Civic Hygiene – avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state

The piece warns that building data-intensive systems—such as databases of personal traits or ISP “black boxes”—creates tools that future authoritarian regimes could exploit to target minorities, citing UKIP’s potential misuse of a sexuality registry. It cites Bruce Schneier’s argument that civic hygiene requires designing technology that cannot be easily repurposed for oppression, urging restraint on collections like religious-belief databases.