Have you ever wanted to be on ‘Big Brother’ and have your every move watched 24 hours a day? Well, unbeknown to us this is probably happening already.

Outside our own homes (they haven’t got inside yet, thank God, some things should never be shown on camera) chances are that we are under surveillance and are totally unaware.

Cameras have become so commonplace now that we pay little or no attention to them. Around the centre of town there are very few places that aren’t under surveillance, whether it’s from Garda cameras, traffic cameras or storefront cameras. If you’re a law abiding citizen like myself, it can only be a good thing.

With the technology getting smaller and more discreet, as with anything beneficial, it can be used for mischief. I’m sure we’ve all seen the hidden camera TV shows of bad babysitters and chefs doing unmentionable things with the food.

On principle I would be against hidden cameras but, if I wasn’t doing anything wrong and wasn’t aware I was being watched I’d have no problem with them. This technology, though, can be taken to the extreme– it was recently reported that a father put a tracking device in his daughter’s car to see where she went on a date.

There are other ways we are being watched which are a bit sneakier, such as the loyalty cards from supermarkets to track our shopping habits.

With the growing fears about terrorism in the United States and England people’s privacy is going to be invaded even more with the introduction of the controversial ID cards in the UK. They plan to take fingerprints and DNA samples to make sure you are who you claim to be. All a bit too Star Trek for me!

So from now on if you want privacy stay indoors or move to an island off the coast of Ballygobackwards.

The picture above is from the BBC TV broadcast of ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ (1954), written by George Orwell.