London: A combination of CCTVs, biometrics, databases and tracking technologies has resulted in Britain becoming the most spied on nation in the world, according to a government privacy watchdog.
The Surveillance Studies Network, a group of academics and experts, has come to this conclusion in a 140-page report into British snooping. It looks both at surveillance in 2006 and predicts how the country will look in 2016.
The system of monitoring and tracking people from birth to death in Britain has become so routine, that there is a scare that the country is turning into a ‘Big Brother’ society.
The Telegraph quotes Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, as saying that more and more personal data is being collected and stored on individuals both by the state and by big business, and he adds that Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country.
"The combination of CCTV, biometrics, databases and tracking technologies can be seen as part of a much broader exploration, often funded with support from the US/UK 'war on terror', of the use of interconnected 'smart' systems to track movements and behaviours of millions of people in both time and space," the study says.
Now, an international privacy conference being held in London, may review this alarming development, for as Thomas says, "Today, I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us."
Thomas says that while surveillance is necessary and or desirable, unseen, uncontrolled or excessive surveillance will foster a climate of suspicion and distrust.
"Mistakes can also easily be made with serious consequences – false matches and other cases of mistaken identity, inaccurate facts or inferences, suspicions taken as reality, and breaches of security. I am keen to start a debate about where the lines should be drawn. What is acceptable and what is not?" The paper quotes Thomas as saying.
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Meanwhile, the Tony Blair Government is being criticised over the questions being proposed for the 2010 census, which will ask about income and pry into people's sexual habits for the first time.
Professor Alec Jeffreys, a pioneer of DNA profiling, claims that Britain now has the largest DNA database in the world, with 3.6 million samples.
He told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that he was concerned about the lack of control over the British DNA database system, which was originally meant for targeting criminals.
"Now, hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people are populating that database, people who have come to the police's attention, for example by being charged with a crime and subsequently released," Jeffreys added.
Britain's National Health Service (NHS)'s planned 12 billion pounds database on which millions of personal medical records are to be uploaded whether patients wish it or not, is also being questioned.
While the Government says it will revolutionise the management of the NHS, civil liberties critics believe permission should be sought before intimate health details are placed on a system that can be accessed by people other than a general practioner.
Britain is the worst ranking EU country and the only one in the black category, which defines countries demonstrating "endemic surveillance".
The report describes a surveillance society as one where technology is extensively and routinely used to track and record our activities and movements.
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