A marvellous new bit of information via Wired: the US has made plans to watch out for terrorist activities in online games like World of Warcraft and virtual worlds like Second Life. That the data mining activities outlined in the Raynard Report have been prepared for Congress isn't the most disturbing part of the story; it highlights the beginning of what I anticipate to be a massive preoccupation over the next 12 months: data privacy, data mining and ultimately, what Big Brother knows about you.
But there are so many other terrifying elements to this report. First, are there really terrorists infiltrating our guilds? (Probably not, but come on, let's be knee jerk for the heck of it). Who's collecting our behavioural data? Are my actions on a European server now in some warehouse in the USA, waiting to be sifted by some politico in an ill-fitting suit? If I'm accused of being a terrorist in the fictional WoW, what happens when I try to get through passport control in the real USA? And if I'm not a terrorist (as far as I know, I'm not), but I'm detained at the border because my actions as a rogue Rogue flag me up, who do I complain to?
Data mining by the companies who create these products is disturbing enough, but most of them have realistic policies which require that records are deleted after a period of days. But having a third party - the US government - snooping through my virtual inventory is something I take great umbrage with.
Read more about the report, mandated recently in the US Congress, here.
