Phantom Parrot review – cautionary tale of state surveillance and the war on privacy

A compelling documentary on digital war-on-terror laws that centres on a programme that can mean prison for anyone who refuses UK police access to their smartphones

We all know (and are largely complacent) about the limitless possibilities for digital surveillance and data collection by corporations intent on selling us things, or using our existence to sell advertising. Kate Stonehill’s film is about the more old-fashioned subject of state surveillance and specifically the existence of a disquieting new programme in the UK nicknamed “Phantom Parrot”: the practice of remote spying on mobile phone use.

Stonehill’s film is also about schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, which gives the police powers to search people at UK borders, without needing explicit grounds for suspicion on terrorism. That legislation was brought in before the smartphone was invented, but means that officers can demand detainees hand over their PINs and passcodes to all devices on pain of prosecution and a three-month prison sentence. Because, for all that almost all the information exists on external servers and the cloud, there are still some things which are only held on this handset, to which most of us entrust our entire existence.