Microsoft "On This Day" (we recorded everything you did)

Do you use Microsoft One drive? Are you irritated by the intrusion of the notification, “On this Day.” In case you are not familiar, Microsoft sends you a notification on your phone and, if you follow the link, you will encounter all the stuff you dealt with on One Drive on that day, photographs, documents, the lot.  I find this rather sinister since, quite clearly, my past is not my own for recollection. Well, the recent past, at least and not the pre digital days of yore. I had a birthday the other day and, apart from receiving computer generated congratulations from various sources including Pprune and Yorkshire County Cricket Club the cards I received were obviously well meant. No-one delved into my box of memories and reminded me what I was doing on the same day, say, 50 years ago. But it was nice to remind myself. Early birthdays were a complete blank. I’m sure my mother arranged parties but I cannot recall anything specific until I left home and joined the Royal Air Force. In 1964, that severe winter, I spent my 19^th anniversary in a tent covered in snow in the Brecon beacons. The next year, as memories of the challenges of basic training had faded, I note from my logbook that I flew solo in a jet provost for two one-hour trips of general handling, probably roaring round Northumberland having a terrific time on my own. By 1966 I was at RAF Gaydon learning to fly the Handley Page Victor B Mk 1A simulator. My day had begun with a wisdom tooth extraction and was closely followed by an intense 3 hours of instruction in the simulator at the hands of Bill Cox and jock Carroll. Jock incidentally used to inject considerable realism into the otherwise emotionless and motionless simulator by lighting the contents of the wastepaper basket, wafting the smoke into the flight deck and then triggering the fire warning light. I remember having survived the day – the congealed blood washed out of my P type (rubber) oxygen mask – and my new Squadron Commander, Des Hall, even bought me a drink in the bar to celebrate my 21^st Birthday. By 1967, I was established on no 214 Squadron at RAF Marham but henceforth I have to rely upon my Pilots Flying Log Book (RAF Form 414) to jog my memory. Nothing is recorded for my birthday but the previous day the undercarriage of Victor BK Mk 1, XA928, had failed to retract and so we selected the gear down and left it down. Well above the maximum landing weight, jettisoning surplus fuel was unthinkable so we droned around the circuit practising instrument approaches and landings for 3 hours 25 minutes,  much to the delight of the pilots, E Smeeth and myself but, doubtless, to the discomfort of the rear crew, Dennis Maunders, Bill Bowen and Rick West.

I could go on and, indeed, others could remind me of more titillating extracts of my past but I shall leave my nostalgic indulgence here and return to my theme.  Pretty well everything I do these days is either directly recordable or capable of derivation from the comet-like digital trail that everyday life leaves behind.  My “Hive” betrays how I live, when I am out of the house, on holiday or putting the lights out at bedtime.  Do we really  believe that Alexa just sits there dumb and only speaks when she is spoken to or is she covertly recording even my stage whispers?  The smart meter, which I have so far resisted, will complete the picture.  The Google Fit tracker on my phone gives further clues to my lifestyle dovetailing nicely with Google Calendar which records my visits to the doctor.  My “Youview” box probably chronicles what I watch on TV.  “Ring” doorbell provides a helpful identification of callers to the house and a further piece in my lifestyle jigsaw.  The usage data which we are told is collected to “enhance our experience” of using our phones, tablets and PCs records every keystroke we make and every website we visit.  My car knows where it has been and when, as does my phone without my permission.  And of course, it is impossible to travel anywhere without being recorded on CCTV.  Collating all these snippets of data to provide a comprehensive profile of me and my lifestyle is bread and butter to those whse business is to harvest my data and sell the results to people who want me to buy things from them or be influenced by their political messages or, most sinister of all, ensure I am being a good citizen.  Insurers and underwriters would be particularly interested – how likely is that heart attack and what should the bespoke insurance premium be, does he really keep his car in a locked garage overnight as he claims in his declaration, is his alcohol consumption as little as he claims, is that claim for incapacity benefit fraudulent – the opportunities are vast and the potential rewards for the unscrupulous equally enticing.  So I think we should all be extremely worried about the growth of our surveillance society.  We are reaching, if we have not already got there, a point where all the data collected and stored becomes unimaginably interconnected and so vast that it becomes unmanageable.  In other words, regulation becomes pointless because we cannot define what it is we are trying to regulate.  So next time good old Microsoft remind me what I was doing three years ago I shall remind myself that I have no privacy remaining in my private life – the digital genie is well and truly out of the bottle.