Say Goodbye to In-flight Privacy

Imagine being watched by cameras hidden in the backs of every seat and listened to by sensitive microphones throughout the duration of your flight. According to the SmartMobs.com article in the title link, this may soon become a reality:

Scientists from Britain and Germany are spending £25 million to develop a system they hope will make it virtually impossible to hijack an airliner by providing pilots and cabin crew with an early warning system. They say rapid eye movements, blinking excessively, licking lips or ways of stroking hair or ears are classic symptoms of somebody trying to conceal something.

A separate microphone will record speech, including whispers; Islamic suicide bombers whisper texts from the Koran in the moments before they explode bombs.

Although this seems hard to believe, given the U.K.'s love of police-controlled cameras and considering that I found this same story on a number of blogs and news sites, it might actually be true. If it does happen, I suspect it will cause more problems than it solves. Will a Muslim who is afraid of flying be flagged as a terrorist if he/she mutters a prayer under their breath on takeoff? How many privacy activists will create false hits by blinking and whispering just to protest the system?