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The
electronic computer is to individual privacy what the machine gun was to horse cavalry.
Alan
W. Scheflin, American law professor (1942-) and Edward M. Opton, Jr., American psychology
researcher (1936-)
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To join
the i-TV boycott: http://www.spytv.co.uk |
Governments
and corporations are wiring their way into your home and you may not even notice
it, according to Simon Davies. The world’s leading privacy advocate chronicles the
rise of the surveillance society where the bedrock of civil rights–privacy–is being
systematically chipped away (pp.
20-22)
© Jean Lecointre, Paris
To imagine the year
2020, forget for a moment the cumbersome technology portrayed in George Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four. If present trends continue, surveillance tools will be so seamlessly
integrated in our environment that we won’t even notice the constant intrusion into
our privacy.
Closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) may be the most obvious–and onerous–future
intrusion. As is already the case in Britain (see p. 36), cameras will become a fixed
component in the design of modern urban centres, new housing areas, public buildings
and the road system (thanks to a massive network of linked number plate recognition
cameras). Perhaps it is only a matter of time before legal and community pressures
force the cameras into our homes.
As visual surveillance becomes ubiquitous, so will mass surveillance of Internet
and telephone activity. American and European law enforcement agencies have already
laid the foundations for a massive eavesdropping system capable of intercepting all
mobile phones, Internet communications, fax messages and pagers throughout Europe.
The plan, known as Enfopol 98, has been drawn up in secret by police and justice
officials as part of a strategy to create a “seamless” web of telecommunications
surveillance that will one day cross all national boundaries–touching citizens everywhere.
The strategy will oblige all ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and telephone networks
to provide agencies with “real time, full time” access to all communications, regardless
of the country of origin. All new communications media, including interactive cable
television, will be required to do the same.
Enfopol will be aided by a subject-tagging system capable of continually tracking
targeted individuals. Known as the “International User Requirements for Interception”
(IUR), the system, which is currently being designed, will include not only the names,
addresses and phone numbers of targets and associates, but email addresses, credit
card details, PINs, passwords and even geographic data from mobile phones.
Enfopol is just one of several burgeoning systems used to monitor and profile international
communications. Perhaps the most astounding is Echelon, a global eavesdropping system
established by the U.S. National Security Agency that is further discussed on pages
34-35.
Perfect surveillance requires perfect identity, and the next 20 years will see a
comprehensive effort by authorities to achieve this end. As well as creating DNA
databases–notably to identify people convicted of violent crimes and missing children–governments
and companies are likely to expand the use of national electronic finger and hand-scanning
systems.
Known as “biometric identifiers,” these systems are already used throughout the world.
They are supposedly able to perfectly identify an individual by electronically scanning
the fine details of a hand, finger or eye (retina). Spain has begun a national fingerprint
system to control unemployment benefits and healthcare entitlements. Russia has announced
plans for a national electronic fingerprint system for banks. Jamaicans are required
to scan their thumbs into a database before qualifying to vote at elections. In France
and Germany, tests are underway to put finger-print information onto credit cards.
For the past five years, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has
been developing an automated passport control system using hand geo-metry captured
on a “smart” computer chip card. At the airport, frequent travellers present their
card and then pass their hand through a scan. More than 70,000 people have already
enrolled in the plan which, according to an INS spokesman, will be expanded worldwide.
But it is the growth of workplace surveillance that will most directly affect people.
In a majority of countries, employers are permitted–“within reason”–to place all
employees under constant surveillance. They can tap phones, read email and monitor
computer screens. They can bug conversations, analyze computer work, peer through
CCTV cameras and use tracking technology like “smart” ID badges to even monitor trips
to the bathroom. Indeed, employers now routinely insist on urine tests to detect
drug use and review the most intimate personal and medical data.
The current telephone software for keeping tabs on employees’ calls seems primitive
compared to the new generation, which can analyze keystrokes on a terminal to determine
if time is being efficiently used between conversations. Even highly skilled workers
can expect to be regularly put under the microscope. It’s likely that network-operating
software (which lets you exchange files with a colleague) already permits your manager
to eavesdrop by observing your screen in real time, scanning data files and email
and even overwriting passwords. All of which leads us in one direction: the workplace
of tomorrow will have many features of the Dickensian workhouse.
Even your home will not be free from surveillance. The new generation of interactive
digital television (known as i-TV) services, currently being developed, will offer
a new intimacy between TV service provider and customer. By directly drawing information
on viewing habits, financial transactions and on-screen “vox pop” surveys, the company
can create a complex profile of every customer.
A recent investigative book, Spy TV (edited by David Burke, an American researcher),
describes how i-TV broadcasters will use neural network software to create “psychological
profiles” and then “modify the behaviour” of viewers. Basically, your TV will show
you a product, monitor your response and then show you something else based upon
it. This cycle will let your TV set learn enough about you until it has you doing
what it wants. And one day, the person controlling your TV will be replaced by a
computer running artificial intelligence software.
Privacy is and will be eroded in countless other ways. Mobile phones are being turned
into geographical tracking devices with the aim of providing customers “useful” information,
like the location of the nearest petrol station or an advertisement for a local restaurant.
The question is not whether you want or need these services, but do you want to be
trailed?
You are probably already being followed on the Internet. While some on-line companies
keep track of consumers’ purchases, others offer personalized services like news
searches, free email and stock portfolios. They then sell or trade this information
to business associates without the consumer’s consent (see p. 24).
Every time you visit a website, a small file containing an ID number–known as a “cookie”–is
automatically placed on your hard drive to make it easier to “flip” back through
pages on a website. However, advertising networks can use a single cookie to track
a user across thousands of websites. The Internet Engineering Task Force (made up
of network designers, vendors and researchers) is now developing a system to assign
a permanent ID number to every device, like a VCR, hooked onto the net. So it may
be only a matter ot time before somebody somewhere knows exactly what you keep in
the refrigerator. |
