Getting on television used to be a source of pride and excitement, but now it seems we are all constantly on television, and are neither disturbed nor excited, though we do feel more secure as a result.

These are not programmes in which we figure, but on thousands of closed circuit television cameras in operation practically wherever we go.
Apparently there are millions of images stored of where I have been and what I have been doing.
That is not the only source of information about what I am doing. There are complete records of movement in London by Oyster card users, and no doubt that technology, and its undoubted economic benefits, will spread, as will the cameras that record your car’s entry into the congestion charge zone.
Loyalty cards give shops a record of what I have bought, and the future cashless society is actually one where further electronic records of our activity will allow service providers to know what my preferences are so that I can be targeted with advertising suited to my needs.
On the horizon of course is the national identity register, and the cards that we shall all have to carry.
We are constantly assured that their use will be for specific purposes, for the prevention and detection of crime and benefit fraud, and to detect illegal immigrants. Debates about that elicit more and more reassurance that we have nothing to fear, and all the surveys of public attitudes show that on the whole we don’t mind all this information about us being held, and that we believe it’s only those with something to hide who have anything to fear from the information state.
Perhaps. But we are already seeing the emergence of function creep, the phenomenon that when information exists further uses of it are discovered and proposed.
We can expect this to happen more and more, because we have grown very tolerant of it.
As long as we can be persuaded that it is only other people have something to fear, we shall accept the information state.
There is no way we can turn that clock back.
The horse has bolted and there is no point trying to close the stable door again.
But the horse is running out of control and needs watching.