‘The Last Enemy transports us to a Britain of the not-too-distant future, where personal information has become the weapon of a surveillance state against its own citizens, and where a super-database called ‘TIA–Total Information Awareness’ appears to fuse state of the art technology with a rather draconian reinterpretation of the art of the State.’

‘The Last Enemy is an emotional odyssey about a man in search of the truth of what happened to his brother, and to his society. It's a cautionary tale about technology, with identity cards, biometric tests and armed police becoming an everyday presence in our lives.’

Introduction

The Last Enemy aired in Australia in 2009. In 2008, it caused a sensation in England when the British Broadcasting Corporation first screened it. The series depicts Britain transformed into a security state by a major terrorist attack. Identity cards are strictly required and citizens are watched, so the government can catch the terrorists before they strike again.

The tag line from The Last Enemy is ‘tomorrow is nearer than you think’ and the series presents a plausible future where a person's ability to function as an autonomous individual is dictated by the personal information which is collected and stored by the government in its identity database. The collection and use of that information was initially justified on the basis of law enforcement and public security, but the Total Information Awareness database (‘TIA’) is now used as a means of control. In effect, the shield has become the sword.