... they'll all be watching you. In the digital age, Big Brother has grown into an entire Big Brotherhood, keeping track of all aspects of our lives, writes Antony Barnett reports

Sunday July 30, 2000
The Observer

From the moment you wake up tomorrow, nearly every movement you make will be tracked by somebody, somewhere. Walk to your car, turn on your computer at work, visit the local supermarket - all will be noted by cameras or databases deep in the bowels of corporate HQs and within shadowy government agencies.

Already these databases are bulging with intricate details of every facet of our private lives. Your eating habits, hobbies, whether you have children or prefer hip-hop to grunge - your tastes, preferences and passions have all been downloaded. Never in the history of mankind has personal privacy been harder to secure.

Simon Davies, head of watchdog group Privacy International, says: 'Government and corporations are desperate to turn the world into villages where everybody knows everything about you.

'Everything you have ever done will soon be available at the touch of a button.' As you switch on cable TV, companies are eagerly taking note of your favourite programmes and what time you're at home. Maybe it will help them choose the best hour to call and tell you about a new service. Or maybe they'll offer a personal loan with the bank they've just got into bed with.

As you head outdoors, stepping over the junk mail piling up on the doormat, it won't be long before a CCTV camera's unblinking eye will capture part of your journey on tape. And if you drive to work it won't just be the police's speed cameras that make sure you're rarely out of sight for long. Filling up with petrol may mean you are being listened to as well as being watched. BP was forced to admit a couple of years ago that it uses secret microphones to listen to the private conversations of millions of petrol station customers. Hidden bugs in forecourt shops are picking up every word uttered.

If you think arriving at work provides a sanctuary from prying eyes, then think again. Swiping your corporate security card through a barrier on your way to the office tells your boss what time you arrived and what time you leave.

The moment you log on to your computer is the point when personal privacy really disappears. Emails, as we should all know by now, are not private or secure. The number of employees being sacked after the boss has read a damning email continues to grow. Last summer Kwik Fit sacked two workers who were having an affair after their erotic emails were intercepted by management.

Philip Ryan is a consultant from Peapod, which helps companies spy on workers suspected of wrongdoing. He said: 'Everything an employee does while logged on to a work computer can be watched. The emails that are sent, the websites that are visited. It is difficult to keep secrets on the internet'.

Described as 'dataveillance', the ability to track people by monitoring the shadow they cast in data is now big business. What's more, there are now hundreds of downloaded programmes that secretly snoop inside PCs. The current Time magazine refers to a programme called SurfMonkey, which is supposed to protect children surfing the net. But as well as stopping children accessing porn sites it collects information, including users' phone numbers and email addresses.

Some companies are using 'web bugs' that hide computer codes behind images only a pixel in size on your computer screen to gather information about your web surfing habits. Effectively, this means an invisible dot on your screen is watching every move you make.

These dots mine information about who owns the site you are surfing as well as details about your computer. 'They are a secret way of gathering information about someone,' said David Banisar, a civil liberties expert from the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) in Washington.

These bugs work best in conjunction with 'cookies' - devices that leap on to your hard drive the first time you visit a particular website. They are your own personal calling card and identify you next time you visit the site, but they also record what sites surfers come from and trace what sites they go to and how long they spend online.

This detailed profile of a computer user is highly valuable marketing information which can be sold to other on-line advertisers. According to Epic, 86 out of 100 tested online companies work with cookies.

But it is not just corporations eager to enhance their profits that are keen to survey your personal internet traffic. Last week the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill received Royal Assent. To civil liberty campaigners, this represents the most pernicious invasion of privacy ever imposed by a modern democratic state. Under its terms, every UK internet service provider will have to install a black box which monitors all the data passing through its computers and feed this to MI5 headquarters. The State will have powers to snoop, often without a warrant, on the email and internet activities of everyone with an internet connection.

The RIP Act also gives the police unparalleled powers to use the new generation of mobile phones to pinpoint the location of any individual. They will act like a homing device planted secretly on the phone's owner without them realising.

But don't think it's just state-of-the-art technology that challenges your privacy. Paying bills over the internet can also be a risky business as personal details can easily be appropriated by unscrupulous users. This month John Chamberlain decided to test Powergen's security before paying his electricity bill after seeing a Panorama programme on computer hacking. 'In under three minutes I had access to 5,000 credit card details, names and addresses,' said Chamberlain.

Supermarket loyalty cards are another tool through which your habits are monitored. These cards build up pictures of what you like spending your money on. Are you vegetarian? Do you prefer organic food? Do you favour Chilean chardonnay over French? Few things can be hidden these days.

Those who have chosen to make their phone numbers ex-directory will be unhappy to know that with one call this newspaper can find out what that supposedly secret number is.

CD-Roms are available that will allow you to reverse search on phone numbers - the opposite to directory inquiries. You give it a phone number and it tells you whose phone that is and where they live. Other CDs, available at less than £50, are compiled from Britain's electoral register and contain the names and addresses of over 44 million electors. Put in a name and in an instant you can find where that person lives and who else has lived at the property.

The Land Registry will provide anybody with details of the owners of a particular piece of real estate, and reveal if there is a mortage on it and which bank is lending the money. You can even hire a company to check out neighbours before you move into a new home.

Of course, if you are prepared to use a little subterfuge with a confident telephone manner, then much more can be obtained. When the row erupted over Labour millionaire donor Lord Levy's tax bill, the Inland Revenue said it received calls from someone pretending to be Lord Levy, requesting his tax return.

Getting information by deception is a criminal offence, but when the details of Lord Levy's dimunitive tax bill hit the press, Benji 'the binman' Pell was once again a suspect.

Lord Levy argued that his tax details were personal property, but it is clear that when it comes to personal privacy it is not strange-looking men lurking in dustbins that most of us need to worry about.