence intervals. I am grateful to Melissa Creese and Bethan Jones for their input into the poll design. The full list of poll questions and poll results can be downloaded here.