Surveillance !

By next month, the Opal card will be operating at all stations on the New South Wales train network - and another step will lock into place in the personal surveillance of New South Wales citizens.  When we " tap and ride " the central computers know precisely who we are, where we have been and in what time frame.  To some people, that is an invasion of privacy.

Of course, privacy is now considered archaic !   Our Smartphone provider knows exactly where we are twenty-four/seven.   That clever piece of machinery emits a signal that is " read " by the company computers and by triangulating between transmitter towers it can accurately place us anywhere on planet earth.  That could be quite handy if we are ever kidnapped - or manage to get lost in the bush.

These days Big Brother keeps a sharp eye on where we travel in our cars.   Sydney folk need a toll road transponder and that tracks each vehicle through the toll sections to record our bill.  Then there are the Safe-T-Road cameras that screen every highway.  Number plate recognition technology can scan to find an individual vehicle and track it's progress from journey start to finish.

Every time we access the Internet on our computers or Smartphones that download is recorded against our allowance by the computer company providing our service.   We are also probably being scooped up by various spying agencies around the world and recorded at a central date base.

We probably get photographed hundreds of times a day.  Every time we enter a store or supermarket security cameras provide a record and the street scene is now covered by the cctv network.  Walking through the CBD exposes us to hundreds of hidden security cameras trained on the entrance to shops from vantage points.  In the event of a robbery, the police are very interested in the preceding pedestrian traffic.

Now it is proposed to install fingerprint security to reduce school truancy.  The kids will need to clock in and out by pressing a pressure pad - and in the event of a no show - automatic notification to parents or guardians.  No doubt some kids will compare that to the reporting regime required of prisoners granted bail..

The civil liberties people will holler long and loud, but the Facebook age has brought new thinking on how we live our lives - and we now do that openly.  An amazing amount of very personal information is published on the net for all to see - and some of it may come back in the years ahead to haunt the indiscreet.

There is also a reverse benefit with all this surveillance.  If we are every falsely accused of a crime the average person should have no trouble in establishing a proven alibi !