Copyright Ian Pearson, BT Futurologist

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Future policing

March 2004

This decade is seeing the start of convergence between biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology. The latter is maturing fast, and in just a few years our cities will swarm with sensors, communication devices, processors and data stores, with a positioning field accurate to a few centimetres. This rapidly developing field is called PICT (pervasive information and communications technology). While its main uses will greatly enhance our business and social lives, it will also give unprecedented opportunities to bring about an Orwellian 1984 world. It is technologically possible by the end of the decade to monitor every conversation in every street via microphones in every wall, checking for keywords that might indicate planning or execution of crime. Equally ubiquitous surveillance cameras could record subsequent events, arranging for police to be despatched if necessary. This could be a huge disincentive to high street crime, since the chances of being caught and convicted would be high. But few of us would want to live in a world where our every word and action is being monitored by police. The underlying technology will be there for all sorts of business reasons, enabling us to have full networked intelligence available to us everywhere, but in a healthy society, it is important to balance protection from crime against privacy. Guaranteed punishment for offences would effectively remove free will, combining both slavery and imprisonment.

Trials are already under way on cars that are automatically constrained to speed limits, by linking the engine management systems to the GPS positioning system. There will be diverse consequences of this if it is ever rolled out, but certainly the technology is entirely feasible already. There are many other areas where opportunities to offend could be constrained.

Orwell wrote about thought police, and today we have laws on race crime where the thoughts of the culprit are an important consideration. Today we cannot reliably read thoughts electronically, but a few computer games already use crude thought recognition. Within a decade, the convergence of nanotechnology and biotechnology will enable devices inside our skin that pick up nerve signals, greatly improving potential thought recognition development, and allowing experiences to be recorded and replayed. The same technology could be used to induce pain. It would be possible, if unethical, to prevent criminals from committing some offences by inducing pain if they tried. For example, a burglar could be tagged using an active skin implant so that he experiences severe pain if he enters any house for which he is not registered as a legitimate visitor. A mugger could be made to experience the same pain as his victim. In due course thoughts and emotions could also be recorded, stored and used as evidence. The police world in the film Minority Report relied on special telepaths to do this work, but it will become technologically feasible in reality, around 2040.

It seems that we face difficult decisions. We need to control crime without destroying freedom. With an explosion of technological capability, we could roll out 1984. As usual, the difficult part is the human judgement of just how far we should go. So far, our police have usually acted with wisdom and balance. Long may it last.