Thats Orwell and good…
The predictions in George Orwells novel 1984 seemed far-fetched when it was published six decades ago – but seem to be edging ever-closer with the co-operation between five countries to develop the server-in-the-sky database.
Costing as much as $1bn, and predicted to be the world’s largest single collection of peoples’ physical characteristics, the project would give America’s government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals at home and abroad.
It was suggested by America at a meeting of the US, Canada, the UK Australia and New Zealand, and is intended to contain biometric data to help catch criminals and terrorists. But the net is already flung wide in the extreme; the FBI operates a database of an estimated 55m sets of fingerprints, checking them against requests for information at the rate of 100,000 a day. And it’s already collated other biometric data, including faces and palm prints.
The validity of the information has been questioned by America’s Electronic Privacy Information Center. Executive director Marc Rotenberg says the ability to share data across systems is problematic. “You’re giving the federal government access to an extraordinary amount of information linked to biometric identifiers that is becoming increasingly inaccurate,” he says. What’s more, the FBI’s National Crime Information Centre is exempt from the country’s Privacy Act that requires all records be accurate.
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