Have you ever had a feeling that some is recording your life? Although the thought stays in the back of our minds we never think about it. We live in an era of ubiquitous logging of everything we do, CCTV surveillance, identity cards, and corporate databases – to say nothing of the assault on privacy that has accompanied the War on Terror. Take a look at this.
http://www.raeng.org.uk/policy/reports/pdf/dilemmas_of_privacy_and_surveillance_report.pdf
I find this report very interesting The report’s authors thinks that engineers have a key role in making sure privacy safeguards are built into systems.
The report also talks about the issues in UK ID card scheme will likely lead to more databases holding sensitive personal information. The move towards providing more government services online accelerates this trend. The academy concedes that human error (or, we’d add, technical shortcomings) can lead to personal data being lost or stolen. There’s also the risk of accident or interrupt.
