Digital data is easier, but I'm glad I grew up in an analogue age.
The past few weeks have afforded me a highly unwelcome opportunity to go through my personal archive. In half a dozen cardboard boxes, stored deep in the belly of the house I must now move out of, lie the papers, certificates and other ephemera that represent most of the 27 years I have spent on this earth. Adamant that I won't go on dragging this unjustifiable load around with me into my thirties, I have resolved to go through it, piece by piece.
Knee-deep in paper at 11 o'clock last night, I suddenly thought how most of what I was sorting through could have been stored digitally on a device so small, I could carry it around in my handbag for the rest of my life without even noticing. But then the familiar, sinking feeling that sets in whenever I think about the Database State began.
Many of today's children are having their early experiences recorded digitally and stored in databases for easy retrieval later on in life. This pattern of exposure seems certain to continue for their whole lives. The government looks on with relish, hoping to fuse the increasing levels of data it obtains to get a clearer picture of the people it purports to represent.
Meanwhile, with changes in technology, there's a whole new set of stuff for the state to know about you: your bio-information. Thanks to "Junior Librarian", a pernicious piece of library management software for schools, children as young as three are now routinely fingerprinted in order to allow them access to services. And now, from 26 March, anyone applying for his or her first "adult" passport may be called for a compulsory interview.
Tony Blair was quite open about the government's plans for all this data when he responded personally to the 30,000 or so petitioners against compulsory biometric ID cards in early February. In a not-so-distant future, the police would be able "to compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes, against the information held on the register".
There are a number of fronts on which it is quite easy to get livid, extremely quickly so, with this proposed state of affairs. The first comes when you think about the government's track record with big, centralised IT projects. A second comes if you, like me, have recently submitted a response to the consultation by the Department for Constitutional Affairs on proposed amendments to the Freedom of Information Act that use meaningless bureaucracy to sink any fledgling idea of open, accountable government.
It is fashionable among information anarchists of a certain type to talk about "embracing the Panopticon". But, looking at the mountains of paper surrounding me last night, I was glad I'd grown up in the analogue age. At least when I get around to throwing all of it away, I'll know I'll have destroyed these records of my past for good.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
