Big Brother is here…
So says the UK Information Commissioner in this report on ‘The Surveillance Society.
Download waking_up_to_a_surveillance_society.pdf
I agree with the worrying sentiments in the report, but would add a couple of points:
1) It does not make enough of the fact that the surveillance is often befuddled with inadequacies. Twice i have been the victim of a crime and on both occaissions I thought CCTV and tracking technologies would help.
The first time, was an ATM fraud at Barclays Bank on Baker Street. After spending a day convincing First Direct that I had not in fact given away my PIN to someone, they finally acknowledged that the ATM camera had caught someone installing the card reader, but that they could not identify the person from the picture so would not pursue.
The second time, my Treo mobile phone was stolen from my bag in Starbucks on Edgeware Road. Again the place had CCTV installed, could see the theft taking place but could not make out a good enough picture to investigate further. The matter was made worse when I phoned O2 and they could tell me that the phone was still switched on and was now on The Strand, but they could do nothing to report that to the police or even confirm it to me in writing.
2) I disagree with the point on page 3 of the report saying that personal information management services will only be available to ‘the prosperous’. There is no reason why, in my view, that this kind of thing cannot ba mandated by the government and made available at base level to all.
