It’s a moot point. I’m saddened at the invasion of privacy and the intrusion on an individual’s civil liberties, but anonymous travel on the London Underground died when they made bank cards and contactless the primary way to get through the barriers.

I’m not saying that “this doesn’t matter because it’s slightly worse than before”. I’m saying the frog has been boiling for a long time.

I don’t want people being surprised as though THIS is the nail in the coffin of untracked movement across the city. As others have said, we’ve always been tracked. This is just them being open about their latest methods.

I hope this serves as a warning for citizens elsewhere: this is a slope that governments will only slide down further. There is no coming back from this in the UK.

Supermarkets in the UK point cameras at your face at self-checkout.

Roadside CCTV captures your registration plate and tracks your vehicle across the country.

Your ISP proactively shares your web history with the state.

Being an anonymous citizen in the UK has been an impossibility for at least 20 years.

Any weapons can and will be utilised against a perceived enemy. When that perceived enemy becomes /you/, you should expect these things to be used against you.

History has taught us that before.

We have seen in the last 10 years that liberal democracies are fragile things. Robust restrictions on the state’s ability to monitor, interfere with and restrict the daily lives of its citizens aren’t a luxury; they’re essential to protecting a free and just society.