Future Dystopia

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Thu, 01/05/2025 - 00:00

On my way back from inspecting some churches in Essex, I exited my train at Stratford and had a look round the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with attendant shopping malls and entertainment venues. It was all highly impressive, not unlike a 1980s’ or 90s’ film which is set somewhere ‘in the future’: large, flashing advertising boards, walkways crisscrossing one’s view, weird and wonderful architectural styles. I generally prefer the old to the new, but even I was wowed by the scale and variety.

Curiously, the police were present, operating out of a red van. ‘Live Facial Recognition in Operation’ was written on the side in large, ominous letters. Plain-clothed individuals within stared into screens, while uniformed officers without stood around, waiting for the radioed tipoffs. I approached one, and asked what it all meant. He courteously informed me that the cameras atop the van were scanning every passing face; any belonging to persons who are ‘wanted’, who had run bail or against whom an outstanding warrant has been issued, or whose 'help' the police needed ‘with their enquiries’, are swiftly apprehended. Sure enough, on my return, several characters were receiving the benefit of the constables’ attention, the red van’s cameras having successfully done their work. The officer had explained that the images of the unrecognised faces were destroyed that evening, in a tone intended to offer reassurance.

This all seems like an effective way of arresting and detaining persons on the run, of whom we have a great many. I could not help the chill, however, which ran down my spine when I thought that this technology may one day be trained on any who will not subscribe to the state’s ideology and official morality. I am not a conspiracy theorist who assesses each technological development through the narrowed squint of a doomsday prophet, and nor do I think His Majesty’s current government to be entirely malignant. Yet I cannot but wonder that here in London, with its futuristic developments, cutting edge fashions and metropolitan, liberal views, we have foretaste of a totalitarian dystopia to come.

Powerful states and authoritarian bureaucracies always pose a danger to gospel freedoms. Pray the Lord preserves us according to His grace and providence, and that these technologies are used for protection of the citizen, and not his persecution.