I have just spent a day keeping an eye on a system called “flightradar24”. It allows you to track the path, height and speed of individual passenger aircraft to their destination. I had a friend travelling from Scandinavia to the far east and it gave me peace of mind. Such technology can be rather addictive, but few people would question its use – even though it could be seen as an invasion of privacy.
Reflecting on the increasing power of technology to help us track each other made me go on to think how outraged many people still are about allowing others to track us via our mobile phones and how controversial tachograph and tracking systems were when first applied to commercial vehicles. Yet most of us use satnav in our cars, especially in urban areas, even though it can equally be used in reverse by state security services to trace our movements. Of course, satnav is not the only way vehicles can be monitored – look above the gantries on motorways or road bridges and there you will find cameras tracking number plates on behalf of the police.
So although we can use tracking technology for our own purposes and it is fine for law enforcement – even when no crime has necessarily taken place – it remains anathema in many countries for employers to monitor employees electronically. If someone has a clear conscience why should they fear surveillance? What in the end is different from surveillance by a camera than someone directly watching events – except for the fact that certain things would not occur if someone in authority was personally present? Cameras do not have feet and movement is not as rapid as physical observation.
How long will Works Councils in Germany and France continue to resist change by rejecting remote workplace surveillance? When will the EU Data Protection Directive by overhauled to bring it into the digital age? It is now over sixty years since George Orwell wrote about “big brother” in his novel 1984 and I guess technophobia is just a residual problem stemming from such “future fear”. When the millennium generation takes over our institutions sense will no doubt prevail.