If you haven’t heard the story about Prism, and the cluster of stories surrounding it, consider doing a quick bit of research: it’s worth knowing something about. Here’s a quick summary of what’s been going on:

-        6thJune: The leaks begin when The Guardian publishes a top secret court order which shows how the U.S National Security Agency (NSA) forced Verizon, a leading U.S. telecoms company, to provide “ongoing, daily” access to metadata about the telephone calls made by its U.S customers. (Metadata means the data about the duration and timing of phone calls as well as the location of the callers, but not the actual audio of the phone call)

-        7thJune: “Presidential Policy Directive 20” about U.S. plans for cyber-warfare leaked. The document includes a list of offensive targets, not just defensive strategies.

-        7thJune: The Guardian publishes a 41-slide presentation giving details of a scheme run by the NSA called Prism. The presentation, which seems to be aimed at an internal audience for training purposes, makes various claims about the capabilities of Prism, including the ability to collect data directly from the servers of companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo.

-        9thJune: Information about a tool called “Boundless Informant” is released. The NSA uses the tool to display aggregated metadata, able to answer questions such as: “How much data do we hold from country X?”

-        10thJune: The whistleblower behind the leaks steps out and identifies himself as Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former employee of the NSA.

All in all, the revelations have combined to create a big story. It’s not hard to see why: it matches perfectly with trending concerns: government overreach, corporate greed, invasion of privacy and erosion of civil liberties after 9-11. There have been large political implications already for the NSA, for the image of the U.S and for President Obama.

But the political consequences are not as important as the central issue at stake here, one that has been slowly and relentlessly hammering away at the public consciousness, and it is this that I want to address. It’s the question to which no-one knows the answer right now:

How much data collection and analysis by the government should we be comfortable with?

For let us be clear: the reason these stories have drawn such attention is not because government power has been used to excess in demanding indiscriminate access to private information. No, the concern is about whether such access is helpful or harmful, something which we simply don’t know. The government has always had exceptional powers, given to it under a framework of greater public good. This is why ultimately governments are allowed to seize private land when it wants to build a new railway. The difference is that for the railway situation there is a commonly accepted precedent, and hence no fuss kicked up by citizens, whereas in the current maelstrom surrounding the NSA, there is no such precedent. There is genuine disagreement everywhere, disagreement that is guaranteed to persist because no-one actually knows the answers. The experts debate whether large scale data collection even works effectively as a tool versus terrorists, and for all involved, there’s an inescapable feeling: isn’t it just incredibly creepy?

Undeniably, people feel uncomfortable about the idea that someone else could access information about their private lives. But should they? Could it be possible a psychological bias is at work? Because even though it is possible for you to come to harm as a result of being targeted by the intelligence services, it hardly ever happens. The actual risk is miniscule – just like it is possible for a complete stranger to push you in front of a bus when you’re walking along the pavement, but that rarely happens. The truth is, most people do not understand how exactly they are being harmed by large-scale data collection and analysis. This is in fact chronic in nature and to do with psychological priming to buy some goods in favour of others rather than the readily conjured up but actually much less likely stalker/murderer scenarios.

Similarly, without knowing a lot more about the nature of the current terrorist threat, it is difficult to know how effective the NSA’s tools are. Personally, I think a solution would be to target more resources at the root causes of discontent: research into mental health issues, more support for marginalised members of society, reform of the criminal justice system, etc. I think these would be more effective in the long run at reducing terrorism, as well as having many beneficial side effects. Of course, who I am to say? I don’t have any data about what works and doesn’t. Similarly, the experts must be uncertain too because there’s not enough evidence to test their new anti-terrorism methods.

Hence the disagreement in the public sphere as well as in expert circles exists only because of the lack of a precedent, because of the unprecedented nature of our new technological capability, because of the lack of evidence for or against any hypotheses, and NOT because some absolute standard of creepiness has been breached.

The interesting part is when you realise how that precedent will eventually be set: by us. Nowadays, large scale data collection and analysis is everywhere. Gmail uses keyword analysis on your emails to target advertising towards you. Tesco collects data about what you buy to send you targeted offers. Hospitals collect data about patients in order to optimise diagnoses. Everywhere, organisations with the power to use large-scale data collection and analysis are applying such tools. As a citizen, the pressures are inescapable: to not leave a data trail is to not live in today’s world.

Over time, the accumulation of our daily actions and the large scale actions of the key players in the market will create the precedent which will be used to answer the original question: “How much data collection and analysis should we be comfortable with?”

Let’s hope we’re capable of reaching the right conclusion.