Henry Porter

Councils: they’re watching every move she makes

Every week government departments and other authorities are finding new ways to spy on us - and passing around even our most personal details, warns Jill Kirby

Jill Kirby
Sunday June 8 2008
The Sunday Times

If pressed, Sandra would probably describe herself as ordinary. She has two children, lives in the West Country and works for a small catering business. At 19, after the collapse of a relationship, she had a breakdown that she never mentions even to close friends. She is happily married to David - a former hospital administrator, currently unemployed - and they share their home with his father, who suffers from dementia.

Sometimes she feels exhausted by the end of the day. Daniel, her younger child, who is three and still in nappies, is always taking tumbles and seems far more demanding than his sister. His grandmother says: “That’s boys for you - he’ll grow out of it.”

The duty doctor at Sandra’s local A&E was less laidback: when she took Daniel there for the third time in a year, he started asking about her childcare arrangements and her relationship with David. Which made Sandra feel uncomfortable.

As he is at home at the moment, David looks after the children. “Not bak til 7, cn u gv kids pzza for T?” Sandra texted him from work last week. On the nights that she does a late shift, he puts the children to bed. When they are asleep, he sometimes logs on to lads’ mag websites - a habit that he keeps secret from his wife.

There are thousands of women whose lives are not dissimilar to Sandra’s; thousands who might be surprised to learn that some of their families’ private details and secrets are being squirrelled away on databases around the country. After all, who would want to spy on the decent and hard-working Sandras of the world?

Well, it seems that her local council does. Conservative-run Plymouth council is about to send a wheelie-bin information form to everyone’s home, with the threat of a fine for noncompletion. Among the questions are: “Do you have children in your home who use disposable nappies?” and “Are there any other reasons why a member of your household generates more rubbish than average?”

Soon, anyone with access to the Plymouth council database will be able to see just how many nappies Sandra’s son gets through and whether her father-in-law has incontinence problems.

That’s not all. The Home Office recently admitted it was talking to mobile phone companies and internet service providers about a plan to record every text message sent in the UK and every website visited. So Sandra’s text to her husband could soon be gracing yet another database, as could his interest in FHM online. What conclusions might a snooper reach: that Sandra is a bad mother who buys her children junk food? That her husband is a bit of a lad with a roving eye?

On the whole, Sandra and David are too busy to worry about such things. However, Sandra is a bit uneasy about government plans to give personal details of pensioners and poorer families to private energy firms. She has read in her local paper that the idea is to target anyone who spends more than 10% of their income on heating and lighting so the power companies can let them know what help is available. But her hackles are up. Why should a gas or electricity supplier be allowed to know how much money is coming into her household? She has never even told her mother how much she earns. ...