Big Brother Truly Is Watching You

Fifty years ago, a bizarre and terrifying novel went on sale in bookshops across the world. George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” caught the imagination of millions, and in the process catapulted Big Brother into the international vocabulary. The phrase soon became shorthand to represent the power of the state, and helped entire generations to express their fear of intrusion by authority.

To the digital generation, the all-seeing, all-knowing Big Brother is represented by large computer systems. Each adult in the developed world is located, on average, in 300 databases. As these databases converge with the telecommunications spectrum, nearly everyone becomes entangled in a web of surveillance enveloping everything from our bank accounts to our e-mail.

Opinions vary widely on this subject, but it is the unwelcome exercise of government surveillance that has bonded almost all points along the political spectrum.

The relevance of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” to the world of the 21st century has been ferociously debated. Orwell’s biographer, Bernard Crick, says Orwell never meant the book to be prophetic. It was, he says, largely a satirical view of the abuse of power--most notably Stalinism--and was certainly not a prophecy about the perils of technology.

Maybe so. But a prophet does not cease to be a prophet merely because he fails to wear the name tag. To millions of people, Big Brother looms as a chilling warning about the creation of a surveillance society through information technology.

Superficially, Orwell got it wrong. 1984 came and went with many of our freedoms apparently still intact. But a closer reading of the book reveals that at a fundamental level, we are nearer to Big Brother than we might imagine.

In Orwell’s fictional Oceania, a mass of “telescreens,” complete with microphones and speakers, watched over every square inch of public and private space. These devices, centrally monitored, began their life as public information systems, and ended up policing the morals, thoughts and behavior of all citizens. They enforced the will of the state.

Compare this with the present day, where hundreds of thousands of cameras have been placed on buses, trains and elevators. Many people now expect to be routinely filmed from the moment they leave the front gate. Hidden cameras are now being installed unhindered in cinemas, alongside roads, in bars, dressing rooms and housing estates. Once viewed as a blunt tool of surveillance, such devices in the space of 15 years have become a benign, integral part of the urban infrastructure. It is the integration of surveillance with our day-to-day environment that is most telling. And it is the passive acceptance of the surveillance that Orwell feared most.

Visual surveillance in the U.S. and Britain is becoming a fixed component in the design of modern urban centers, new housing areas, public buildings and even throughout the road system. Soon, people will expect spy technology to be engineered into all forms of architecture and design. It is, perhaps, only a matter of time before legal and community pressures force the cameras into our homes.

Surveillance has become a design component in all information technology. It is now viewed as a “value added” element of IT systems. Systems architects are required to design technology that will capture, analyze and present personal information. Accordingly, the workplace is fast becoming a surveillance zone. “Electronic supervisors” analyze every minute of the working day, checking on performance rates, toilet breaks and personal activities.

We are routinely entrapped into handing over our data. Dozens of laws force us to disclose personal information that is then used for unrelated purposes. Government surveillance has infiltrated every element of our communications networks. Telecommunications companies are required by law to ensure that their equipment is “wiretap friendly”.

Poorly drafted privacy and data protection laws are frequently used as instruments not to protect rights but to mandate surveillance. The state can do more or less as it pleases with our data in the name of law enforcement, public interest, public health, national security or national revenue.

The world of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” had completely eliminated the idea of anonymity--a process that is replicated in many countries today. We are obliged through an increasing number of laws and technologies to reveal our identity. Refusal to disclose your details often results in denial of service and even prosecution.

Disclosure of your identity sits at the heart of all technology. Earlier this year, privacy campaigners revealed that Intel’s Pentium III chip contained an ID number capable of tracking the registered owner’s movements around the Internet. But the nightmare vision of Big Brother could only transpire if every entity--citizen, state and corporation--was working in partnership to achieve an alleged “common good.” The world of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” could occur only if everyone became agents of the state.

It does not require much imagination to see such a trend. Citizens and businesses routinely are advised that they have a responsibility to support authoritarian measures. At a variety of levels, we are all expected to become partners in surveillance. And that is the crux of the Big Brother nightmare.