12 Jun 2007
Few subjects seem to generate as much debate as privacy and surveillance. The government's identity cards scheme, the growth of CCTV, and widespread use of personal information in databases across the public and private sector are all contributing to fears of a Big Brother state.
But are those fears realistic? What about the benefits to be gained, such as more targeted services, improved security, lower costs, and easier dealings with government?
There is a balance to be struck, but where should the line be drawn? We want to hear your views - join the debate in our exclusive online forum.
Recent proposals to keep records of personal communications, including the addresses of web sites visited, and the continued use of laws that allow local councils to spy on individuals for the most petty of misdemeanours shows that the general public is just too pre-occupied with its own problems to care about the wholesale erosion of their civil liberties. It is said that there are certain days which are good for burying bad news as it stands a good chance of being overlooked while attention rests on other matters. Well, it seems that in the current poor economic climate that now is a good time to turn one of the world's finest democracies into a police state and people are so distracted with the poor state of the economy or are simply trying to keep their jobs by working more hours than anyone else in Europe, that it is going to succeed. Once the genie of surveillance is out of the bottle it is going to be very difficult to put it back in. Such erosions of liberty are backed by law and quite frankly when was the last time that an inappropriate law was repealed promptly. We still have laws on the books going back hundreds of years, not because they are really good or useful but because the system really can't be bothered to correct itself from past whims. Surveillance of a nation can only work if it is truly focused on protecting the nation from genuine threats. Minor, incidental discoveries along the way must be discarded. Business uses technology to squeeze an extra few percent of profits out through improved efficiency and effectiveness, such an approach should not be allowed to be applied to the billions of minor transgressions committed everyday by the all too human people of this great nation. The law of averages, the famous bell curve, says that statistically most of us are less than pure with a few percent that are true angels and an equal amount of devils. If a surveillance society truly takes hold, Britain will cease to be a nation of shopkeepers, instead becoming a nation of jails in which only the pious few percent of the population will walk free. Never in human history have machines with the power of computers existed before. They can be used to subjugate an entire nation based on ideals of perfection that few can really live up to. Those impracticable ideals are now being coded into software and the data that it will eventually process will the lives of you and me. This is wrong. Surely, in your heart of hearts you must feel that this is wrong as well. Express an opinion. Voice your uncertainty. Ask to know more about what is happening. It is said that some of histories greatest injustices took place because people kept their mouths shut. Do not let history repeat itself. Speak up. Speak up now.
Posted by: Concerned of Liverpool 14 Aug 2008
Further to my recent postings on the surveillance society, I would now like to discuss what the individual can do to help combat the misuse of their personal data.
In a recent interview for IO9 (http://io9.com/5015137/ william-gibson-talks-to-io9-about-canada-draft-dodging-and-godzilla), William Gibson, the author of Neuromancer and the inventor of the term 'cyberspace', said "I believe people in the future will wield unimaginable tools of forensic transparency - and they'll aim them back at history. They'll find out about what every major player did all the way back with tools we can't imagine today."
Such abilities will need to bring together the many pieces of your personal information that are currently held separately, in various digital silos.
In simple terms, a silo is a business term, describing a self-contained functional vertical, which operates in isolation, largely relying on its own resources. Departments within a business are often termed silos, as each does its own thing and keeps communication to other silos to a minimum. Silos make a business less efficient and less effective. A whole consulting industry has grown up with the single purpose of breaking down such barriers and re-integrating business departments into a cohesive and cogent whole.
Silos can be thought of as islands in a sea of data. Each island features a castle. Some of the castles have drawbridges, a way of connecting with other castles. Such connectivity is complicated by the fact that the end of each drawbridge is, metaphorically speaking, shaped like a jigsaw piece. If the ends of two drawbridges can successfully interlock then data sharing becomes possible.
The islands are in reality not just the various business departments that refuse to talk to each other but also the social web sites that are currently so popular and the ubiquitous government databases.
The drawbridges are the published APIs that some of these sites have to allow data interchange. The newly evolving version of the Internet, termed Web 2.0, is all about such data exchanges, called 'mash-ups'. A mash-up brings data from different sources together in new, unusual, and hopefully exciting ways.
