The spy in your refrigerator...

Governments and corporations are wiring their way into your home and you may not even notice it, according to Simon Davies. The world's leading privacy advocate chronicles the rise of the surveillance society where the bedrock of civil rights -- privacy -- is being systematically chipped away.

To imagine the year 2020, forget for a moment the cumbersome technology portrayed in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. If present trends continue, surveillance tools will be so seamlessly integrated in our environment that we won't even notice the constant intrusion into our privacy.

Closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) may be the most obvious--and onerous--future intrusion. As is already the case in Britain (see p. 36), cameras will become a fixed component in the design of modem urban centres, new housing areas, public buildings and the road system (thanks to a massive network of linked number plate recognition cameras). Perhaps it is only a matter of time before legal and community pressures force the cameras into our homes.

As visual surveillance becomes ubiquitous, so will mass surveillance …