Trade-off across privacy, security and surveillance in the case of metro travel in Europe

Privacy issues related to mass surveillance received unprecedented attention in 2013 and 2014. While the debate so far has focused on internet-based surveillance, the concerns raised by increased awareness of state surveillance capabilities have far reaching consequences for discussions on legislation relating to security, privacy and liberty in a range of domains. Focusing on train/metro travel we investigate whether Europeans perceive similar security and privacy issues as have been raised in recent discussions about surveillance. This paper presents preliminary findings from the empirical phase of PACT, a three year pan-European project. PACT has as its centerpiece a large scale survey of privacy & security preferences. The survey is designed to elicit respondents’ preferences related to various security and privacy aspects involved in three contexts, including train/metro travel. Using data from the pilot we demonstrate the application of stated preference methods in the context of security and privacy. The stated -preference exercise gathers preferences related to CCTV, CCTV data handling, type of security personnel, type of physical security check, delay due to security checks, and cost of security/surveillance. Using discrete choice models to estimate willingness to pay for different security/surveillance features we aim to provide the missing evidence on valuation of public security and surveillance. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B. V. Peer-review under responsibility of the Association for European Transport.