ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the influence of terror attacks on the public perceptions on the government’s use of surveillance-orientated security technologies (SOSTs). It is often assumed people are more inclined in the wake of terror attacks to support government measures that might limit their privacy. This chapter analyses whether the events of 2015 in Paris and beyond did indeed have such effects among a sample of Belgian students. Respondents completed an initial questionnaire measuring their attitudes towards the use of SOSTs in 2014, and were asked the same questions in 2016, after a year in which various terror attacks dominated the headlines. We use both multivariate regression as well as repeated measures analyses to evaluate any changes in opinions. We find that respondents are indeed more inclined to support potentially privacy-intruding government measures, and that risk perception (but not fear of crime or trust in public authorities) increased between 2014 and 2016. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily translate into increased acceptance of SOSTs when these are concretized and explained in detail, suggesting public opinion on the use thereof is more complex than a simple privacy–security trade-off.
