Surveillance

Apparently the average Londoner is captured around 300 times a day on CCTV. I don't think my figure would be that high, since (a) I don't work in the City, and (b) I don't use public transport very much. It's still quite an interesting statistic though, and thinking about organisations knowing who I am, what I look like and where I live is a bit worrying.

But really, anyone who wants to know about me should go to Google. Since September 2005 I have made 1,615 Google searches which have been tracked to my account. This doesn't include the searches I've made using other people's computers, at uni, internet cafés, hostels, and so on. I have 4,590 Gmails in my inbox, which Google have indexed and provide relevant advertising next to. Why delete emails when you have 5GB of storage? Picasa (Google's photo application) has 13,500 travel photos taken by me all over the world. Not to mention the raft of personal information you could harvest on facebook!

For the moment I'm not too worried about all this, but it could be a very real problem in the future if I need to go somewhere 'under the radar'. Governments, organisations or even people I've never met could quite easily find out a lot about who I am without my knowing.

Ironically, I have chosen to voice my concern on my Google-hosted blog, which will be indexed and searchable for decades to come.