iSpy
It’s no news that social media sites are a rich mine of personal data for marketing departments and unscrupulous identity thieves alike. However, recent news shows that US Defence contractor Raytheon is taking the next logical step. In a move eerily reminiscent of sci-fi film Minority Report, new software may be able to use online activity to predict crimes before they happen.
Many may feel this is just a few steps away from an Orwellian dystopia, where the state all but knows what its citizens are thinking. However, from my own legal experience, all too often those interested in someone’s secrets don’t need to go hunting them with elaborate spyware, because they’ve already been given away.
In any legal claim there is a stage known as “disclosure” where both parties are under a strict duty to disclose every relevant piece of information to the other side. This includes not just letters, contracts and similar physical documents, but also electronic communications such as emails and texts.
As peoples’ lives expand online through media such as Facebook and Twitter, disclosure casts an ever wider net. It is not uncommon for this sort of evidence, readily available to anyone who looks for it, to surface when least expected. Threats, admissions of liability and unwise attitudes towards the workplace can all come back to haunt the sender, as weapons in the hands of their legal opponents.
We are still adapting to the enormous new opportunities for communication and interconnectivity offered by social media sites. Posting updates, Tweeting, texting and sending casual emails are all so simple and swift that people have a tendancy to view them as a conversational medium, sending out into the ether whatever comes into their heads, expressing candid opinions and launching tirades of abuse with the assumption that, once said, the comments are past and done. Instead, of course, every word and image is a matter of public record, whether it’s a footballer losing his temper or a wanted criminal caught after his Facebook photos revealed his whereabouts.
Raytheon’s new surveillance software may seem a step into a dark tomorrow but, until people come to terms with the ramifications of social media that are already with us today, our lives are already out there for public scrutiny. The lesson is simple: be careful what you say, it may be used in evidence against you.
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