Monday, 10 February 2020

Surveillance and Decency


Years ago, I felt that all those security cameras actually added to my security. But it has been creeping upon us. Not creeping, taking great leaps. More and more surveillance technology. And technological development (the word development used to have a positive connotation), has the tendency to find itself serving nasty masters.

Après moi le déluge. I say, hoping that nothing too dramatic will happen in my lifetime. The next generation needs to either revolt if that is at all possible or accept that they are totally transparent.

An interesting question is whether we become more decent, or just more law abiding, as we become more visible?

And then, the big what. What happens when our system changes and we become a China? It is, by the way, not what if but what when. Information is already being hacked by blackmailers. We will be at the mercy of private nasties and state nasties.

1 comment:

  1. It isn't just the surveillance cameras (the existence of which can be justified in neuralgic places).
    It is - above all! - what people publish of themselves on the various platforms offered on the Internet.
    There's no use complaining: Most of these often very personal utterances are made entirely voluntarily.

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