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| Letters From London |
| Humorous Views on London Culture, Royals, Gossip and Politics |
Smile, You're On Candid Camera - 7 November 20006
I’m watching you, watching me… once every 4.8 minutes. Time for a total make-over because
one certainly won’t want to be caught out not looking one’s very best. In the UK you are captured
on more than 300 CCTV screens every day. There is one CCTV camera for every 14 people…4.
2 million CCTV cameras. Britain is now ranked along with Russia and China as ‘endemic
surveillance societies’. Russia…China! Dictatorships. Germany and Canada are the safest
places to live regarding civil liberties safeguarded. Have your bags packed…prepare to
emigrate…soon, very soon.
The scariest bit about this ‘we know who you are, where you live and what you do’ is the fact
that it has moved into the areas of ‘we know what you eat, what you buy, whom you phone and
email, where you holiday, what your bank balance is, what you are allergic to, what you drink –
where, how much, how often– the sky’s the limit – as it were. I’m imagining surveillance
equipment that picks up every word you say in your flat, in your bed, to your partner: “Have you
been eating biscuits in bed again, Nigel?” Any civil disobedience – disobedience being the key
here - is recorded. No protest, not even a “No Bush” T-shirt (let alone one that would more
accurately express the wearer’s sentiments best left to the imagination because any subversive
words are like alarms going off to those monitoring us) will go unnoticed by those watching us.
This new ‘personal relationship’ is not about crime as those watching us keep saying. The Home
Office has admitted that “the CCTV schemes that have been assessed had little effect on crime
levels”. Yet we can expect more. We can expect cameras mounted on unmanned drones flying
over us. The only people who will enjoy this will be exhibitionists and celebrities.
More good news is that once they have got your DNA, you are on the database forever and you
don’t even have to be guilty of a crime, GBH, a misdemeanour, a temper tantrum while waiting
for the bus, coming to the aid of someone in need of assistance, breathing too vigorously. It’s
preventative; they just never know when you are going to step over the line of robotic,
somnambulist, Stepford Wife behaviour. Even a Tory MP didn’t have the power to have his son’s
DNA removed when it was a matter of mistaken identity. Last May, the Criminal Records Bureau
admitted that it had wrongly labelled 2,700 innocent people as pornographers, thieves and violent
criminals. Much of the CCTV footage of 7/7 ‘went missing’. Feeling a touch paranoid yet? The
pioneer of DNA profiling, Sir Alec Jefferys is. There is increasing evidence that the data is being
used to perform genetic research – without his consent or yours, unsurprisingly.
Oyster cards to ride the tube, congestion charge to obtain your vehicle plate recognition, shop
loyalty cards; “function creep” is decided creepy and creeping. Data is collected for one
purpose, but used for another – again, unbeknownst to you. In August, AOL ‘accidentally’
released your search inquiries if you were one of their 20m users. It took only moments to start
connecting search records with names. While on the subject of privacy, we all know about
Google, China and their duplicitous relationship, but did you know that the Google Desktop
service is promoted as a device to search your own hard drive with no suggestion that Google
can access that data: “But the terms and conditions, as recently as March, contained no link to a
privacy policy, which could be interpreted as enabling Google to use any personal data gathered
from your hard drive as it sees fit, now or in the future”, according to Roger Clarke, an Australian
specialist who lectures worldwide on ‘dataveillance’. All UK internet providers must monitor all the
websites we view and they then pass that information to MI5 (!) under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Bill. Now do you believe in conspiracy theories?
It’s time your physical and mental health was gathered and shared. 40 million patients’ private
health records are to be uploaded to a central national database. A £12 billion project which
gives free access to 250,000 NHS staff and private health companies, council workers,
commercial researchers and ambulance staff. I see blackmail as a possible employment
opportunity. ‘A small rash on left hand above the wrist, not very cheery on a Thursday in the
afternoon, asked GP about possible wheat allergy….’ Soon you will have to go to use that ever
so obvious tactic: “I have a friend who has….” when you see your doctor.
Richard Thomas, the UK’s independent information commissioner says that clear lines need to be
drawn as government and businesses could (you know they are already) hoard information on
people’s movements and buying habits. Thomas has already encountered cases of private
investigators, aided by insiders, raiding government and company databases. In 10 short years:
cameras and microchips could (will) control daily life, employees would (will) be screened for
future health problems and then be fired, satellite navigation devices in cars would (will) allow the
police to monitor speed and track selected vehicles, monitoring of people’s movements would
(will) intensify with the use of those unmanned aircraft combined with street-level camera facial
recognition technology. I’m beginning to see the advantage of identity theft. No more document
shredding for me.
