About this going Digital business in 2012?

Question

Has anyone else realised something, probably you have, that when all our TVs' go digital here in the UK, we're effectively signing ourselves over COMPULSORILY and EN MASSE over to being INDIVIDUALLY PROFILED, because all these ditital tuners, set top boxes etc., are INTERACTIVE and sending information TWO WAYS telling the governnment, media companies, advertising companies etc., etc., exactly what our viewing habits are and presumbaly building up huge data bases of individual psychological profiles of us all and personal data aswell and in light of the Inland Revenue managing to lose half the population's personal details aren't we letting ourselves into all kinds of scrutiny and ultimately judgement that may in the long run not necessarily be beneficial to all and sundry?

Is the only thing that George Orwell actually got wrong - the year?!!!

Answer 1

There is great use of this kind of interaction by corporations, who use it to sell their products.  It is not surprising when government decides to get into the act.  Everything we do is monitored in one way or another, and privacy has become passe.

The ultimate goal of some governments is a nation of robots, obediently following a party line and conforming to a certain mode of behavior.  If there is anything a government doesn't want or need, it's a maverick, a protestor, a person who thinks outside the norm.  To a government, this person could be dangerous.

To keep tabs of preferences, spending habits, and personal data enables this powerful group to filter out those who are not conforming.  In some situations, like the Third Reich, technical data could only be gathered through word of mouth, thus children were encouraged to turn in parents.  In fact, this "word of mouth" method was used to gather up what we call "Enemy Combatants" in Afghanistan, offering $10,000 to anyone turning in a friend or a neighbor for supposed terrorist activities.  In the modern world, "word of mouth" is not necessary. Your life is an open book.

Until people become alarmed and indignant over this kind of surveillance and openly resist it through the election process, it will continue...and halting it will not be easy, because it is an invisible occurrence.  However, it is dangerous. It is eerie. It is robbing us of a vital freedom, our privacy.

Answer 2

You may be right, some of the trends are quite scary.  I tend to be more optimistic however despite the constraints toward our freedoms.  Somehow I think the internet is a freedom giving enterprise, and that the human spirit will break out of the constraints of the watchful eye of big brother ultimately.