From: "Rich Gauszka" 


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1948209.ece

Britain has sleepwalked into becoming a surveillance society that
increasingly intrudes into our private lives and impacts on everyday
activities, the head of the information watchdog warns.

New technology and "invisible" techniques are being used to
gather a growing amount of information about UK citizens. The level of
surveillance will grow even further in the next 10 years, which could
result in a growing number of people being discriminated against and
excluded from society, says a report by the Information Commissioner,
Richard Thomas.

..

Mr Thomas,who heads an independent body that promotes public access to
official information, calls for a debate on what level of surveillance is
acceptable.

He said: "Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of
sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Today I fear that we are in fact
waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us.

..

Britain under surveillance

* The national DNA database holds profiles on about 3.5 million people.

* There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain: one for every
14 people.

* More than half of the UK population posseses a loyalty card issued by the
firm that operates the Nectar scheme.

* Since 2002 there have been more than 8 million criminal records checks for
jobs, of which around 400,000 contained convictions or police intelligence
information.

* There are plans to expand capacity to read vehicle number plates from 35
million reads per day to 50 million by 2008.

* Some 216 catalogue companies in the UK are signed up to the Abacus
data-sharing consortium, with information on 26 million individuals.

* The database of fingerprints contains nearly 6 million sets of prints.

* An individual can be captured on more than 300 cameras each day.

* By the end of 2002 law enforcement bodies had made more than 400,000
requests for data from mobile network operators.

* The number of motorists caught by speed cameras rose from 300,000 in 1996
to over 2 million in 2004.

* In the year to April 2005 some 631 adults and 5,751 juveniles were
electronically tagged.

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