Goo-Goo-Googley Eyes

4:10 PM -- The Guardian Unlimited headlines an opinion piece: Google 'will be able to keep tabs on us all':

The internet will hold so much digital data in five years that it will be possible to find out what an individual was doing at a specific time and place, an expert said yesterday.

Nigel Gilbert, a professor heading a Royal Academy of Engineering study into surveillance, said people would be able to sit down and type into Google "what was a particular individual doing at 2.30 yesterday and would get an answer".

The answer would come from a range of data, for instance video recordings or databanks which store readings from electronic chips. Such chips embedded in people's clothes could track their movements...

An alarmist ninny, say you? Well, Sir Stephen Lander, identified as "the head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and former head of MI5" (and a British Pig Executive?), welcomes the prospect:

"Significant intrusion into the privacy of a small minority is justified to protect the safety and wellbeing of the majority," he said.

I'm reassured.

— Larry, Serious Organised Monkey, Light Reading