It’s bad enough to know that big brother is watching you.

Britain already has more CCTV cameras per head than any other western industrialised country, at the last count 4.2 million, around one for every 14 people.

And it’s even worse to think that if you carry a mobile phone, your movements can be tracked.

Both are topics that have been covered previously on this blog.

But now the police in Blackpool have turned to Bluetooth to fight crime. According to a report in the Blackpool Gazette, “mobile phone messages are to become the latest technological tool in Blackpool Police's war on crime.”

Using one of four laptops acquired for the purpose, police can now send a message or picture to all Bluetooth enabled mobiles within a 300 metre radius.

Every year 10 million tourists still visit this fading Lancashire seaside resort.

And as long ago as 1995 Bill Bryson, author and current President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, cruelly noted: “Blackpool's illuminations are nothing if not splendid, and they are not splendid.”

Even earlier in the last century that well-known Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was perhaps more impressed. He allegedly decreed the town should remain as a place of leisure following his planned invasion.

Having been spared that somewhat dubious accolade, Blackpool is today perhaps better known as being the gay capital of the north and a place where politicians of all persuasions occasionally decamp for their annual party conferences.

So it will be interesting to see how both visitors and residents react to receiving messages such as those asking them to step up car security, or being asked if they have recently witnessed any high profile crimes. They could even find photos of missing persons displayed on their screens.

As far as the police are concerned, the use of the technology will help them catch criminals and prevent crime, and so save residents and holidaymakers a fortune.

Chief Inspector Neil Chessell is quoted as saying, “I very much hope the people of Blackpool will embrace this new technology and digest these messages, making contact with police if they are able to help in any way."

Although it is hard to argue that the public should be prepared to help the police, no mention is made as to whether there will be an opt-out option. The concern is, anybody with a Bluetooth enabled phone will automatically receive such messages, regardless of whether they want to or not.

There is also the danger that the technology could prove open to abuse.

At what point, for example, could it be employed by the police to control public behaviour rather than fight crime. Might climate protestors be advised against gathering in a public place? Or anti-war demonstrators told to desist from marching towards Downing Street?

Of course, should those warnings be ignored, the next message received might be more personal, reminding protestors that their identity is known to the authorities, and that should they return to their home address, they will then be arrested.

By carrying mobiles we tell anybody watching both who we are and where we are. For the boys in blue, Bluetooth may just be another means of chewing up another chunk of our civil liberties.