To spy on their populations online, nations from all over the globe have joined forces. They claim to be working for the greater good while disclosing private information to their security partners. This is what it implies for those who reside in those nations.
Which alliances make up the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes?
The Five Eyes (FVEY), Nine Eyes, and Fourteen Eyes are alliances of state surveillance formed with the primary objective of observing and exchanging information on online activities to safeguard national security.
They gather information by observing consumers' online behavior, as well as information from ISPs and other web trackers and phone taps. The Five Eyes were revealed in 2013 by NSA leaks for conducting various covert surveillance programs together and for impermissibly snooping on the most private activities of their populations.
Each alliance's "eyes" refers to the total number of participating nations. The nations involved in each alliance are listed below:
Five Eyes nations
Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, and Canada.
Nine Eyes nations Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, France, and the United States.
Fourteen Eyes nations
Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and Spain.
The 3 alliances—the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes—and their differences The UK and the US decided to work together on detecting the Soviet Union's covert actions and sharing mass surveillance data following World War Two, which led to the formation of the Five Eyes.
Four additional nations joined to form the Nine Eyes to invade continental Europe.
These four other nations—Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and Norway—can use the same tools as the Five Eyes, but they do not have access to all of the information they gather. The NSA or GCHQ secret organizations may also get data from Nine Eyes nations.
The Fourteen Eyes were then formed when five more nations joined the Nine Eyes. The Five Eyes alliance is more effective than the Fourteen Eyes alliance in its operations. While they may be considered members of the other alliances, this does not mean that they are any less engaged in mass monitoring.
The 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes hazard
These alliances' ability to enable nations to spy on their citizens via proxies is one of their most dangerous features. For instance, even though it may not be lawful, the UK may ask the US to spy on its nationals since they are both members of the Five Eyes alliance.
The bulk of internet users worldwide are covered by the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes coalitions, but as online literacy rises in additional nations, so does their desire to join the 14 Eyes alliance. Are we about to enter a world of authoritarian surveillance? According to what we currently know, the following nations are close partners of the Fourteen Eyes alliance:
Israel Japan Korea, South Singapore The overseas territories of the British
How does this affect you?
Your right to internet anonymity is almost unachievable if you reside in one of the aforementioned nations. The websites you visit, the time you spend online, the search terms you enter into search engines, your personal information, your IP address, and more might all be recorded.
We don't know how personal their monitoring may get given that we have proof that the Eyes may be engaged in a variety of sneaky spying plans. Your private information may be kept on file indefinitely, or worse, depending on your search history, you might unintentionally turn up on a government target.
How can you help?
Although there are various techniques to conceal your internet behavior, a virtual private network in particular may assist prevent unauthorized monitoring (VPN).
By routing your data via its secure servers rather than the ones used by your ISP, a VPN may mask your online activities. Your traffic would be complete nonsense to anybody attempting to interpret it.
Note: Incognito mode and other private browsing tabs will NOT conceal your surfing from your ISP. It only ensures that your actions are not recorded in the device's history.
Here are a few more advantages of utilizing a VPN.
By changing your location in the app, you may get around internet limits while traveling. This gives the impression that you are abroad and makes it easier for you to discover some decently priced goods to purchase.
Get complete security and privacy: A decent VPN conceals both your IP address and all of your online activity so that nothing can be used to identify you. Also, because of our strong zero-logs policy, no one can ever discover you're identity via us.