Shared secrecy in a digital age and a transnational world

Didier Bigo (1)

1 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)

This article examines the notion of shared secrets and the procedures by which secrecy is not the opposite of exchange of information, but the restriction of it to a certain ‘circle’ of people and the maintenance of others in ignorance. It creates corridors depending on the objectives of secret information, the persons having access, and the knowledge of this access by other people. Shared secrecy has been considered as an exception to common practice, but it has changed in scale with digitization and transnationalization of information, especially when suspicion is becoming used in statistical terms for prevention purposes.

Keywords: shared secrets; digitization and transnationalization of information

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science

Didier Bigo. Shared secrecy in a digital age and a transnational world. Intelligence and National Security, 2019, 34 (3), pp.379-394. ⟨10.1080/02684527.2019.1553703⟩. ⟨hal-03952881⟩