The House of Lords Constitution Committee has launched an inquiry into ‘The Impact of Surveillance and Data Collection upon the Privacy of Citizens and their Relationship with the State’. Please consider responding if you can contribute to this inquiry. http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/Lords%20Constitution%20Committee%203.doc
Your comment illustrates the need not only to seek public comment, but to ensure communication among all relevant government departments and agencies.
Hi Bill – I took a look at the document, might be interesting to link its questions with another report put out by the U.K. government here:
(1) U.K.: Virtual worlds ‘should be regulated’, http://www.freelanceuk.com/news/2282.shtml
In conjunction with a statement by Sun Microsystems’ Diffie:
(2) Second Life To Become Prime Source of Intelligence, http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=199601513
… in short, what protections (if any) do people participating in online virtual communities have against being monitored, having their chats recorded, or their avatars “followed” by private or government agencies?
I’ll leave two other links to help trigger a discussion:
(3) A short, 3-minute video entitled “National Security Projection: 2019”, http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~dbray/2019.html
(4) A DARPA video on Augmented Cognition in 2030, http://www.augmentedcognition.org/video.htm
… both include ideas that may inform where all of this is going (and what ethical questions need to be asked now about privacy and surveillance of *virtual* identities?)