Sponsor's Message

But it's not just the need to protect against terrorism that has fostered the growth in "intelligence gathering."

This story running on the IDG site today shows that our friendly tax collectors are also looking to improve their personal dossier on you, me, and more than three million other Kiwis.

Now if you add their information gathering/analysis capabilities to those of the NZ Courts (who have just gotten themselves a flash new computer system that is not surprisingly late and overbudget) you can see that the government, through its various agencies, are really doing a good job of keeping an eye on us.

If you're in receipt of a benefit of any kind then you're even more likely to have been required to give up an armful of personal information which has been added to a well documented profile stored online somewhere.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) I spy... - Brian IRD=Big Brother... - Allister Power of a citizen... - Dominic From Yesterday... A due column!... - Dominic Have Your Say

And let's not forget about all those database entries such as those for passports, firearms and drivers licenses, which have photos of our pretty faces included.

But it's not just government who's tracking your activities.

From the instant you turn on your cellphone in the morning until you turn it off at night, your every move is carefully tracked as you travel in and out of various coverage cells.

Use your EFTPOS or credit card and the banks will have a pretty good idea of what you're up to and where you're doing it.

Make an international phone call and, if reports are to be believed, your conversation will be monitored by the nice folks running the Echelon communications intelligence system. Mention words such as "bomb" and "president" in the same sentence and your call might just be flagged for closer scrutiny.

Now it can be quite reasonably argued that anyone who's worried about the growing levels of electronic information gathering that affect each and every one of us is simply being paranoid.

Do you really think someone actually cares what you're doing on a day-to-day basis?

Well right now I doubt we have any reason to be worried -- but that may change and if we want to preserve our right to privacy, we really ought to be thinking ahead.

The IRD's latest move could be the start of a worrying change to the way these databases of personal information are being used. They seem to be moving from the area of recording information on taxpayers into forecasting their possible offending habbits at sometime in the future. A presumption of guilt coming here?

Remember that the IRD are the single most powerful arm of the state services. Their powers of search and seizure are greater than those of the police and they enjoy the luxury of being able to ignore the very cornerstone of any justice system which presumes innocence and requires proof of guilt. If the IRD decide you're guilty of underpaying your taxes you are assumed to be guilty unless you can prove otherwise.

Are we prepared to allow governments and their various departments to start tapping into the privately held databases "for the public good"?

Why not let the IRD have automatic full and unfettered access to all the records relating to your bank account, including credit card and EFTPOS use? Why not let them have full access to the records held by your cellphone service provider, copies of your email, etc, etc?

Surely it's only those who are cheating the system who'd have anything to fear -- and stamping out tax-dodging is a good thing -- right? It's not like they've ever unfairly victimised anyone or used their draconian powers unfairly is it?

In 10 or 15 years time, will privacy be just another one of those rights that are considered too expensive to allow?

One only has to look at the almost compete lack of teeth given to our Privacy Act in respect to the handing out of penalties for infringement to realise that government is already somewhat unconcerned about protecting our right to privacy.

Given that politicians were recently ranked as the least trusted professionals, should they really be trusted to make sensible decisions regarding the intimate details of our every-day lives and activities?

Back in the 1950's it was a fear of a "red under the bed" -- today me thinks, you're far more likely to find a civil servant in the closet.

Are you worried about the gradual erosion of your privacy that technology and government policy is producing or am I just a paranoid old fart? If it's the latter, please write your answer on the back of a $20 note and mail it to...

Still Clearing The Closet For Christmas
As well as the Norinco .22LR rifle I advertised yesterday, I'm also selling a couple of used pulsejet engines that are now surplus to requirements and my jetkart.

What better gift for Christmas than something the whole neighbourhood can enjoy -- whether they want to or not ;-)

Any reasonable offers considered.

Contacting Aardvark
As always, readers are invited to submit their comments on material covered in this column. If you'd like your comments published here then please be sure to use this form and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!