Hear No Evil

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There has been fervent speculation recently over whether or not the government intends to implement supplementary surveillance measures in advance of the 2012 Olympics. The debate centres round plans to place powerful hearing devices in some of the many thousands of CCTV cameras which currently grace the majority of British thoroughfares. If these proposals were to be given the green light it would result in street chatter being clearly audible and picked up from up to 100 yards away. The underlying rationale is that when chatter turns to something altogether more sinister that unruly street behaviour could be intercepted and stopped before
getting out of hand.

Amidst the latest conjecture David Blunkett has added fuel to the fire by insisting that a conversation conducted on a street or in an otherwise public place is one that should not be subject to government snooping.

The proposals are still in their infancy and it has been suggested that a degree of public debate will be necessary to gauge how well the proposals would be received. Presumably a large part of that debate would concern the extent to which prescribed eaves-dropping would clash with established privacy rights.

The train of argument against allowing such measures to be implemented is one that is heavily documented by many civil liberties groups. They are anxious to prevent further steps being taken to obliterate public cognisance and are quick to shine the spotlight on any perceived tip-toeing round human rights issues which may result in the surreptitious implementation of back door legislation. A concern which is not altogether unjustified considering recent fears being voiced by Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, who warned that of our getting closer to waking up to a surveillance society and of the impending threat of invisible surveillance.

Despite a lack of concurrent opinion on the prospect of sound surveillance, Lord Steyn made a persuasive argument in favour of the employment of state of the art technology in the fight against crime in a 2004 case concerning the retention of DNA records. He provided concrete illustrations and a host of crime rate statistics in support of prolonged retention of samples provided in the course of criminal investigations. He cited the triangulation of interests at play in any criminal inquiry and reasoned that even if privacy rights were affected it was in the name of a just cause and therefore fully justified.

If it is so easy, then, to sweep aside the pesky issue of human rights when pitted against the overarching need for public security, then the question must be asked; to what extent will this information be used should the authorities manage to arm our streets with all seeing all hearing CCTV cameras? Some experts say that the measure will test the bite of our privacy laws whilst others contend that under the Information Commissioners Code of Practice, sound recordings would be treated in the same way as visual CCTV recordings are at the moment. Dutch authorities have been at the front of the surveillance queue having approved the microphones and
implemented them into some 300 existing cameras, pointing out that the static Daleks brought forth at least four arrests over the course of the six-week trial period in Holland.

In this country it is unlikely that there any deviation from the hard fought privacy battles which will clearly mark the boundaries of any democratic argument when the time comes for the authorities to put forward their proposals. The crux will be whether, in light of the views recently aired by Mr Blunkett, we genuinely do have a reasonable expectation of privacy whilst out strolling in public. On the assumption that we do, then how far does the public interest defence go in determining a legitimate reason to overrule our hopes of keeping our conversations to ourselves.

The murky and uncomfortable portrayal of a one man band eaves-dropper in Francis Ford Coppolas 1974 film, The Conversation was never going to inspire admiration for those with a penchant for taping other people talking. That perhaps had more to do with Gene Hackmans sad little, rain-coated figure than the realities of omnipotent hearing aids, although poised yellow boxes with eyes and ears are unlikely to inspire any warm, fuzzy feelings either.

Comparisons with Orwellian inspired nightmares in this quest for the ultimate surveillance system are trite, although when proposals to introduce sensory robots come exactly a year after the implementation of 24 hour drinking laws, one has to think whether we ought to open our own eyes and ears instead of letting a generation of Dr Who fans create machines that will do it for us.