Today, mash-ups are quite primitive and innocuous, but over time they will become far more sophisticated and potentially dangerous.
It is the increasing power of such combinative technologies that will, in the future, allow for incredibly detailed investigations of government, business, and people. The actions of all such entities will become increasingly transparent.
Greater transparency of the inner workings of business and government would be considered highly desirable, just ask any shareholder or democratic citizen. However, greater transparency of personal activities can lead to a surveillance society.
The use of personal information by governments and business needs to be heavily regulated in order to protect personal privacy and its associated freedoms, but that is not all that needs to be done or all that can be done.
Individuals must carefully consider their on-line actions of today in the context of the potential search tools and mash-ups of tomorrow.
Whilst it will be impossible to prevent the enhanced interconnectedness of Web 2.0, individuals can exercise a degree of personal restraint that will help ensure that they do not blindly hand over the whole of their digital lives without a second thought.
When sharing personal information on-line, less is most definitely more, when it comes to protecting your personal privacy. If you are not legally required to give your personal information, then don't. Be less than truthful, selectively truthful, or hide behind a fictitious persona. Be aware of what you are doing each and every time you enter information about yourself. Think twice before you do or say something inappropriate, it may come back to haunt you, years later.
Help to ensure that the new and exciting mash-ups of Web 2.0 do not become a bridge too far for personal freedom and privacy. Updating the old, anti-drink-drive message of "Think! Before you drink! Before you drive!" for the digital age, everyone should "Think! Before you share! Before you submit!". It might not be as catchy as the original about it does convey an important, realistic, and practical message for surfers of today.
Posted by: Concerned of Liverpool 23 Jun 2008
There are already the documents in existence to prove ID - passport, driving licence and for those that have neither of these then CitizenCard or similar.
The planned ID card is just government's way of trying to control the people and I for one will not carry one.
The threat of terrorism is no worse now than when the IRA were bombing London and other cities in the 70s and 80s. I know I missed being caught by an IRA bomb by thirty seconds.
The excuse that ID cards will prevent terrorism is false. If cards can be made then they can be forged. Introducing them will just add another income stream to the forgers.
Posted by: Mark 16 Jun 2008
Those of a certain age may remember with a nostalgic fondness, a colourful television show called It's A Knockout, in which teams representing their home towns and cities competed against each other in comically outlandish games.
Typically, an incredibly fit milkman from Bradford, dressed like a chef would attempt to run up a greased slope to deliver pizzas to his cartoon oven, all while attached to a bungee cord that threatened to pull him back down the slope to a watery fate.
It seemed an impossible task, and probably was for anyone that did not deliver the nation's daily ration of bread and milk at breakneck speed each and every day!
It was rather fun, popularist, must-see-tv. Even the hosts regularly lost themselves in fits of contagious laughter. I really don't think I have laughed that much in all the years since.
Today, personal privacy is on that slippery slope and unlike the super fit milkman of yesteryear, the nation has become rather overweight, myopic, and totally unaware of the fate that it will inevitably endure. Things are not funny any more; in fact everything is getting rather serious! I'm certainly not laughing and neither should you!
In my previous posting on this subject, I attempted to bring to attention that combining all the various databases containing our personal information can lead to the undesirable situation whereby criminal investigation is reduced to a mere data mining exercise. All of life's little mistakes writ large on the video screen of justice.
It was probably not the best example, but I was trying to get people's attention. I could just as easily have discussed the issues around who should have access to such information and how in the wrong hands it could be abused. Used to blackmail, trick, or permit sexist, ageist, genetic, racist, or religious crimes on an unprecedented scale.
Information can be used for good or evil.
Computerised information has enhanced those two outcomes by many orders of magnitude. What once might have affected a few, now affects hundreds, thousands, millions.
Safeguards in the use of personal information need to be put in place or a fully-fledged big-brother, 'police' state will be the inevitable outcome. Why? Because your computerised personal information is just too tempting to ignore, not by criminals, and certainly not by post-9/11 governments. It is the sweetest honey pot, built up little by little, one morsel of personal information at a time, like bees bearing pollen to their hive.
