This week's Cringely is kind of scary. He talks about specific technologies that exist and are in place (or being put there) that essentially link surveillance cameras into a single network that not only keeps records of everything it sees (most/many security cameras don't have permanent backups) but is also capable of iris identification through sunglasses.
I've heard so much about the wonders of automated biometric identification that have inevitably fallen flat that I'm skeptical about the claims that he makes, but even if Cringely is overestimating what the tech is capable of today, there is a very good chance that it will be able to do what he says and more by tomorrow.
Fortunately for us Cringely is a smart man and avoids overreacting to this stuff. He points out that it isn't a recipe for a "Minority Report" future (yet...) but that this stuff is likely going to be here to stay. What is more chilling to me though is not the security tech so much as the database integration WITH GOVERNMENT. It's one thing for an airport, bank, corporate research center, or even convenience store chain, to have a high tech security system with all the bells and whistles he describes, but did you know that the FBI has increased its use of private sector databases in intelligence gathering by 9,200% since 1992?
We all know that the government is falling over itself trying to integrate its departments' information services, say between the CIA, FBI, and IRS. But they are also sticking their thumbs into every private database they can get their hands on. Considering the recent pro-corporation swing of American political climate, its unlikely that the corporations are going to bite the hand that feeds (or is it the government that is being fed? Hard to tell these days.)
All of this sounds a bit paranoid, and I admit it is. But we are a lot closer to living in Will Smith's Enemy of the State world that than we realize. Not that the actual expression of that world is an absolute, but the conditions that make it possible (likely?) are quickly falling into place.
Posted by Nutrimentia at May 20, 2003 05:48 PM | TrackBack