Like most British people today, I frequently read about the intrusion of public and private organisations into my private life, whether local councils putting gizmos into my dustbin or security cameras watching my every move as I walk down the street. It is only on reading a a book like Surveillance Unlimited: How We’ve Become the Most Watched People on Earth that you realise quite the extent of surveillance on your every move, and if you have paranoiac tendencies then this is definitely the book to avoid (but essential reading for everyone else).
Keith Laidler begins his book by describing a typical day in the life of a “database citizen”, from arriving home by plane after a business trip to Germany, traveling across London using his Oystercard, driving home and stopping for petrol, and using his mobile to phone his wife (and inadvertently joking that “there was no Al Qaeda attack on the plane”, thus triggering an analysis of his call). By this time its only midday, and when John finally gets to eat dinner with his wife in the evening, over 20 surveillance interventions have been recorded.
Government and the commercial world have today achieved the “tyrant’s dream” in which it is possible to listen into the telephone conversations of every citizen, read their email, track their movements, profile their lifestyle, preferences and political affiliation. And as Laidler points out repeatedly through his book, the legal structures necessary to prevent abuse lag far behind the abilities of the new technologies. I used to think that perhaps it doesn’t matter very much as no-one would be interested in me, but having read this book, I can see the power of data mining and aggregation, which enable a vast range of officials and private companies to gain access to my private life, and most importantly, to get it terribly wrong and then to inflict untold unjust penalties on my through their own mistakes and incompetencies.
Take for example, the proposed Citizen Identity Card (so ably campaigned against by the NO2ID organisation). Apart from the vast intrusion into private life brought by the card, its loss or malfunction will effectively lead to huge fines and will exclude citizens from a vast range of services and possibly lead to false arrest and imprisonment. Taken in the context of repeated government IT failures, the advent of an ID card should fill anyone with a profound air of foreboding about the cock-ups which will have the potential to disrupt the lives of huge sectors of the population – imagine trying to fly home from holiday and pass through the airport with a faulty ID card.
Laidler devotes a chapter to RFID (radio frequency identification) chips, which can be inserted into almost anything from clothing to car tyres to track the movement of products during their lifetime. Although the transmission distance of these chips is not large, Laidler points out that the plan is to harvest data from them at entry and exit points in shops, stations, airports etc. Marks and Spencer for example are already using these chips for stock control (although only in the paper label attached to the garments), but it is not difficult to see how if the chip was implanted in the garment itself, a store could look at your past purchasing decisions every time you pass through their entrance. The potential of the RFID chip for unwarranted surveillance is so vast that a coalition of 40 civil liberties groups is calling for a moratorium on their deployment until a formal technology impact assessment has been made. The prospect of unique ID tags for all objects world wide-and the massive data aggregation made possible is too threatening for it to be rolled-out without challenge from consumer and citizen interests.
The book goes on to discuss the dangers of biometrics – and also points out how the British government has gone far beyond European requirement in calling for biometrics on the new passport system. The danger with biometrics and also DNA identification is the huge problems resulting when things go wrong. If your password or PIN is compromised you can get a new one relatively easily, but if your DNA or biometric record is compromised it will be very difficult to do anything about it, or to convince the authorities that you are being falsely identified and possibly accused of unspeakable crimes. Laidler records an instance of a motorist being held in prison for 43 days because of a malfunction in the fingerprinting technology used in Oregon which resulted in him being identified as a wanted man. He eventually was cleared and compensated, but how often will this happen without a satisfactory outcome.
Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this book is the realisation of how far surveillance has gone and how little political will there is to do anything about it. The “current threats” (whatever they are) and the feeling that “innocent people have no need to fear”, seems to provide sufficient justification for governments and companies to do what they want. Laidler ends his book by urging his readers to be vigilant and also to blow the whistle whenever they can. One is left feeling that we are using a butterfly to stop a juggernaut and my own response on finishing the book was to be far more aware of what is going on and to think about joining Liberty UK.
