Brave new world?
It seems that being late with paperwork is the new crime of the century (Relief as coastal 'oracle' cleared, November 25) - yet another example of how compliance has been transformed into control.
This brave new world, alarmingly embraced by our bureaucracy, has been ushered in with stealth by the digital machinery that scans, collates, and seeks mistakes.
There is no escape, no goodwill, and no appealing to discretion because digital enforcement is binary - there is only black or white, right or wrong. Electronic impulses cannot tell the difference between an error or a crime, and the fine line between enforcement and entrapment becomes increasingly blurred.
What's worse is that the "human beings" at the screen face cannot even use their discretion, compassion, or common sense to avoid unnecessary enforcement and prosecution, because the machine has been programmed to not accept human fallibility. The vindictive machine calls the shots! And eventually a machine will programme the machine. No need for human intervention at all! Who are you going to argue with then?
