03 November 2006

They'll be watching me

I wonder how many CCTV systems have captured my movements today. Britain is home to 20% of the worlds CCTV cameras and they are everywhere; the High Street, train stations, shopping malls, roundabouts, intersections, football stadia.

Yesterday the government’s own Information Commissioner (or should it be Commissar?) told us that we have sleepwalked into becoming a surveillance society. Richard Thomas's report (he should not be confused with John Boy), presented to the International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners' Conference, envisions a nightmare scenario in just ten years time in which "shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk". Doesn't the later already happen in America?

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