Civic Hygiene – avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state

Civic Hygiene – Terence Eden’s Blog

Theme Switcher:

🌒 Dark

🌞 Light

📰 eInk

💻 xterm

🥴 Drunk

👻 Nude

♻️ Reset

Imagine, just for a moment, that the Government wanted to keep a record of everyone's sexuality. They need to know this detailed demographic data because it will be highly useful in civic planning. It will help them work out what provision needs to be made for sexual health services, how many children are likely to be born, how many schools to build, etc.

You trust the Government, you voted for them, you and your friends have nothing to hide with regards to your sexuality.

But! Shock horror! After creating the database, the Government loses the election and the homophobes at UKIP get in to power!

Now they have a database of every gay in the village, and can harass then, try to "cure" them, or make their lives a living hell.

Far fetched? Not really. With Cameron's inane web filtering plan, the "black boxes" in ISPs which can record every click you make, and the selling of the your NHS details to private parties, we're in a situation where a malicious government could cause serious damage to us.

The security expert Bruce Schneier wrote a wonderful article for CNN on how the existing surveillance state is leading to disastrous breaches of our private information. He concludes by saying:

It's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state.

-- Bruce Schneier on CNN

We have to be careful that the apparatus we build cannot easily be misused for evil purposes. Sure, even an innocuous toaster can be weaponised if someone is willing enough, but we should not fall into the trap of making systems which can easily be turned against the people.

It's probably sensible to build a database of which car belongs to which owner - it has an important civil use and would be hard to abuse (although not impossible).

Should we have a national database of, say, religious beliefs? Almost instinctively the answer is no. The memories of fascist dictators haunt our collective consciousness. We have seen countless times how race and religious identity become death penalties. We wouldn't countenance it.

Civic hygiene isn't about saying we distrust our current government - it's about not trusting the next government .

Share this post on…

try { await navigator.share({url:u}); } catch { // Show an alert if the share failed. Likely means no share support. alert('Copied URl to clipboard'); })()" style=cursor:pointer;>

Voluntary Paywall

Enjoyed this post? Show your support and pay the author.

What links here from around this blog?

I think "Law 3.0" is OK, actually

2023

What are your reckons?

Cancel reply

All comments are moderated and may not be published immediately. Your email address will not be published.

Comment:

See allowed HTML elements:

Your Name (required):

Your Email (required):

Your Website (optional):

To respond on your own website, write a post which contains a link to this post - then enter the URl of your page here. Learn more about WebMentions.

URL/Permalink of your article

🔎 Search

Search for:

🗓️ Explore The Archives

2026

January 27 posts February 28 posts March 23 posts April 24 posts May 19 posts June 17 posts July 17 posts August 24 posts September

October

November

December

2025

January 17 posts February 20 posts March 23 posts April 22 posts May 16 posts June 28 posts July 24 posts August 20 posts September 15 posts October 16 posts November 17 posts December 15 posts

2024

January 31 posts February 29 posts March 31 posts April 30 posts May 31 posts June 30 posts July 19 posts August 18 posts September 18 posts October 29 posts November 31 posts December 30 posts

2023

January 31 posts February 28 posts March 31 posts April 30 posts May 31 posts June 30 posts July 31 posts August 31 posts September 30 posts October 31 posts November 30 posts December 31 posts

2022

January 30 posts February 23 posts March 15 posts April 19 posts May 19 posts June 19 posts July 19 posts August 18 posts September 12 posts October 8 posts November 30 posts December 31 posts

2021

2020

January 31 posts February 29 posts March 31 posts April 30 posts May 31 posts June 30 posts July 31 posts August 31 posts September 30 posts October 31 posts November 30 posts December 31 posts

2019

January 31 posts February 12 posts March 17 posts April 12 posts May 12 posts June 10 posts July 7 posts August 5 posts September 6 posts October 14 posts November 30 posts December 17 posts

2018

January 8 posts February 4 posts March 6 posts April 14 posts May 5 posts June 6 posts July 6 posts August 13 posts September 14 posts October 8 posts November 30 posts December 4 posts

2017

January 12 posts February 9 posts March 9 posts April 4 posts May 10...

Civic Hygiene – avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state

Related Articles

Incident with Github.com

(no title)

Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray

NHS apologises and admits Palantir have access to identifiable patient data

Cursor Origin