The End of Privacy.

Sandie Seward · The End of Privacy.

The end of privacy as we know it
by Philip Johnston

This fine and very pertinent article by Philip Johnston appeared a couple of weeks ago on www.telegraph.co.uk. It's so bang on target that we're reproducing it in full …

What will Tony Blair be remembered for? The post-war debacle in Iraq? Billions largely wasted on unreformed public services? Half-baked constitutional reforms that have threatened the integrity of the United Kingdom?

How about the erosion of privacy and the transformation of Britain into the most snooped-on country in the world this side of Pyongyang? We have more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together. We have thousands of speed cameras linked to numberplate recognition databases. We await with trepidation the arrival of the national identity database from 2008, entry on to which will make it an offence, for the first time, not to inform the "authorities" when we move home.

Again, for the first time, our medical records, perhaps our most intimate personal information, will be available on a national data "spine", rather than kept within the confines of our GP's files. Details of children will be placed on another database, with no obvious limit to how long this information will be kept. Will a classroom transgression pop out of the system 20 years hence to scupper some job application, with the victim unaware why?

Last week, in a significant announcement issued under the guise of an innocuous-sounding "information-sharing vision statement", the Government proposed to reverse the presumptions of confidentiality under which Whitehall has, until now, conducted its relationships with businesses and individuals. Departments will be able to share personal information obtained for one purpose with other departments that might want it for an entirely different reason. In effect, they will be able to gather all this data in one place, something we were always assured would not happen.

And there is more. The Government is about to enact the controversial part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) that it has held back for almost six years, after obtaining support for the legislation in Parliament on the grounds that it was crucial to the fight against terrorism and crime. If it was so important, why the delay? It makes it an offence not to give the police the key to an encrypted computer entry, should they request it. Failure to do so will mean a long prison sentence.

Now, I hear you say, so what? Surely all of these developments (and most have happened since Mr Blair came to power) are for our own good: to stop bad driving, track down criminals, save children from abuse, ensure prompt medical treatment, identify illegal immigrants and deter terrorists. The fact that there has been very little comment about Ripa, after such a huge fuss was made six years ago, suggests we have all become inured to such intrusions and hardly notice them - unlike visitors, who do. Relatives in London from America last week were shocked by the number of cameras everywhere and found them deeply sinister.

Have we have been bludgeoned into accepting the end of privacy? We now take it for granted that if someone refuses to hand over their data encryption key to the police, they must have something to hide. Perhaps they have, but it doesn't make it the business of the state unless it is illegal. There are plenty of people who want to keep things secret simply because they do not want others to see them.

Samuel Pepys wrote his diaries in shorthand (though the first transcribers thought they were encoded). If he were writing today on a computer, he would almost certainly have encrypted his entries, not because he was doing anything unlawful, but because he did not want his wife to find out what he had been up to with other women, nor certain notables to discover what he thought of them. They were private.

Now, on the assumption that we are all potential criminals, a new law will render such attempts at secrecy illegal. We may think we live in such a godforsaken world that, for the benefit of the majority, any concept of personal freedom as we used to understand it should no longer apply.

This is certainly the view of the Government. The Home Secretary, John Reid, said recently: "Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms." The Government believes it has struck the right balance and is supported by those who subscribe to the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" school of thought.

But the true criminal/terrorist/paedophile will find ways around this legislation, because that is what these people do; and those caught by it will often be unsuspecting innocents who have received an unsolicited encrypted message or have used a code in the past and forgotten the key.

I am by no means an "ultra" in these matters. There are clearly times when heightened surveillance is needed and, given the substantial threat of terrorism, this is one of them. It is also undoubtedly the case that paedophiles will try to hide their revolting photographic trade from prying eyes. But this Act is very widely drawn and can be invoked on the grounds of national security, for the purpose of preventing crime and "in the interests of the economic well-being of the UK". The scope here for misuse is clear.

