Transparency is Surveillance

Abstract

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O'Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency -that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to nonexperts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption -but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual's capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust -if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public -then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise.In her 2002 BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O'Neill offers a biting criticism of one of the ethical presumptions of modern life. People think that trust and transparency go together, says O'Neill. And they think that transparency is wholly good. But actually, she says, trust and transparency are deeply opposed.

Scaffolding knowledge

“…It includes the creation of standard units of measurement that could be easily independently verified so that a buyer does not need to trust the seller to know the quality and the quantity of goods that they are purchasing (Porter, 1995). It also involves the creation of indicators, ratings, and rankings so that individuals with no expertise of the subject matter can evaluate the performance of a person or organisation without needing to trust the judgment of experts on the matter (Espeland & Sauder, 2016; Nguyen, 2021b). There are many economic and political causes behind the rise of the so‐called metric society (Mau, 2019).…”

“…These processes of standardisation and homogenisation make knowledge portable by minimising the need for expertise be it in the form of local knowledge or in‐depth understanding of the topic. By doing away with reliance on experts these procedures also obviate the vulnerabilities associated with trust in experts who might not have the interests of the layperson at heart (cf., Nguyen, 2021b).…”

COVID-19 and science advice on the ‘Grand Stage’: the metadata and linguistic choices in a scientific advisory groups’ meeting minutes

“…Within our study period, there continued to be an opaqueness, including the deliberations that took place during the meetings and how the scientific advice was translated into policy decisions STC, 2021). As highlighted by Elliott (2021) and Nguyen (2021) there are potential 'dangers' with the level of transparency which results in a practical dilemma with no neat resolution. However, even if aspects remain 'backstage', those making these transparency decisions should clarify their justifications.…”

The Limits of Value Transparency in Machine Learning

“…Third, parts of scientists’ knowledge are arguably tacit, situated in know-how, habits, or social structures. Scientists may not themselves be able to make these fully explicit without distortion (Nguyen 2021). To be sure, Betz emphasizes that his view is only meant as an ideal norm.…”

“…Philosophers have argued that to mitigate the impacts of value-ladenness scientists should make transparent either the uncertainties (Betz 2017) or the values involved in such decisions (Douglas 2009;Elliott 2017Elliott , 2020. Though not uncontested (Nguyen 2021;Schroeder 2021), proponents of transparency argue that it helps secure democratic legitimacy and autonomy for nonexperts (Elliott 2010).…”