CCTV spy cars, privacy and the right to be forgotten

'The privacy and dignity of our citizens,' wrote William O. Douglas, 'are being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps.'

'Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when views as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen.'

This is at the heart of what will continue to be a defining area of debate for the next decade; a debate focused on privacy and freedom of speech – and their relationship with ever more ubiquitous digital technologies.

A cornerstone of the debate will be what I, for want of a better term, call 'technology creep' – the gradual introduction of new uses for specific technologies, which have never been approved by the public.

The British Government announced last week that CCTV 'spy cars' will be banned under new moves aimed at enticing motorists back to dying town centres.

Since 2012, roving vans fitted with CCTV cameras have been used by local councils to enforce parking regulations. This was never part of the civic contract when CCTV was first 'sold' to the public.

CCTV was introduced to Britain's streets and shopping centres to help prevent crime – particularly violent crime.

Despite the fact that Britain is now one of the most CCTV-laden countries in the world, with one camera for every 14 people in its urban centres, a 2009 internal police study showed that just one crime is solved for every thousand cameras across London.

Yet spy cars have become a favourite of many local councils because they bring in ten times as much revenue as stationary cameras on their own.

When street cameras were introduced nobody ever mentioned using them to identify parking infringements, much less fitting them to cars.

Not long ago, parents in parts of inner London were shocked to learn that street cameras were being used to record minor breaches of parking laws outside schools.

Parents were being fined for illegal parking, when most were stopping only for a minute or two to pick up their children. This in areas where no alternative, safe parking was provided.

Heavy-handed responses from local authorities are bothersome because of their potential to produce a domino effect.

To paraphrase Parkinson's Law, security measures will increase to fill the space allowed them.

In 2008, a minor furore erupted in the media when a borough council in Dorset admitted to spying for two and a half weeks on a family who, it thought, were cheating on a local school's admission system.

The parents were doing nothing illegal - 'playing the system' may not be totally honest, but it isn't a crime. Yet their movements were tracked using technologies and systems set up to trap terrorists and criminals.

Another side of the privacy debate came to light earlier this month when the European Court of Justice ruled that people have the 'right to be forgotten' by internet search engines.

Its ruling has forced Google, and by extension other search providers, to institute a process through which people can request the removal of specific personal references from their search results.

In the lead up to the Court's decision, the UK government announced its opposition to such a law, arguing that it offered people unrealistic expectations about online privacy and potentially limited freedom of expression.

Time will tell. What is already clear is that the ruling will lead search companies to introduce more intrusive advertising to cover the costs of dealing with the thousands of applications they will face.

The ruling may also mean that courts will be tied up with lawsuits, brought by complainants who don't feel they're being properly serviced.

At the same time, though, it will probably launch a much needed debate about what privacy means in the age of Big Data analysis, algorithms and cyber-bots. This is no bad thing.

A public debate is sorely needed on the vexed question of who actually owns the information stored on the internet. Is the individual concerned, the search company, or the wider society?

The European Court's finding certainly shows how badly we need a new branch of ethics to focus on issues relating to the Big Data revolution.

The explosion in the power of computers has given rise to Big Data predictive analysis, allowing governments – and corporations – to uncover patterns within the vast amount of data they collect, particularly from mobile devices like phones and CCTV units.

This predictive use of technology has advantages. For example, it can help government economists track shifts in markets and, perhaps, better prepare for possible downturns.

If it is not properly regulated, however, the same technology can allow advertisers to pitch products to our mobile phones based upon a detailed knowledge of our buying habits and movements.

Local authorities might launch new and tougher fines for things like parking infringements, based not on current statistics but solely on predictions.

The debate about whether people like Edward Snowdon are whistleblowers or traitors rages on. Few people, however, will feel comfortable knowing that national agencies like GCHQ and the American NSA are able and willing to track their own digital conversations.

And the American Aviation Authority's recent announcement that 30,000 non-military drones will fill US skies before the end of the decade may not come as altogether good news either.

Whilst drones may prove a convenient means of delivery for booksellers like Amazon, and a great source of fun for hobbyists, they will also carry obvious challenges to privacy.

It's easy to foresee a time when marketing companies will indulge in the Big Spend, gathering information on our private habits in and around the home, as seen from the skies.

Governments will obviously need to act quickly to regulate domestic drone use, but if local councils have bent the rules with CCTV, how long will it take data-hungry corporations to do the same with reference to drones?

Democracies need surveillance if they are to function as free societies and most of us are willing to trade a certain amount of privacy in the interests of personal and shared security.

Yet the shift in many countries from limited surveillance to mass surveillance of whole populations is worrying.

Technology is amoral and, for the most part, brings huge benefits. But even those technologies that start out harmless or beneficial are all-too-often put to sinister uses unless those wielding them are subject to tight scrutiny.