Watchlist
On a routine morning, Catherine Avidal, a nurse in a local hospital, divorced and mother of two children, is unexpectedly invited for questioning by the anti-terrorist cyber intelligence unit. She is suspected of planning a future attack inspired by the Bataclan massacre in Paris.
Catherine is stunned by the accusations against her, and is sure that the whole thing will soon turn out to be a big misunderstanding. She is not nervous, she has nothing to hide. The investigation is getting more complicated when the cyber unit reveals more and more data about Catherine, revealing more and more intimate details from her life. Despite Catherine’s denials that she is not involved in terrorist activity, she is labeled as a terrorist. Under pressure, and as the investigation deepens, she is exposed to her life as she has never seen it before. She is sucked into a terrifying vortex where everything she knows about herself is starting to shatter.
Catherine’s trust in her family and friends will be undermined, but mostly the trust in her own self- Is she paranoid or perhaps all she knew about herself, who she is, is not real? Is she losing her mind? Is she what everyone says she is? Is she a terrorist?
Prevention of terrorism has become a leading strategy of the Western governments. New systems that combine cyber and artificial intelligence make it possible to extend surveillance beyond known terrorists. Under the ambitious assumption that intelligent machines can predict future human involvement in terrorism, everyone is under surveillance!
Under this dangerous assumption, people in the surveillance list (Watchlist), sometimes innocent people, are marked as future terrorists. Anyone can find himself a suspect under investigation and total intrusion of privacy, and to be asked to prove the impossible- That they are not involved in something that has not happened yet.
Watchlist is a frightening and dangerous journey that follows the thin line between the life Catherine knows and what she is being told about herself. Where lays the truth?
