Home Is the New Prison: UK’s High-Tech Digital Prison Plans Should Spark Privacy Fears For Everyone

by Didi Rankovich | Reclaim the Net

That pandemic is over – but UK’s authorities appear very keen to launch another one, this time political, where various government departments seem to be lining up proposals aimed at keeping as many people as possible at home.

And those ministers look very optimistic about the surveillance capabilities of various wearables, all the way to enabling “virtual prisons” to function (this time for actual criminals, not the general population caught up in lockdown measures.)

Those in charge of healthcare would like people to basically take primary care of their own health whenever possible, and are ready to hand out wearable devices for patients to monitor anything from blood sugar to cancer recovery at home; and now Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is considering “virtual prisons.”

What would be the difference between house arrest and these “alternatives to jail”? One is that the first is usually handed out for minor crimes, or to allow inmates to serve the last six months of their prison stretch under these conditions (“HDCs” as this is known in the UK – involving some level of technology-driven surveillance) – while the other is new, and involving a new role of tech, in Mahmood’s thinking.

Now, there are GPS tags, phones, and watches (all “smart” – i.e., very capable of round-the-clock surveillance – but would that be legal, and in what jurisdictions, remains to be clarified). Read Full Article >