In 2002, law enforcement groups made more than 400,000 requests for data from mobile
network operators. The American military intelligence base at Menwith Hill Yorkshire listens in to
calls and uses complex software to pick up particular words and phrases. Since 9/11, the US
have been monitoring the books university students use at the library, they listen in on
international phone calls and note data on private money transfers. So now I can’t call, email or
send cash to my mother. She’ll just have to imagine my birthday wishes and presents for her.
Sorry, Mum.
Our very own toy poodle, Tony Blair, is dead set (if only) on us paying for them to know every
detail about us through ID cards which will be issued in 2008. Tony is spinning them by
emphasising the benefits to goods and services consuming consumers. Oh joy. Tony wants us to
use them to order a yellow cardigan for Uncle Ian on line as well as to get a mortgage. Our boy
Tony is creating a society even George Orwell hadn’t envisioned. Is he still being guided by his
Bush-shared god? The obvious question is why all this stripping away of civil lliberties? Why are
‘they’ so anxious to control us? Why are they so anxious to give your private data to private
companies? Why, why, why?
The 2011 census coming up will require details about your health, in case they haven’t obtained it
already from your own GP, how often couples spend the night together, if they have a second
home and how much money they are squirreling away in that fake book in the bookcase next to
London: a Comprehensive Survey. The company behind Nectar reward cards keeps information
on 90% of the local population. 50% of the country carries one. At Canary Wharf, new
technology allows us to be seen – well, naked – but the users have promised “not to look” – as
they scan us for weapons. There is use of radio frequency identification which uses tiny
microchips to track everyday objects, animals, people. The behemoth supermarket, Tesco,
tested this by inserting chips into certain goods deemed vulnerable to shoplifting. Hitachi has
been working with the European Central Bank on the idea of putting these chips into Euro bank
notes.
I for one am going to gather disguises: a blonde curly wig, huge black sunglasses, a cane,
glasses with a big nose attached… time to be creative. Who will I be today? Although it might be
easier to just say: balaclavas for everyone. It’s time to revolt – en masse: demonstrate, lie on
forms, create alternative forms of communication via a new secret sign language or perhaps eye
blinking, use alias, cut your Nectar card into tiny, tiny pieces, walk don’t drive, barter, boycott
banks, and never, never get sick. None of this lazy rationale: “If you have nothing to hide….”
DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN. Stop it before we can’t; it may already be too late. Time to pack
those woolly jumpers; Lapland
I’m watching you, watching me… once every 4.8 minutes. Time for a total make-over because
one certainly won’t want to be caught out not looking one’s very best. In the UK you are captured
on more than 300 CCTV screens every day. There is one CCTV camera for every 14 people…4.
2 million CCTV cameras. Britain is now ranked along with Russia and China as ‘endemic
surveillance societies’. Russia…China! Dictatorships. Germany and Canada are the safest
places to live regarding civil liberties safeguarded. Have your bags packed…prepare to
emigrate…soon, very soon.
The scariest bit about this ‘we know who you are, where you live and what you do’ is the fact
that it has moved into the areas of ‘we know what you eat, what you buy, whom you phone and
email, where you holiday, what your bank balance is, what you are allergic to, what you drink –
where, how much, how often– the sky’s the limit – as it were. I’m imagining surveillance
equipment that picks up every word you say in your flat, in your bed, to your partner: “Have you
been eating biscuits in bed again, Nigel?” Any civil disobedience – disobedience being the key
here - is recorded. No protest, not even a “No Bush” T-shirt (let alone one that would more
accurately express the wearer’s sentiments best left to the imagination because any subversive
words are like alarms going off to those monitoring us) will go unnoticed by those watching us.
This new ‘personal relationship’ is not about crime as those watching us keep saying. The Home
Office has admitted that “the CCTV schemes that have been assessed had little effect on crime
levels”. Yet we can expect more. We can expect cameras mounted on unmanned drones flying
over us. The only people who will enjoy this will be exhibitionists and celebrities.
More good news is that once they have got your DNA, you are on the database forever and you
don’t even have to be guilty of a crime, GBH, a misdemeanour, a temper tantrum while waiting
for the bus, coming to the aid of someone in need of assistance, breathing too vigorously. It’s
preventative; they just never know when you are going to step over the line of robotic,
somnambulist, Stepford Wife behaviour. Even a Tory MP didn’t have the power to have his son’s
DNA removed when it was a matter of mistaken identity. Last May, the Criminal Records Bureau
admitted that it had wrongly labelled 2,700 innocent people as pornographers, thieves and violent
criminals. Much of the CCTV footage of 7/7 ‘went missing’. Feeling a touch paranoid yet? The
pioneer of DNA profiling, Sir Alec Jefferys is. There is increasing evidence that the data is being
used to perform genetic research – without his consent or yours, unsurprisingly.
