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I'm not talking so much about bank robberies, murders and other serious crimes as I am about the misdemeanours of which we're all occasionally guilty.

Did you forget to get a warrant of fitness for your car? Perhaps you've got an overdue library book or two? Maybe you were in a hurry to get home last night and sped up to 120Km/H on the motorway for just a minute or so.

These are small crimes that most of us commit at some stage or another and we know that there's very little chance we'll get caught so we don't worry too much about it.

But I'm wondering just how much longer it will be possible to commit these lesser crimes without the certainty of being caught and punished.

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We've already seen how automated speed cameras can keep an around-the-clock vigil for speeding motorists in some "high risk" locations but is this only the thin end of a very big wedge?

As techniques such as RFID, facial recognition, optical character recognition nd other technologies become cheaper and more reliable, it's only a matter of time before we find ourselves under constant surveillance.

If your car's WOF or registration expires you can forget about driving it because it will automatically be imobilised by a government "safety" and law-enforcement system.

Feel like speeding on the motorway? Well you can expect to get a ticket, even if nobody sees you -- because the onboard GPS system will narc on you by automatically sending off details of your crime by wireless.

By this time toll-roads will be quite common and the RFID system in your car will work in concert with your bank account to automatically bill you when required. No money in your bank account? Uh oh, your vehicle is disabled again.

But wait -- there's more.

If it's not your vehicle's GPS/RFID system giving away your location every minute of the day, it'll be your cellphone or some other form of electronic device on your person.

With storage and communications costs continuing to plummet, it will become trivial to store all this information for an extended period if needed -- and I'm sure there'll be plenty of reasons to justify why such actions are necessary.

On the face of things, there should be no problem with "the powers that be" keeping a close eye on people's day-to-day activities. Speeding is illegal, as is driving an unregistered/warranted vehicle. If a road has a toll on it then you must pay the toll to use that road.

And, if you've got nothing to hide, what's wrong with your every move being tracked and recorded -- especially if it's done in the name of fighting crime and terrorism -- right?

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