Determining how different pieces of information held in separate databases should be allowed to be combined, cross-referenced, and analysed is not going to be an easy job, in fact it is likely to be mind-bogglingly difficult - a cure for cancer or the Manhattan Project - kind of difficult.
But sometimes such onerous work must be squarely shouldered, and the easy way out, ignoring it, hoping it will go away, or sweeping it under the rug, will just not do. The risks, quite frankly, are just too great.
A big-brother state will not come overnight, it will take time, and the steps will be baby steps. The conspiracy theorists might say that is to ensure that no one notices until it is all too late. But then again, if you have been paying attention, watching the signs, and reading between the lines, it does have that feel, doesn't it? So maybe the conspiracy theorists are right, this time?
We often see that in television police dramas, evidence is inadmissible unless it was gathered legitimately. Court orders, issued by judges, sanction action based on credible information that a crime has likely been committed. In such dramas, the police are not allowed to pursue their hunches and go on 'fishing trips' to see what they can uncover, although the maverick cop often does exactly that and that is what makes such dramas such compelling viewing.
Mining personal data in the real world should require similar sanctions, and have genuinely effective protection against any and all 'mavericks'.
Unless strict controls are placed on all personal data and how it is used, it will be most definitely abused.
The technical nature of how such personal information is stored, accessed, and amalgamated already requires significant IT skills. The technological elite have an advantage over those that might seek to protect it. This means that the protection of personal information cannot be treated in a superficial or token manner.
Personal data must be broken down into its individual parts and each part appropriately and vigorously protected and any use sanctioned and recorded.
You might see such a level of control as the product of some impossible flight of fantasy but such controls are actively being developed to help protect critical business information and ensure that customer data is only accessed by authorised personel for legitimate reasons. Similar approaches need to break out of the individual businesses that are starting to use them and come into mainstream use for all personal data.
Protecting personal data will not be easy but it must be done.
The nation, like the plucky milkman from Bradford, just needs to get back into shape and fight its way back up that slippery slope.
What lies at the bottom really is just too terrible to contemplate.
Posted by: Concerned of Liverpool 11 Jun 2008
Further to my original posting, which was published in the 1st May edition of Computing, I am dismayed to see how little subsequent comment there has been on the ever increasing powers of the surveillance society.
Computing magazine has laudably attempted to bring these concerns to public attention but it is a small voice that is being lost in a storm of indifference.
Whilst the people of Britain are concerned about their jobs, mortgages, excessive immigration, youths carrying knives, the price of food and petrol their civil liberties are under a comprehensive and sustained attack.
Unless the nation voices some sort of opinion on this subject it will suddenly discover that it has no privacy whatsoever and the act of criminal discovery will become based on a monumental 'mash-up' of disparate data held in what would appear to be on first inspection quite innocuous and legitimate locations.
Just because data can be cross-referenced and combined in new and exciting ways, allowing an incredibly detailed picture of an individual's life to be constructed, does not mean that it should.
To prevent this, there should be real limits in place, backed up by the most stringent laws.
In the same way that speed cameras have become the easy way out for traffic law enforcement, a comprehensive database of cross-referenced personal data will become the easy, cost-effective way to catch a whole range of other criminals.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not against the catching of criminals but such a database could easily detect petty crime on an unimaginable scale and do so retrospectively.
How many years should such a system look back ?
Is there any legislation that limits such activities in either their extent or their retrospection ?
Should there be ?
And who should realistically be able to access this information - everyone, the council, debt-collection agencies, the police, the military ?
Do you feel that a court order should be required ?
Yes, then speak up and make your views heard before it is too late, and such dissent, itself, becomes grounds for suspicion and persecution ?
Computers have empowered a new age and made many products and services cost-effective but they can be used wrongly, in ways that are not immediately apparent.
The people of the nation have shared many facets of their personal lives through their use of websites such as FaceBook, MySpace, and YouTube, coupling that information with data held in government databases can paint a picture that many individuals would not want seen.
Like the painting of Dorian Grey, there are some things that are not meant for the light of day.
Individual privacy has been a foundation stone of British life since time in memoriam.
If it went away would you mourn its loss ?
Would you actually feel safer ?
Or, like a character out of the Prisoner television show, like a mere number, a variable to be computed, analysed, diminished ?
