Almost three-quarters of major U.S. companies snoop on their employees’ phone calls, e-mail, web surfing habits and computer files, according to a new survey on workplace privacy. The latest findings from the American Management Association (AMA) are included in its annual survey Workplace Monitoring and Surveillance. The growth of electronic monitoring has been explosive during the past two years, according to the survey.

Japanese companies have solved the problem of straying senior citizens—track them by satellite. A device for finding old people unable to take care of themselves uses a satellite-based global positioning system and a cellular phone network. A transmitter attached to the body or on clothing beams coordinates of the person to a local server. Concerned relatives just need to send a request by portable terminal and up pops the runaway’s location on a computerized map. The device will be tested later this year with a planned launch in early 2001.

Next time you wander through your local supermarket, you won’t be too paranoid in thinking that the shelves are watching you. Technology being developed by IBM will trace shoppers by their thermal signature, keeping note on where they wander and where they are prone to congregate, so stores can sell you more and serve you quicker.

The prototype system has been dubbed Footprints by its developers. It consists of a network of sensor panels, all about the same size as a smoke detector. The units would be mounted on a store’s ceiling. The body heat of passing shoppers is picked up by the detectors, which are so sensitive they can even differentiate between individuals in a group and follow their progress. Coupled with a video camera feed, a shopper’s sex, age and approximate income group can also be registered.

Missing toddlers and truant teenagers could soon be things of the past with the development of a revolutionary satellite tracking system to enable parents to keep an eye on their children 24 hours a day.

A tiny gadget called KidBug will enable parents to monitor the movements of their children—and the manufacturer plans to give them to 10 million parents before the end of the year in the expectation that many will pay the £10-a-month fee to use them.

The 4 cm.-square unit, which can be concealed in a child’s clothing, will be able to track the precise location of the child to within five feet using the global positioning satellite tracking system (GPS) more usually used to navigate at sea.

Tony Rose, owner of CarBug, which makes tracking devices for cars, boats and bicycles, devised the idea after his three-year-old daughter Natanya went missing during a trip to a London shopping center.

He said: "My wife and I were looking in shop windows and she disappeared in those few seconds. Any parent would give anything in the world in those few minutes to know where their child is.

For £10 a month, parents will get a card to place in the gadget and activate the tracking system. The child’s location can be shown on a small map on a mobile phone or computer, using satellite navigation and "triangulation" of the mobile phone networks to get locations within buildings.

"Eventually, KidBug will be the size of a wristwatch and every child will wear one."

A new British law—if passed—also would compel Internet service providers (ISPs) to build in "reasonable interception capabilities" to networks and could force ISPs to hand over data traffic information—e-mail destinations, Web site visits, IP names—to law enforcement without a search warrant. It includes provisions for listening in on mobile and satellite phone calls, intercepting pager messages, and bugging office switchboards.

Critics say Britain, with its close covert intelligence ties to the U.S., has consistently tried to introduce new powers of electronic surveillance and restrict the use of encryption. In particular, successive bills have tried to introduce controversial key escrow schemes, whereby encryption users would have to lodge a copy of private keys with a third party.

The new bill being proposed would give broad surveillance and communication interception powers to the British government. Casper Bowden, director of the UK think tank Foundation for Information Policy Research, said the highly complex bill requires the establishment of five or six commissioners with different jurisdictions, and a wide range of people can approve surveillance activities.

Government ministers can sanction the use of surveillance by other ministries, law enforcement can conduct a new range of activities without search warrants, and search warrants can be obtained from politicians, senior police officers, and even local authorities.

In addition to proposing a two-year prison sentence for people who refuse to surrender their keys on demand, Bowden said the bill places a "burden of reverse proof" on individuals who say they have lost their encryption keys. They must prove they have lost their keys even before they have been convicted of any wrongdoing.

So you think your computer communications are safe and secure? Hah! You poor, deluded, vulnerable fool.

Experts in the security business confide that most computer networks are wide open to attack by dedicated hackers. Indeed, they describe some real-world electronic assaults that would make your bytes turn into bits.

Want to break into one of Switzerland's most famous private banks and look at its accounts? Not a problem. Want to break into the computer of a key government agency of a big European country and read messages tasking its security officers? Not a problem. Want to crack corporate networks and read the e-mail traffic? Not a problem. In fact, that's so easy it's done routinely.

We're not talking here about electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency or black-bag jobs by the CIA, mind you. These operations are conducted by the growing global network of private security consultants, using sophisticated hacking tools that most of us don't begin to understand.

What's happening is the privatization of some of the most powerful tools traditionally used by intelligence agencies--which allow them to overhear our conversations and read our mail. The new privateers are mostly former spies and law enforcement officers--from Washington to Paris to Moscow to Canberra--who are out now, and offering their skills on the open market. They're working with former colleagues and liaison contacts around the world--and with the hacker underground--to get the information they need. "The Cold War is over," explains one member of this private security brotherhood. "People in police and security services are just trying to make money."

Civil libertarians still seem to focus their angst on privacy threats from government intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, but they're behind the time. Like everything else in the global economy, snooping has been privatized.