I went to Perth, the place I grew up in and the place I left. Perth is a place that I left 10 years ago and a place that you don’t have to take a keen interest in in order to be completely up-to-date. I come back every couple of years and about the only thing that normally changes is that the traffic lights up the road have changed their signal priority and that has caused morning congestion that everyone seems to know about and have an opinion on. It’s a quaint place is what I’m trying to say. It’s like being in the country village that has convinced itself that it’s a capital city but hates all other cities because they’re ‘just too busy’.
However this trip back was different. An interesting thing occurred (and by ‘interesting’ I mean shocking). Just when I didn’t think this place could be more disinterested in it’s own slow decay yet another liberty has been taken away without so much as a titter.
In the very near future all conversations that anyone has in a Perth taxi will be recorded and kept in a giant database by the Western Australian Police. I’m not surprised that someone in government suggested it, I’m not surprised that cabbies are fine with it and I definitely not surprised that the Western Australian public aren’t interested in it. West Australian’s aren’t moved by anything unless it threatens the mining industry.
Surely the taxi drivers should fear this. How many taxi drivers have you met in your life who offended you with an out-of-left-field racist remark? Maybe I’ve just been unlucky and got the handful of homophobic xenophobes who drive taxis but the ones I’ve met are obviously unconcerned by their every remark being recorded because they don’t see anything wrong with what they’re saying. Anyway even if communists like me are offended by it the police force, who will be the only people with access to it (apparently), are just as racist as cab drivers.
The state government is saying that this will make WA taxis the safest in the world. It will protect cabbies from violent members of the public and it’ll protect the public from cabbies. On the first point, I understand cabbies wanting to do everything possible to protect themselves and I am appalled when I see a story on the news about a taxi driver being attacked. They are just doing a job, a job that I wouldn’t like to do, and they shouldn’t be assaulted whilst doing it. I will make a slight admission that I really wanted to punch a cab driver in Liverpool (UK) once but that was only after the most homophobic rant I have ever heard, and I’ve watched Christian television.
It’s the second point of the government’s argument that alarms me. Protecting the public from taxi drivers. Here’s an idea, stop employing rapists and thugs. A crazy idea I know but give it a go for a while and let’s see if it works. I know that most cab drivers are law-abiding citizens and often good people just trying to make some money to feed their family. But as the old saying goes, ‘when a few bad apples rape women it gives everyone a bad name’.
My main concern is what’s going to happen with these recordings. Most of my conversations in taxis revolve around how long the drivers shift has been and how bad traffic is. The pure logistics of recording and storing that many banal conversations is mind blowing. You’ll have terabytes of nothing remotely interesting at all. But what about the rare occasion that something interesting is said in a cab. Be it when you take a call without remembering you’re being recorded or a drunk conversation when you say something that should be kept a secret.
The police say that no one other than the police will get access to the recordings and that it’ll only be listened to if a crime was committed. But every freedom that’s taken away was taken for a good reason in the first place. It’s the unexpected consequences that should alarm you. Lawyers are already predicting that these recordings will have to be released under subpoena and the reasons for the courts granting access are untested. They could be wide ranging to a point where in a few years people refuse to speak when in a taxi.
The final concern is who else will get access to the data, government bodies around the world don’t have the best record for keeping private things private for too long. Privacy is the issue that we should all care about but so few do.
Let’s be honest, almost nothing of interest is ever spoken in Perth. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to say something and expect it to be between them and the person they said it to. So I propose a solution: let’s all get in Perth taxis and admit to doing the unspeakable. Admit to committing crimes, admit to committing adultery, admit to being Azaria Chamberlain if it makes you feel better, go to town. We’re not actually going to commit crimes, just admit to them. Tell the cab driver whatever comes to mind. As long as you don’t admit to something you actually did you’ll be fine. But let’s see if the police start following up on these ‘leads’. If they want to record us, let’s waste their time until they stop listening.
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