Britain Provides a Working Model of Orwellian Surveillance

George Orwell imagined a government that gathered every piece of available information of its citizens. There was constant surveillance, with control of the society as an end goal. George Orwell was an imaginative futurist and his view of a totalitarian government was presented in his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

It seems that Britain is moving toward the “Surveillance Society” where the citizens are watched and their activities entered on various data bases:

“…In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.

The data include details about shopping habits, mobile phone use, emails, locations during the day, journeys and internet searches.”

link: How Big Brother watches your every move

Technology has made it possible to maintain massive data bases. It also allows the data bases to be filtered so that data on one individual can be isolated. The justification for this unprecedented level of surveillance is security. The rationale is that this is a means of safeguarding the people from crime and terrorism. The irony is that people’s privacy and security are being eroded in the process.

This growing surveillance shows no signs of abating. There are those in government who want to collect DNA identifiers, collect every educational test result, put radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on outdoor trash cans… George Orwell was right. “Big Brother” is watching you. George Orwell just had the date wrong.

Catherine Forsythe