Conceptualising Human-centric Cyber Security in the Arctic in Light of Digitalisation and Climate Change

• Author: Joëlle Klein, Kamrul Hossain
• Position: Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law, Arctic Centre
• Pages: 194-211

© 2020 Joëlle Klein & Kamrul Hossain. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Com-

mons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), allowing

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Citation: Joëlle Klein & Kamrul Hossain. “Conceptualising Human-centric Cyber Security in the Arctic in Light of

Digitalisation and Climate Change’’ Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 11, 2020, pp. 1–18.

http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v11.1936

*Correspondence to: Kamrul Hossain, email: khossain@ulapland.

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 11, 2020, pp. 1–18

1

Peer-reviewed article

Conceptualising Human-centric Cyber

Security in the Arctic in Light of

Digitalisation and Climate Change

Joëlle Klein & Kamrul Hossain*

Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law,

Arctic Centre, University of Lapland

Abstract

The following article revisits existing scholarship on human-centric approaches to security in

cyberspace and argues that a holistic understanding of cyber security in the Arctic must include

discussion of the use of cyber technology in the everyday lives of individuals and communities,

addressing both the ways such tools enable and undermine human security. Simultaneously, the

article contextualises the Arctic as a region undergoing rapid change as a result of climate change

and increased digitalisation and seeks to understand the consequent implications for human secu-

rity. In light of these considerations, the article analyses the existing constraints and possibilities

that cyber security and digitalisation pose for human security and revisits them from a human-

centric perspective of cyber security. It also seeks to contextualise such security inuences in rela-

tion to the role of climate change and its inuence on the region. Finally, several examples are

discussed to underline the interdependent implications of digitalisation and climate change from a

human-centric perspective of cyber security in the Arctic.

Keywords: cyber security; digitalisation; human security; Arctic; climate change

Responsible Editor: Nigel Bankes, University of Calgary, Canada

Received: October 2019; Accepted: January 2020; Published: February 2020

1. Introduction

In the last several decades, the use and spread of cyber technology, an inclusive sys-

tem of information and communication technology, has rapidly increased across the

globe. With it, discourse on cyber security is increasingly prevalent on the national

and international levels. As the new frontier of cyberspace develops, efforts to regulate

Joëlle Klein & Kamrul Hossain

2

and protect privacy and data seek to balance with the need for open and fair use.

States have begun to adopt cyber security strategies to protect their interests and

securitise the cyber arena from threats leveraged by malicious actors. However, within

these strategies, the technicality of cyberspace is not discussed in relation to the neg-

ative (threats) and positive (enablement) aspects of security1 that technologies and

cyberspace provide for individuals and communities within states. Government- and

state-based understandings of cyber security are often limited to national security

interests that place the state as the referent object vulnerable to the insecurity of cyber

infrastructure or frameworks. The threat of hacking, or cyber inuence, and control

and ownership over information and intelligence is often the rst imagined threat in

relation to cyber security. This places the state, its infrastructure and its institutions at

the centre of such threats but fails to consider the impact of cyber security on people

at the individual level and their communities. National security agendas surrounding

cyber security often do not conceptualise the human impact of such threats as the

predominant referent of security but rather dominant institutional frameworks. Like-

wise, considerations of cyber security often neglect the abilities of cyber technology

to enable individuals and communities to achieve security.

Cyber technology and digital tools are increasingly replacing existing physical tools,

and information, services and data are migrating into the digital sphere under the

current trend of digitalisation. Therefore, the state of cyber security determines how

digital transformation occurs. Digitalisation has changed the medium and function

of everyday societal interactions and has inuenced how individuals and communi-

ties relate to each other and themselves. Cyberspace has become “cyber-physical”

in the sense that everyday interactions (communications, shopping, nances, edu-

cation, etc.) have become inextricably linked to the cyber world, and public goods

and services are increasingly dependent on the use of online and digital technology.2

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat are prime examples of how individuals

present themselves and share information online. Alongside the information indi-

viduals choose to share, companies and rms are interested in the inherent data

individuals create simply by entering an online space – subtle information about an

individual’s location, preferences, activity and usage. Human rights in cyberspace

are becoming increasingly relevant and important, yet scholars3 note that individual

and community security concerns and their variance across regions and contexts are

often not discussed or are inadequately reected in cyber security research.

Ongoing discourse on cyber security contextualised in various regions is thus

problematic, not only because of the state-based assumptions and preconceptions

underlying our understanding of cyber security, but also in understanding the

nuanced ways in which cyber security impacts local communities and individuals.

This is particularly true when it comes to discourse on the Arctic. Although the

region is often discussed as homogenous, it is actually a complex and intersecting

network of different cultural, societal, political and geophysical realities. There are,

of course, many similarities between various Arctic states in terms of cold climactic