Phantom Parrot review – eye-opening documentary about Orwellian surveillance in the UK

The arrest of a British Muslim who refused to give up his phone password to UK border police kicks off Kate Stonehill’s look at the state’s excessive intrusion into our privacy

British human rights activist Muhammad Rabbani had been stopped and interrogated at the UK border on several previous instances – the consequence, he says wryly, of being a Muslim man with a beard. But this time was different: the interviewer asked for the password to his electronic devices, and when Rabbani refused – his clients are vulnerable, their information highly sensitive – he was arrested and charged.

Kate Stonehill’s eye-opening and at times slightly muddled documentary uses Rabbani’s case as a jumping-off point to explore the Orwellian surveillance activities of the UK; the potential for abuse of Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Bill and the terrifying amounts of data about each one of us that can be mined from our mobile phones.