“James, a former police officer, said the system enabled it to warn member stores of who to look out for before crooks strike. This information could be used to prevent well know offenders from entering stores. Stores are emailed daily reports in the form of encrypted Word documents. These ‘intelligence reports’ contain photographs of suspects.”
This worries me. Specifically the use of the word ‘suspects’ worries me. Who suspects these people? What do they have to do before they become suspicious? Once someone becomes suspicious, is it possible for them ever to become unsuspicious?
There is a question of identity here, it is easy to confuse people you don’t know by appearance. Whenever I go out to a club or gig these days I am misidentified as Rob by a number of people, often people who have previously spoken to both of us.
One of us being ‘suspected’ by the above system would lead to both of us being ‘identified’, reducing his freedom because of something I’ve done is surely not a good thing?
Its worse than that though. He has lost some freedom because of something someone thinks I might do.
In this case the people doing the suspecting probably don’t have any information other than a photograph and/or a record of movements, amongst a big collection of such data.
How will the data they provide be interpretted? How can the data they provide be quality controlled? What happens if I become, in some sense, a ‘bad consumer’? (Is crime fighting the extent of the purpose of this system, or will it be extended to cover people who don’t spend any money at, say, Bluewater?)
Should I just stop being so paranoid and smile at the cameras?
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