The Myth Of Personal Freedom In The Digital World

YOU are being watched. I am being watched. We are all subjects of surveillance, every minute of every day, wherever we go.

Do you doubt this?

Then look around you at the proliferation of CCTV cameras which record your passing. Look at the number of people using mobile phones, the signals from which can be used to track your where-and-when-abouts.

Think about how often you enter a shop and make a purchase with a bank or credit card, or about the emails you send through giant computers owned by corporations around the globe, or the internet pages you view on your home PC which are traceable back to you.

Think, too, about movies, about spy-genre thrillers like The Bourne Trilogy in which pale-faced men and women use satellites and mobile phones to track the movements of people on the other side of the world. Do you really believe that is fiction?

Every day, in everything we do, we leave a digital trail.

I live in the United Kingdom, where personal freedom and the right to privacy are jealously guarded.

But the notions of personal freedom, privacy and civil liberty are myths; these basic human rights have already been eroded away to almost nothing, right in front of our eyes – and the situation is only likely to get worse.

The government of the UK wishes to introduce, at colossal expense, a national identity card scheme. This plan has caused a furore among civil liberties groups who argue these cards represent a civil liberties infringement.

I believe that argument is naïve. Argue against identity cards on cost grounds, by all means, but this particular civil liberties battle has already been lost.

And the privacy vs security war will only intensify in years to come. Let me illustrate.

What follows is a selection of extracts from news items, garnered from technology news websites, with links to the original articles.

From The Times, October 17 2008 (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4958778.ece)

China watches over internet café customers in web crackdown
“All visitors to internet cafés in Beijing are to be required to have their photographs taken in a stringent new control on the public use of cyberspace.”

From The Inquirer website, October 17 2008 (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/10/17/hoon-taking-liberties-database)

Hoon taking liberties with database
“Transport Secretary Jeff Hoon told a Question Time audience that not monitoring internet traffic and mobile phone records was tantamount to 'giving a licence to terrorists to kill people'. “

From The Register website, November 17 2008 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/17/triggerfish/)

US Justice Department free to track mobile phone users
“The American Civil Liberties Union has revealed that the FBI no longer feels the need for judicial or operator oversight when deploying base station-faking technology to detect mobile phones.”

From The Inquirer website, October 22 2008 (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/10/21/foreign-cops-ask-uk-identity)

Foreign cops ask for UK identity data
“The UK'S serious and Organised Crime Agency is talking with foreign police about letting them access the National Identity Register, the identity card database that will contain the biometric records of every adult in Britain.”

From The Inquirer website, November 7 2008 (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/11/07/british-government-spy)

Government plans for 'black box' web surveillance take shape
“British government plans to install black boxes at ISPs around the country, in order to log every email and web site visit its citizens make, are taking shape.”

From The Times, October 19 2008 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece)

Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones
“Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.”

From The Guardian, October 17 2008 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/17/digital-media-stephen-carter)

Stephen Carter to prepare UK digital action plan
“The new minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, Stephen Carter, is to create a wide-ranging "action plan" for the digital media economy that could include greater regulation for the internet.
Former Ofcom chief executive and ex-Downing Street strategy director Carter will prepare a report, called Digital Britain, which will look at 'a range of issues affecting internet users, such as user security and safety and a workable approach to promoting content standards'.”

From Tech Radar website, October 22 2008 (http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/anti-terror-government-snooping-will-harm-web-478140)

Anti-terror Government snooping will harm web
“Ex-boss of Big Brother producer Endemol, Peter Bazalgette, has slammed the government for web-snooping, warning that it will have a negative impact on web content.
In a speech at the London School of Economics organised by thinktank Polis Bazalgette said: 'We have to be confident [personal data] will not be passed to every Tom, Dick and minister.
Ambitious plans from the home office to capture online and mobile data may be intended to combat terrorism but will destroy consumers' confidence in online transactions.
But broadband advertisers want to know a lot about us so they can target their message precisely and judge its effectiveness. So we'll pay for the likes of Coronation Street and The X Factor in future with our own personal data,' Bazalgette told the assembled hacks and privacy campaigners.”

From The Times, October 16 2008 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4951864.ece)

Internet phone calls are crippling fight against terrorism
“The huge growth in internet telephone traffic is jeopardising the capability of police to investigate almost every type of crime, senior sources have told The Times.
As more and more phone calls are routed over the web – using software such as Skype – police are losing the ability to track who has called whom, from where and for how long.
The key difficulty facing police is that, unlike mobile phone companies, which retain call data for billing purposes, internet call companies have no reason to keep the material.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, outlined plans yesterday for a huge expansion of the Government’s capability to access data held by internet services, including social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo, and gaming networks.
The move follows growing concern among police and the security services that serious criminals and terrorists are using websites as a way of concealing their communications.”

The above extracts represent around a third of the news items I have collected on the subject of digital security since the start of October, 2008.

Bear in mind, too, that the subjects mentioned above are those deemed suitable for discussion in the public domain – as ordinary citizens we are not privvy to discussions or plans which may go well beyond these measures.

Obviously, the matter of national security is at the heart of much of this debate and, given the terrorist atrocities of the last few years, it is hard to argue against measures designed to ensure public safety.

It is hard, too, to decry the efforts of those campaigning for our personal freedoms – organisations like Liberty, the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International do remarkable work.

It is just that I cannot help feeling that they are 'tilting at windmills'.

To leave you on a slightly lighter note, it is comforting to know that even American presidents are not immune...

http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/200811171065/will-obama-s-blackberry-be-banned-from-the-whitehouse.html

Footnote

And this just in..

The Register website, November 18 2008 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/18/interception_modernisation_schedule/)

Wacky Jacqui's £12bn gIMP could be unleashed by 2012
"The government Interception Modernisation Programme (gIMP), a plan by spy chiefs to centrally collect details of every phone call, text, email and web browsing session of every UK resident, could be in place by 2012, according to a Home Office minister.
Lord West told the House of Lords yesterday the government is aiming to have the enormous database of communications and "black box" interception hardware in place around the same time as BT completes its 21CN transition to an all-internet protocol network...
...Last month home secretary Jacqui Smith said the Communications Data Bill, which is planned to legislate for the gIMP, would be delayed a second time and not appear in the Queen's Speech in early December. Instead, she said, a consultation will be opened in January with the aim of achieving consensus on GCHQ's communications data harvesting ambitions."