There is also the concept of proportionality to be considered. Are we so embattled that we need, in Mr Reid's words, "to modify some of our own freedoms" to the point where they are almost unrecognisable from the liberties that our forefathers fought and died to preserve?

Once you accept that the government has the right to know where you are at all times, to demand that you tell its agents when you move home or to render up your private musings at its behest, then you have changed the nature of the individual's relationship to the state in a way that is totally alien to this country's historic, though ill-defined, covenant between the rulers and the ruled.

If enough people say "so what?" to that, as well, then Mr Blair really has left a legacy, and it is a pernicious one.

Source

Ken R

The truth of the matter is, that we have gradually come to this point in time. It has it's basis back in the 70s, when "watching" moved from the realms of of the secret services, into a more public domain. It was a gradual transition, some say to make sure everything was made right so as not to tresspass on the freedoms so commonly taken for granted by the good people of this nation. Others, with their agendas hidden from the public behind a facade of supposed caring for our wellbeing, wanted the transition to go as smoothly and as un-noticed as possible, so as not get to the situation we find ourselves in today, where the machinations of this government have come into the public eye, inviting questions from us as to what the ultimate purpose of all this snooping and collecting of information is for.

I'm not sure if this process can be reversed now, it has ground on for many years behind the scenes and the publicity now generated by its exposure is but the tail end of a highly controlled and hidden agenda to montior our daily lives on a scale not even envisaged by megalomaniacs from the past such as Stalin and Hitler. As a well respected and listened to politician from another age might have said, "this is not the beginning of the end but more accurately, the end of the beginning"

As long as enough of us out here care and are aware of what is going on, then the whole process can be derailed and stalled to such an extent as to render the whole concept un-workable. The proverbial spanner needs to be well and truly thrown into the works from as many directions as possible. By as many peole as possible, this will seriously slow the process down and hopefully give give us enough breathing space for right minded people to get a grip on what is going on and do something more permanent about stopping it.

To those not involved in the machinations of government and the hidden secretive and powerful engine rooms which drive this type of thing forward, all this may seem a little melodramatic and perhaps even over the top....it's not !

This is fact, this is today, this will be all our tomorrows if we are not careful !!!

Very Happy

it's late and it's lonely up here on my soapbox, so I'm climbing down for a while and getting some shut eye, please don't dismiss this as the ramblings of a paranoid crank, it may sound like it but I assure you it's not !

Ramble over Very Happy

Sandie Seward

An extremely valid reply, Ken, and I for one would not dismiss it lightly. You have made some very good observations as to what is actually happening in our country today.
Like you say, this has been creeping up on us for a very long time now, but it's only recently that people have realised just what the extent of all this surveillence and information gathering has reached. The big unanswered question is "WHY"? What do they intend doing with all this personal information they have/are gathering together. Are they really that frightened of us that they feel the need to know our weak points so they can use them to exploit us and gain advantage over us in that way? All these details they hold about us leaves us very vunerable indeed for this government (or any future one) to control us in a way the British people have never before been subjected to. I was always under the assumption (wrongly it seems now) that the government were our Servants and not our Masters. They are elected by us (the people) to do our will, not the other way around. Why are we content to be led like a load of sheep to the slaughterhouse?
Before anyone starts, no, I am not an Anarchist. I believe fully in Law and Order, otherwise nobody, (not even M.P.s) would be able to sleep safely in their homes at night. A civilised society needs laws, and rules to live by. This is not the issue in question though, is it. The issue in question is the Forthcoming Database State with all it's horrific implications, many of which we are not even fully aware of yet.
The future, if we do nothing, doesn't really bear thinking about. We would wish for a 1984 Society. Because what we will soon have in place will make that scenario seem like Utopia!

Sandie Seward

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE, EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, THEY'LL BE.. WATCHING YOU
It's Britain in 2016 when cameras and microchips control daily life
By Antonia Hoyle
THE minute I get out of bed, the microchip in my arm tells my kettle to boil, my bath to run and my electric car to warm up.

I start the vehicle with a fingertip - it needs to scan my prints before it will go.

