One of the most important human stories of the twentieth century is the impact of computer and communications technology on the way we live, die, work and play. It is no exaggeration to say that the status of individuals in society has undergone a transformation and that these changes are set to increase in the new century. Our ability to interact with family and friends over greater distances as well as our ability to control aspects of our lives that were previously controlled by the most powerful institutions like governments, corporations and the news media, have changed our perceptions, expectations and concerns.

The new technologies have given us the ability to have greater control over what information we're exposed to; how we learn, create and work; whom we socialise with; and even how goods, healthcare and public services are distributed. Future innovations like the 'intelligent' fridge, which tracks the consumption of food and relays a shopping list electronically to a home delivery service, promise to liberate us from much of our necessary daily routines, freeing us, perhaps to pursue hobbies or educational opportunities denied to us in the past. Personalised content delivery systems integrated into total home communications systems that automatically deliver content across different platforms will fundamentally change home and family life: Our homes will become nodes on the global network while the Internet will become an integral and intimate part of our public and private lives.

But for all the potential this has for controlling our lives, there are many understandable concerns and fears these developments raise for the future of our personal freedoms and privacy. Huge commercial databases track our shopping and finances and sell that information to anyone willing to pay. Governments monitor us through tax and social security databases while police cameras scan public areas 24 hours a day. Host sites on the World Wide Web increasingly under the gaze of government, record every page we view. The new technologies, for all their empowering potential, appear to nibble at our privacy. Such intrusions make many people understandably nervous. Inevitably, demands for the restriction of flows of information - the enforcement of a reign of secrecy - increase, threatening one of the pillars of a free society, public accountability.