So, another Police enquiry gets under way. News Corp's "News of the World" stand accused of listening in on hundreds if not thousands of private telephone messages left on the 'phones of the Great and the Good (and the ruddy useless, look at me I'm wonderful) brigade.
East Germany had the Stasi, USSR the KGB and we've got Ruperts minions. Now what's this to do with our world you may think ? Well pal it's dead simple. Someone, somewhere out there might want to know who talks to you, what you read, where you go.
Everyone's at it and although you may think it they're looking at each and every one of us. I just had to email someone about "Harvesting Spiderbots" (not eightlegged farmers with big arses) that track all the e mail addresses on all the sites out there.
Why, for Gods sake? So they can tell me where I can buy pretend Viagra very cheap ?
Now you might not think you're very interesting, after all you spend your time reading shipping blogs, which, when you think about it is the 21st Century equivalent of collecting train numbers. But, my friend, you may be of interest to someone. From the bloke that sells loans, to the industrial spy. The moral of this is simple. If you don't want people to know your business then do your damndest not to make it easy for them. Don't answer surveys and get carried away giving out personal info. Don't put your real details on the plethora of "social Messaging" sites. If you want to talk to someone, go and visit, or phone or (now this is a shocker) write a letter.
Point is we live in a world where data is not only gathered but stored, forever. You can find your past from the 1911 census and it makes interesting reading a century later. That's because you can't read Great Grandads Facebook entry telling how he got to level 3 on Monsters of the Galaxy on his X Pox.
Now I'm not a great one for conspiracy theories but I do believe that this trend (which you could argue started around the time Willy decided a Domesday Book could be a good idea, just for fun you understand, nobody's going to use the information, not to collect taxes or anything) has now gone to a whole new level. If you aren't careful anyone can know everything about you.
And so to the NOTW story. You may remember they have previous on this. They even sacked the bloke they claimed was solely responsible (he also got nicked). So if the allegations are true, and this case is proved, plus these events occurred after the last debacle, something needs to be done. A line has now to be drawn between legitimate gathering of information and downright snooping. It's easy to see that, if proved, there has been a serious breach of the law. If, as before, the penalty to the offender is worth it in financial terms, the law is not performing its role. There needs to be a clearer definition of what exactly constitutes personal information. The 4th Estate, sometimes with good reason, always claims "Public Interest" but the Press Complaints Commission has a laughable record when it comes to censuring its own.
Watch this space, this one may unravel to reveal an interesting finale.
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