And I dare not exceed the speed limit, or the chip in the car will inform a police computer. Welcome to Britain, November 2016. Welcome to an age in which every step you take is watched.

Back in November 2006, the Government's Information Commissioner, the man responsible for safeguarding our privacy, voiced concern at the increasingly pervasive "surveillance society all around us".

Richard Thomas pointed out there were 4.2 million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people - with the average person captured on more than 300 screens a day. In 2016, that seems like small fry.

His report warned that hi-tech scanners, tags and microscopic cameras would mean that in just a decade's time none of us would be able to go unnoticed again.

Now, as I drive to work watching one of his successors on my in-car HDTV repeating the same fears, I reflect on how accurate Mr Thomas was.

For instance, it is pointless removing the chip in my vehicle as overhead spy planes report all speeding to police anyway. As I enter the congestion zone, now in place in every UK city, there's no need to worry about paying the £210 charge - it's automatically deducted from my bank account.

There are benefits to all this, as I am reminded when my local council calls me on my videophone at lunch time. My son isn't eating his vegetables at school. They know because the electronic card he uses to pay for them records his choice of meals.

While telling him off, I also mention the length of time he's spending online when he should be doing his homework. How do I know? It's all on his digital school card.

Then I head to a high street shop. There aren't many these days as almost everyone buys online. As I enter, a holographic ad flashes up on a screen at my eye level.

The virtual shopgirl is urging me to buy a blouse like my other ones, only better. The advertising firm knows I'm tempted because it knows everything about me.

A chip in my trousers told it my size, likes, dislikes and buying habits as soon as I came in. For a virtual shopgirl she's being really attentive. But then she knows I've just been paid and how much I have in my bank.

She shouldn't have such details, of course, as they are supposed to be confidential. But in the hi-tech Britain of 2016, information like this is so valuable - and so easily leaked.

WHEN it's time to pay, there's no need for a credit card. I simply swipe my arm against a digital reader and the chip embedded under my skin sends a signal to my bank.

Back at work, I have to stand in front of another hi-tech reader which scans my face before letting me in. At my computer, gone are old-fashioned passwords. Instead it scans my iris before I can log on.

Then I try to hire a nanny. But various agencies tell me hundreds of women on their books are unsuitable. They had gone to GPs with depression but their medical records have been secretly passed on. Millions are in the same boat, their DNA and other details stored on file despite having committed no crime.

Before starting a job, everyone must go through extensive biometric tests.

And it's pointless trying to hide the fact you beat a drug habit 15 years ago or have a family history of cancer.

Your employer probably has those details anyway and may decide they are sufficient not to hire you.

The wealthy, of course, get around this and hire expensive data management firms to safeguard their details.

The rest of us are not so lucky. My husband, for instance. I suspect he has a mistress, which he denies.

But all I had to do was visit Google and type: "What was Simon doing on January 28 at 3.35pm?" to learn he was in her bed. That's ever-present cameras for you. As I leave work, cameras in lampposts re-create a 3-D image of the street and my face to send to police.

There has been a spate of thefts and they need to ensure I am not a suspect.

As I near home, the chip in my arm sends signals about my body to my thermostat. Knowing I'm a bit chilly, it turns the heating up a degree.

Back in my living room, I turn on a camera to talk to Mum 200 miles away.

I KNOW her knee is playing up, thanks to a sensor embedded in her that has sent signals to my computer and her carer's.

Mum would rather see me in person but it's so difficult finding the time.

I switch on the TV and a list of my favourite shows pops up. That's because I've programmed them into my microchip and don't need to channelsurf with the remote any more.

Nor do I have to go shopping. My fridge's computer knows when I'm low on food and orders from the supermarket, which brings it to my door.

Then it's bedtime. I don't need to set an alarm as my microchip senses my brain activity and tells my clock radio when to wake me up.

When it does, the Prime Minister is on, saying things are far better now we know one another's every move. Of course he's right. Isn't he?

antonia.hoyle@mirror.co.uk