Prisoners “to be chipped like dogs” - an Orwellian future?

(Is chipping prisoners the start of an Orwellian future?)

Remote electric shocks

In part, it was the technology that repelled me: “One company plans deeper implants that could vibrate, electroshock the implantee, broadcast a message, or serve as a microphone to transmit conversations”.

I reflect on the way the Department for Work and Pensions is moving to make claimants deal with processing centres hundreds of miles removed from where they live. No longer having to deal with the harsh reality of poverty and desperation face-to-face, it’s so much easier to be a casual – and callous – bureaucrat.

Given what Milgram found about our ability to electroshock people face-to-face, how easy will it be to do it remotely? What about transmitting our conversations?

Sometimes, I think about the underground resistance in the second world war, and realise with a kind of hopelessness that in a future conflict against authoritarianism and fascism, the underground resistance could just be zapped…

“The rest of us could be next”

Am I sounding like a conspiracy theorist, to be bundled together with people who believe the X-files are fact not fiction, to be fearing this? Recent history tells me it’s not fantasy or delusion, it’s inevitable.

Let me tell you about an 11-year old boy known as S. DNA profiles were once taken for people convicted of serious offences. S’s DNA profile was taken when he was charged with a crime, of which he was later acquitted. S has been fighting ever since to have his profile removed from the DNA database.

In every court in this country he has failed. From the opening words of the House of Lords’ judgment, the yet-to-come argument against chipping prisoners like dogs was doomed: “It is of paramount importance that law enforcement agencies should take full advantage of the available techniques of modern technology and forensic science…”

Matters have moved on still further since S’s case. The police can now profile people who are suspected of crimes, even if they are never charged, let alone convicted.

How much longer before they have the authority to profile everyone to make the database complete? Lord Justice Sedley, a judge of the Court of Appeal, called for exactly this back in September, as reported in the Guardian. Just look at Schedule 1 to the Identity Cards Actand it becomes clear how close we already are.

"If we are prepared to track cars, why don't we track people?"

…said Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, quoted in the same Independent article. Well, just maybe the three hundredth anniversary of the abolition of slavery is not a good time to suggest we should treat people like property once again. And more chillingly, whose property exactly are we?

There is a glimmer of hope: S’s case has been referred to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights and is due to be heard at the end of next month. Will the Court protect us from an Orwellian future? I can only hope, without hope.

Allan Norman is Principal Social Worker & Solicitor at Celtic Knot, an independent law firm and social work practice.