The nation needs to develop an awareness of the surveillance society in which they now live and start to define some concrete boundaries.
The nation must make their elected officials aware of their views, and regardless of the need to fight terrorism in all its forms, must ensure that they do not loose the very freedoms that made this nation great in the first place.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is exercise restraint, but that is exactly what is now required of those in charge of the surveillance of British society.
Some things are just meant to be hard; investigating a person's private life is definitely one of them.
Posted by: Concerned of Liverpool 04 Jun 2008
I've said this before and I'll say it again. All this monitoring by ID cards, biometrics and surveillance cameras etc. is technology-driven. The technology exists to capture and preserve our lives and actions on silicon chips, hard disks and CCTV, both permanently and temporarily. The information thus recorded - or if you like, knowledge - is power. And power is a buzz, especially if you as a government, reserve this power for yourself and your various agencies. So of course governments are interested.
Posted by: Bob McMurray 04 Jun 2008
There were no prior or following studies on any of these measures. The available data is ambigious, in that it shows some success and some notable failures.
How is it protecting us, to remove our rights? When was it ever the duty of the citizen to make the work of law enforcement easier? Who watches the watchers?
The stories of abuse keep streaming out and the records of success are almost non existent.
It all makes me glad I am an old man.
Posted by: Wandering 15 May 2008
Unless the benefit of such systems is clearly understood by the masses it will NEVER be popular. Additionally, the foundation of trust in such systems has not been nurtured. Such systems need to start slowly and demonstrate that they cannot be abused by ANYONE. Access should be severely restricted to persons of the highest calibre for only the most important of reasons. Protecting civil liberties must come first if such systems are to be tolerated. The adage of 'just because we can build it does not mean that we should' must be revisited regularly. Such systems can be abused and that abuse can be directed at any segment of society with an ease that defies belief. In many ways it can have a destructive power equivalent to an atomic weapon which should only be useable after the most stringent checks and balances have been exercised, it seems utterly wrong that access to such technology and power is being put into the hands of petty officials like the local council or debt collection agencies. Serious questions must be asked and the general population needs to wake up to the very real threat of the worst kind of scifi future - a dystopia - and that process starts with understanding! A national referendum seems the only way...
Posted by: Concerned of Liverpool 22 Apr 2008
Why are some people in the UK so precious about ID cards? Here in Belgium people have to carry ID cards by law, and I've never heard anyone have an issue with them. If ID cards help prevent and solve serious crime, then what's the problem?
Posted by: Bill. 23 Jan 2008
We use the Interwatch Security system to protect our business. The beauty of being able to view our offices remotely, from any pc and even our PDAs is fantastic. When motion is detected we receive a phone call, sms text and email with the image - a great solution guys.
We live in a very different world now. Just think back 20 years and how things have changed, its very sad.
Posted by: Frank Dyer 20 Oct 2007
In every possible way there is no way that you can guarantee that personal information will not be abused, be it by vested interests, dictatorial governments, (as all governments are) nor any individual or so called protective or trusted body nor even yourself.
It defies credulity that people are so foolish to believe that other people can have your best interests at heart.They don't ask you what your best interests are beforehand nor do they guarantee upon their own lives and all that they hold sacred that they will guarantee anything. If no one is prepared and will prove that he will lay down anything or his own life as proof then i simply don't want to know.
Get real you fools. I will give you all that any government will promise and more.Look how well they deliver and what sort of tyranny we are are under now.We don't even control our own country or nation.
Posted by: adrian dowle 10 Oct 2007
We live in a world where terrorism, hackers, identity theft, reign unchecked.
To protect ourselves we need CCTV, ID cards and a DNA database of every legal citizen and visitor to the uK.
However, given the UK's record with major IT projects I doubt that it is practical.
Posted by: Mike Orton 11 Sep 2007
This government hardly has an unblemished record when it comes to complicated systems integration. Aside from the moral dilemma, I have serious concerns for the safety and security of my private information.
Putting health records, criminal records and bank details all in one place strikes me as the very worst thing to do in a climate in which identity theft is such a major issue.
The proposed system is over budget, too complicated for this government to integrate smoothly and is open to abuse.
Posted by: Tom French 13 Aug 2007
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