Oyster cards to ride the tube, congestion charge to obtain your vehicle plate recognition, shop
loyalty cards; “function creep” is decided creepy and creeping. Data is collected for one
purpose, but used for another – again, unbeknownst to you. In August, AOL ‘accidentally’
released your search inquiries if you were one of their 20m users. It took only moments to start
connecting search records with names. While on the subject of privacy, we all know about
Google, China and their duplicitous relationship, but did you know that the Google Desktop
service is promoted as a device to search your own hard drive with no suggestion that Google
can access that data: “But the terms and conditions, as recently as March, contained no link to a
privacy policy, which could be interpreted as enabling Google to use any personal data gathered
from your hard drive as it sees fit, now or in the future”, according to Roger Clarke, an Australian
specialist who lectures worldwide on ‘dataveillance’. All UK internet providers must monitor all the
websites we view and they then pass that information to MI5 (!) under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Bill. Now do you believe in conspiracy theories?
It’s time your physical and mental health was gathered and shared. 40 million patients’ private
health records are to be uploaded to a central national database. A £12 billion project which
gives free access to 250,000 NHS staff and private health companies, council workers,
commercial researchers and ambulance staff. I see blackmail as a possible employment
opportunity. ‘A small rash on left hand above the wrist, not very cheery on a Thursday in the
afternoon, asked GP about possible wheat allergy….’ Soon you will have to go to use that ever
so obvious tactic: “I have a friend who has….” when you see your doctor.
Richard Thomas, the UK’s independent information commissioner says that clear lines need to be
drawn as government and businesses could (you know they are already) hoard information on
people’s movements and buying habits. Thomas has already encountered cases of private
investigators, aided by insiders, raiding government and company databases. In 10 short years:
cameras and microchips could (will) control daily life, employees would (will) be screened for
future health problems and then be fired, satellite navigation devices in cars would (will) allow the
police to monitor speed and track selected vehicles, monitoring of people’s movements would
(will) intensify with the use of those unmanned aircraft combined with street-level camera facial
recognition technology. I’m beginning to see the advantage of identity theft. No more document
shredding for me.
In 2002, law enforcement groups made more than 400,000 requests for data from mobile
network operators. The American military intelligence base at Menwith Hill Yorkshire listens in to
calls and uses complex software to pick up particular words and phrases. Since 9/11, the US
have been monitoring the books university students use at the library, they listen in on
international phone calls and note data on private money transfers. So now I can’t call, email or
send cash to my mother. She’ll just have to imagine my birthday wishes and presents for her.
Sorry, Mum.
Our very own toy poodle, Tony Blair, is dead set (if only) on us paying for them to know every
detail about us through ID cards which will be issued in 2008. Tony is spinning them by
emphasising the benefits to goods and services consuming consumers. Oh joy. Tony wants us to
use them to order a yellow cardigan for Uncle Ian on line as well as to get a mortgage. Our boy
Tony is creating a society even George Orwell hadn’t envisioned. Is he still being guided by his
Bush-shared god? The obvious question is why all this stripping away of civil lliberties? Why are
‘they’ so anxious to control us? Why are they so anxious to give your private data to private
companies? Why, why, why?
The 2011 census coming up will require details about your health, in case they haven’t obtained it
already from your own GP, how often couples spend the night together, if they have a second
home and how much money they are squirreling away in that fake book in the bookcase next to
London: a Comprehensive Survey. The company behind Nectar reward cards keeps information
on 90% of the local population. 50% of the country carries one. At Canary Wharf, new
technology allows us to be seen – well, naked – but the users have promised “not to look” – as
they scan us for weapons. There is use of radio frequency identification which uses tiny
microchips to track everyday objects, animals, people. The behemoth supermarket, Tesco,
tested this by inserting chips into certain goods deemed vulnerable to shoplifting. Hitachi has
been working with the European Central Bank on the idea of putting these chips into Euro bank
notes.
I for one am going to gather disguises: a blonde curly wig, huge black sunglasses, a cane,
glasses with a big nose attached… time to be creative. Who will I be today? Although it might be
easier to just say: balaclavas for everyone. It’s time to revolt – en masse: demonstrate, lie on
forms, create alternative forms of communication via a new secret sign language or perhaps eye
blinking, use alias, cut your Nectar card into tiny, tiny pieces, walk don’t drive, barter, boycott
banks, and never, never get sick. None of this lazy rationale: “If you have nothing to hide….”
DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN. Stop it before we can’t; it may already be too late. Time to pack
those woolly jumpers; Lapland
