Was sent this story by a friend earlier today (thanks for the link, A) about using mobile phones to track someone’s movements

These sorts of tracking services, now available in the UK, get information from the network about which cell your phone is currently in, and, for a small fee, display the location on an online map.

As well as checking where a certain phone is right now, you can run scheduled lookups, or snail trails, to record the phone’s movements throughout the day, and produce a report for you to peruse at your leisure.

The only thing currently regulating this usage is a voluntary code of conduct. I’d be shocked to the core if the government is not already using this technology.

Yet people seem singularly unfazed by this. And why should they be? They’re already captured on CCTV nearly everywhere, tracked via Oyster cards, tracked for friggin’ TV licenses and car tax, for crying out loud. Remember, this is the same nation that feels it’s perfectly acceptable to keep your DNA on file, even if you were falsely arrested, even if you are completely acquitted – just in case.

It reminds me a bit of a discussion I was having the other day with J about the difference between freedom of speech in the US and freedom of speech here. In the US, laws enacted must prove they do NOT infringe on reasonable expectations of freedom of speech, or undermine the spirit of the first amendment. The expectation is that you can say and express yourself however you like, and the government has little right to limit that.

From wiki:
Text of the Virtual First Amendment (heavily abridged)

No State legislature or the Congress of the United States shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press all media of information; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. This general prohibition shall be subject to the following elaborations, extensions, restrictions, limitations, interpretations and conditions: a. The absolute freedom of engaging in or refraining from speech and non-verbal communication, and receiving or refusing to receive information, without any coercion, shall be a rebuttable presumption in any administrative or judicial proceeding, concerning any attempts to abridge them. The onus of rebutting this presumption shall rest entirely on the party seeking such abridgment, by showing that the speech or non-verbal communication sought to be restrained, or the information to be withheld, do not, by virtue of some other conflicting and overriding considerations or necessities, fall within the categories of freedoms that this section is intended to protect;

(emphasis mine)

The burden of restriction rests squarely with those who seek to make any impositions on freedom of speech.

Here in europe, it’s explicitly stated that free speech is only free insofar as that which they have not made illegal.

From the European Convention on Human Rights:

Article 10 – Freedom of expression

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

(emphasis mine)

And it occurs to me that the different sensibility in approach to privacy is much the same. For example…

The Fourth amendment of the bill of rights states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

You see, even where it doesn’t explicitly state a right to “privacy”, per se, that right is implied in the nature of what is enshrined in the constitution. In other words, one must prove that laws passed do not transgress the rights implicit in the ten amendments of the bill of rights.

Once again, the wishy washy European convention on human rights states:

Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life1

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

This difference of approach is an important distinction. The crux of which is that Americans operate in their day-to-day lives with the presumption of a certain set of givens, which are all meant to underpin this principle: that unless they break a law, the state may not unreasonably interfere with their person or property or everyday life, and it is incumbent upon the state to prove that they have not done so.

Here, there is no constitution, there are no enshrined rights. There are no absolutes. There is nothing which is sacrosanct. I find this the hardest thing to adapt to. The notion that freedoms exist only in regard to what they have not yet chosen to make illegal. there is nothing the state can’t legislate. There is not behaviour, speech or action which they can’t outlaw.

This is why they can track people’s innocent car journeys, collect their most intimate genetic makeup, and tell you what you can and cannot say. As an american, it chafes.

I just hope to get the hell out of here before the implementation of ID cards…

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tracking, law, right to privacy, constitutional rights, European Convention on Human Rights