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Panopticonic Consumerism or Mad Marketing?

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

The journalist Pete Warren noted in an article for The Guardian (UK) earlier this month that Google have duly noted, anticipated and are working toward solving the major problem that exists in attempting to link mobile Internet technology, social networking and online advertising. Google have developed their Orkut social networking application specifically for mobile phones – and so hope to dominate the most powerful form of advertising yet commercially developed – and in future, perhaps the most invasive as well as the most lucrative.

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Careless Government vs. Malicious Agents

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

The e-governance initiatives that Anderson et al deplored in their Database State report are not, as I’ve argued previously here in Panopticonic, malicious works of a totalitarian state – they are about deploying information in a timely and accurate manner, about citizens in need of healthcare or social care. The true risk to information security and privacy comes from individuals working to intrude illegitimately into these databases and caches of personal data. I term these individuals, rather abstractly, ‘malicious agents.’

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An Unhealthy Fixation With Databases?

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

The Database State report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, written by the UK authors Anderson et al and published in March 2009 gives a sweeping – and damning – overview of databases, IT frameworks and general ‘e-governance’ initiatives concerned with managing (and hopefully improving) public health in the UK.

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Respected UK Trust Slams Government Databases

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

Sunday Times journalist David Leppard has given an important pointer to an upcoming political tug-of-war in the UK. The Jospeh Rowntree Foundation (an important ‘liberty & democracy’ campaigning funder) has produced a report – published on Monday the 23rd of March – that slams the myriad of Government-sponsored ‘giant databases’ that exist or are planned for implementation in the UK.

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Modern Liberty and Sectarian UK ID Card Schemes

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

On Saturday the 28th of February at the Institute of Education in London, the UK consensus on a fight-back against intrusions into privacy finally gets going with the inaugural Convention on Modern Liberty.

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Digital Britain and the Privacy Theory

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

As our society shapes itself around speedier and speedier flows of information – some of it useful, some of it not, much of it with only entertainment value – it could be that our legal frameworks, both sides of the Atlantic, will see developments that entail a ‘democratisation’ of democracy itself.

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Surveillance is Good for You

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

Police in the UK increasingly use new monitoring and tracking technology to capture burglars and ‘home invaders,’ as well as car thieves. Suburban houses in high-crime hotspots are turned into Panopticonic dens with enough camera equipment inside them to identify an offender wherever they move within a building.

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Surveilling the New Information Minority

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

I’d like to put forward the idea that by using surveillance and monitoring in our society as we progress through the Information Age we are creating new ‘information minorities’ – not those who are the least monitored and overwatched, those who are subject to the most surveillance and scrutiny, for whatever reason: state security, criminal justice, politics or ‘research.’

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Blood of the Land in Biometric Tech

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

It be should acknowledged that the concept of property, and the related concept of ownership, is central to Western society.  Property is always a common denominator of value – and as such our legal system is devoted to protecting property ownership – both of objects and of land. Land then, is to be fought over – even in the courts.  The aim of this article is to refute the notion that a DNA- or biometric-driven land registry system is desirable for reasons of not practicality but of justice, and the avoidance of harm.

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Sacrificing UK Privacy for Profit or Security?

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

What do you think of under-age drinking? What about social menacing or unavoidable rite-of-passage for teens? Are you concerned about illegal immigration or the threat of terrorism? Or is growing anti-social behaviour in your neighborhood more of an immediate concern?

Continue reading → Sacrificing UK Privacy for Profit or Security?