Databases are useful tools. They allow huge amounts of data to be stored and 1.... The development of databases has made business more efficient and saved enormous amounts of time and money. However, databases can also be very dangerous in the wrong 2..., and cyber-citizens are starting to worry about the amount of power a database gives its owner.

You are almost 3... on a database somewhere, and if you live in an industrialized society you are probably on several dozen. More and more of these databases are being linked together. Already in most western countries, it is possible for the government to check your address, driving license, and tax 4... with a few clicks of a mouse. New legislation will soon make it just as easy to check who you have sent emails to and which web sites you have visited.

Now consider that your phone company keeps a database on whom you have phoned, and if you have a mobile phone, it also 5... where you phoned from. The database in your bank records what you have used your credit card for, and where you spent the money. It is quite probable that your local library and grocery shop even have databases that remember your shopping and reading 6....

The amount of personal information stored on databases means that you cannot hide much of your private life from a determined 7..., but what scares some people even more is the amount of control this could give to an oppressive government. A government that can effectively watch every move its citizens make can care 8... and protect them, but it could also become a dictatorship more terrifying than anything we have seen in the past.