Understanding public acceptance of data collection by intelligence services in the Netherlands

Abstract

Intelligence services must balance values such as national security and privacy when collecting data, with each scenario involving specific contextual trade-offs. While citizens benefit from effective intelligence operations, they also risk having their rights infringed upon. This makes citizen perspectives on acceptable data collection for intelligence and national security salient, as their legitimacy is also contingent upon public support. Yet, important aspects of citizen perspectives are understudied, such as the influence of contextual factors related to the use of intelligence collection methods. This study, inspired by Nissenbaum's contextual integrity framework, uses a factorial survey experiment with vignettes among a representative sample of 1423 Dutch citizens to examine the influence of threat type, duration, data subject, collection method, data type, and data retention on public acceptance of surveillance. Additionally, the study considers the impact of respondents' trust and privacy attitudes. The findings reveal significant influence of both contextual variables – particularly threat type, data subject, and data retention – and respondent predispositions – particularly trust in institutions, trust in intelligence services' competence, and privacy concerns for others. The findings imply that more in-depth contextual knowledge among the public may foster support for intelligence activities.