Digital Technology

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, we are in debt to the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, for taking the opportunity to introduce this debate in your Lordships’ House. As the noble Lord, Lord Black, has indicated, there are very many positive things about cyberspace and the internet.

I, too, want to address some of the concerns to which the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, referred, coming from my background as a psychiatrist, and particularly perhaps as president of ARTIS (Europe) Ltd, a research and risk analysis company which takes an interest in terrorism and politically motivated violence. That is where I came from and how I got interested in this area. It became clear to me that a number of organisations, domestic and international, were using cyberspace as a new modality through which they could conduct their nefarious activities. Of course, we have had land, sea, air and, more recently, space as media or spaces in which to conduct conflict, whether it be terrorism or interstate conflict. However, it is quite extraordinary that for the very first time humanity has created a new space in which activities can take place. This is quite unprecedented.

Of course, we created space in our minds to do things but cyberspace is quite different. This is a space in which it is possible not just to conduct traditional kinds of crime and terrorism—for example, it is well known that a number of organisations use cyberspace to communicate with each other, to pass encrypted messages, to bring groups of people together, and to recruit and train young people in various kinds of terrorist activity—but where the possibility clearly now exists for state and non-state actors to engage in attacks on the very infrastructure of each other’s nations. This is happening at an extraordinary rate. Indeed, in a recent Written Answer, HL12997, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, informed us that the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance reckons that it is costing the United Kingdom alone in the region of £27 billion per annum.

Today, however, we are looking not at the economic but at the mental aspects of this issue. We all know that when we get behind the wheel of a car many of us behave in a different kind of way. Certainly, when we write e-mails we may react rather more emotionally than when we write a thoughtful letter. I see that the noble Lord is particularly careful, knowing that these things can appear in all sorts of places. However, if noble Lords cast their minds back to watching the so-called smart weapons in the shock and awe attacks on Baghdad, they will recall that it was an effort to remember that they were watching not a video game but the destruction of people’s lives. It is very easy to see how one can begin to think of guiltless crimes and victimless crimes. Indeed, if you speak with many of the young people—largely young men—who are involved in these kinds of activities, you will know that they feel that no one really suffers. Credit card crime? Do not worry; it is covered by the banks. However, we know very well that the banks are covered by the insurance companies and the insurance companies charge the banks, that the banks charge ordinary customers, and that, in the end, it is ordinary people who pay for the crimes of these young people. As the noble Baroness said, it is also clear that this affects how people function, and not just their mental functioning but their moral functioning.

It seems to me that in the short time we have at our disposal this evening all we can do is to flag up that this is a wonderful facility, as the noble Lord has done, but also a clear and present danger, as the noble Baroness has described. I trust that your Lordships, whether in the Chamber, in all-party groups or in other ways, will be able to explore this matter more fully. In the mean time, I ask the Minister whether he can indicate how much Her Majesty’s Government are spending on research into the psychology of this area, as distinct from the hardware and software. Psychology is, in the end, the most crucial aspect.