The Encroaching State

In George Orwell's 1984, surveillance was a reality for everyone except the proles. Compare that with what might be Gordon Brown's 2010 and no one escapes it seems. That might sound horrendously alarmist, but the ideas that were floated by "sources close to Brown" this weekend about the extension of the ID cards scheme really do constitute the ever closer reality of a society in which every actions is watched and recorded by the state.

These sources have spent the weekend briefing journalists that Brown intends to take ID cards and extend them to the point that biometric information about everyone would be shared with businesses, banks and stores. On the rather dodgy premise that it will aid in the fight against crime, peoples' every action would have direct links into a centralised system able to identify their location so the state could act upon the infromation if it felt the need. The examples floated include the Police being instantly alerted when a wanted criminal used a supermarket loyalty card, or a cash machine.

The breifings also claimed that people objecting to these systems in the political sphere, fail to realise that in the future, such system will be "absolutely commonplace in the private sphere". There is a difference between the two of course. In the private sphere people make a choice. They're not forced to have their data recorded and, in fact, legislation exists to ensure they have an opt-out option in cases where data may be used and stored. The ID card system, and its extension, has no such option, and will entail no such choice.

The lack of choice is fundamental here as well. By implementing a wider-system predicated upon the use of unique biometric information we effectively increase the surveillance to the point that the biometric data becomes little short of a barcode tattooed on one's wrist. If the proposals as floated came to fruitition it would mark a fundamental shift in the relationship between the individual and the state toward frigteningly Orwellian proportions.

I don't doubt some people might think I'm being paranoid. I've often heard the line "we'd never use the infromation in that way" as a justification for ID cards and other surveillance tools. However, I can't forget the historical fact that a certain leader once said the same thing about a piece of legislation called The Enabling Act. The issue though is not whether such things will happen, it is the principle that such scheme make them possible, and, that they infringe on our very notions of individual liberty. The state becomes the arbiter of individual actions, not the individual.

During the past nine years we've seen a gradualist encroachment of the state into individual liberty and action. Whether it be interferring in parenting; attempting social engineering in education; encouraging financial dependency on the state; introducing extra-judicial justice; attempts to abolish habeus corpus; the abolishment of jury trials in some cases; or the so-called "re-balancing" of justice which effectively means guilty until proven innocent in many cases; the concept of liberty has been slowly eroded. A little here, a little there. Alone they seem insignificant, but the sum of their parts makes a much larger whole. As Edmund Burke once said, "the true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts".