This sequence of events is based on an average person living and working England, who commutes to London.

This person is quite normal, he has a mobile phone, a credit card, email, internet, a car, a job, and a flat. As he commutes to London he also has an Oyster Card. 4 years ago his flat was burgled, and during the investigation the police found a fingerprint and possibly some DNA. As a result he was asked to provide a DNA and fingerprint sample, for elimination purposes (so the police know who not to look for). Unfortunately the police never found anyone, the DNA sample at his flat was of no use, and the fingerprints left behind were smudged. For the ease of reference we will call this person Paul

Starting the Day

Paul wakes up at 6:00 am and drives to his local gym, before going to work. On the way to the gym, which is just 2 miles away he is filmed four times by CCTV cameras. Two of the CCTV cameras are linked to ANPR, which means the location, direction, and time of his journey is tracked by the government. Paul enters the gym at just gone 6:30. The gym itself is full of CCTV, and as he enteres he he swipes on the door to enter, the gym computer automatically records that he just entered the building. If required by the government the gym could provide a full list of Paul’s access to the gym, when he joined, how often he goes, and who, if anyone, he goes with. After a quick 40 lengths in the pool, all of which is filmed, Paul heads back home. While the UK Government do not access Paul’s records at the gym, the US government does. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the US government can access to all of the gym records as the gym is owned by a US company.

Paul is again filmed by 4 CCTV cameras and is tracked by the ANPR cameras on his way home. After breakfast at 7:30am he starts his commute to work, and walks to the train station, via the local park. On his walk he is covertly filmed by the local council, who are undertaking another anti-dog fouling campaign. On arrival at the station Paul swipes his oyster card. All his details, name, address, post code, age, the date and  time, and station are then logged and recorded centrally. Paul is now filmed constantly from the moment he arrives at the station until he arrives in central london.

As Paul walks the rest of the way he gets a text message from his friend asking about tonight, he replies saying they can meet up tonight. The fact that Paul has sent a text, to who, the time and the date are stored by the phone company for 6 months. In addition to this the phone has been acting as a tracking mechanism, as the phone company keeps logs of the location of the phone, including the longitude and latitude, via the cell broadcast strength. Paul is filmed by a further 12 different CCTV cameras on the way to work. He enters his offices, swipes in, which acts like the old fashioned time cards, and then starts his day. At noon, he takes lunch at his desk and writes some personal emails. All the emails he sends and the websites he visits, are tracked and stored by ISPs, who will provide them on request to the relevant government agencies. Paul then makes some calls to his friends to talk about meeting up tonight; the time, phone number, and length of each call is logged and stored by the service provider. On this occaasion, the call happens to be monitored by GCHQ in the ECHELON project and his phone call is monitored for content.

By 1pm Paul has been filmed by over 30 cameras, tracked from the moment he left his house, had his email, and phone numbers logs, and one of his calls monitored. Every movement of Paul, since he left the house in the morning can be accounted for.

DNA Searched and Profiled

In addition to this Paul’s DNA and fingerprint records have been searched 1000’s of times in an attempt to find a match to crimes the police are investigating in the UK. By the afternoon the Italian, German, and Spanish Police have also searched across Paul’s DNA looking for suspects to their crime.s Paul has not comitted any crime, and so there is no match for these crimes against him. The Italian police have found no match for their DNA sample on the EU Genetics Database, so they then conduct a “familar” search where they try and find if anyone on the database that could have family that is similar to the DNA match to the crime. Paul’s parents come up as a possible match on the DNA, as do 400 other families. To try and reduce the amount of “false” positives”, the Italian police ask for full details about Paul. Paul’s file, name, address phone number, full DNA, fingerprints, etc are all handed over to the Italian office. The Italian police then start to cross reference his phone number and his address with their database. Later in the week it is realized that this is a false lead, but the Italian authorities still retain all of this information.

At 6pm Paul starts to head home, but first goes to Budgens to pick up some food. Budgens use facial regonition systems, that not only store his picture, but also place his details on an internal database.

Paul is filmed, tracked, and monitored all the way home. Once he get back he heads out to meet his friend, and his car is again tracked by CCTV and ANPR. The fact that the two people meet is also tracked through their mobile phones, credit cards, CCTV, and ANPR.

At 9pm Paul gets back home, again tracked and monitored all the way. He sits down, watches some TV, then uses on his laptop. He goes online, does some reading, sends some emails, and books a flight to Mexico for his summer holiday. All of his activites are logged by the ISP and stored for 6 months, with the exception of the website activity that is stored for just 4 days. While the content of the websites he is visiting is not stored by the ISPs, his data is re-directed, read, analyzed, and categorized by Phorm. Phorm then build up a profile of Paul so they can then target him with adverts. While Phorm are building up a Paul’s profile DoubleClick are doing the same thing, by tracking his online activities through cookies and IP address.

Flight Details

The information from DoubleClick and the flight details are later sent to the US government, even though as he is not traveling through or to the US. The flight details are sent to the US Goverment as he is flying with a US airline.

By the time Paul goes to bed he has been filmed through out the day, tracked, monitored, and his calls intercepted. His DNA has been searched and profiled, his details passed to a foreign country, his parents suspected of a murder. Paul’s internet habits have been profiled by Phorm and DoubleClick. In addition to this a profile of his internet browsing, flight details, and gym routine will be later sent to the US goverment, along with any relevant information from the Echelon/Phone intercept. He has also been filmed and monitored by a private security company under RIPA.

The US Government now have a variety of information about Paul that will they use to continue to build a profile of him, this includes his phone number, call details (through ECHELON), his flight, gym, and internet habits (through USA PATRIOT Act). If Paul ever flies to the US his photograph, fingerprint, and passport details will be added to the database, via the US-VISIT program, which will allow a more detailed analysis of Paul. In the future under “Server in the Sky” programme the US will be able to pull all of the DNA information from the UK automatically.

Tomorrow these activities will be repeated, and the profiling of Paul by foreign and domestic agencies will continue.

Why is the Data Collected?