The next time you are told to return to your seat, fasten your seat belt, raise your table tray, and return your seat to its full and upright position, be sure to smile for the camera that just may be watching you.

Tiny cameras the size of a fingernail linked to specialist computers are to be used to monitor the behaviour of airline passengers as part of the war on terrorism.

Cameras fitted to seat-backs will record every twitch, blink, facial expression or suspicious movement before sending the data to onboard software which will check it against individual passenger profiles.

Scientists from Britain and Germany are spending £25million developing a system which they hope will make it virtually impossible to hijack an airliner by providing pilots and cabin crew with an early warning of a possible terrorist attack such as 9/11.

They say that rapid eye movements, blinking excessively, licking lips or ways of stroking hair or ears are classic symptoms of somebody trying to conceal something.

In my case the REM, blinking, lip licking, etc, are signs of fear…. and I’m afraid I don’t hide them very well.

Mrs Neary said that under the Data Protection Act, all video, audio and other recordings would be destroyed at the end of every flight so that passengers’ civil liberties were not infringed.

Ah yeah, sure they will, they would never be kept, for any reason, would they? Except to justify why they kicked an elderly Hasidic Jew off the plane for praying, or a bunch of dark skinned fellas for playing with a cell phone, or changing seats - and then when would the audio/video of you chatting with your seat mate be destroyed?

Knowing what we know about governments the questions you have to ask yourself are:

- do you trust your government in this respect to this degree?

and

- how much more of your personal privacy are you willing to give up to your government?

[h/t to herd or not to herd]