This is a significant ruling; but only one small step in a long journey. The importance attached to our choice of destination is heightened by the ever-changing

This is a significant ruling; but only one small step in a long journey. The importance attached to our choice of destination is heightened by the ever-changing technological landscape over which we travel. The increasingly pervasive and omnipresent nature of public and private sector surveillance, together with the intimate and revealing nature of the information collected, presages a new phase in the relationship between individual and the institutions and organisations to which our social and economic fealty is directed. A relationship that is far closer and far more intimate; based on an extensive knowledge of the individual's drives, weaknesses, foibles, and personality traits. We can clearly see a worrying potential for forced intimacy and abusive exploitation of the relationship; just as we currently observe (thankfully infrequent) incidents of abusive physical violence and coercion. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this is the potential that modern technologies have for scalability; facilitating abuse on an industrial and global scale, in market contrast to the inherent limitations of abusive physical interventions. The key factors here are the fact that the information is intimate; that the collection is involuntary and coercive; and that the means of collection and exploitation may be automated and deployed on a large scale. The presence or absence of mens rea is besides the point.