Social networking, CCTV and airport scanners see Britain 'sleepwalking into a surveillance society'
Last updated at 5:32 PM on 11th November 2010
- Social networking sites storing more personal data
- Airport scanners allow 'voyeuristic opportunism'
- CCTV cameras encroach into private areas and schools
- Databases can sort individuals by class and ethnicity
The onward march of Britain's 'Surveillance Society' was exposed last night in a devastating report.
Experts warned of a raft of new technologies capable of ever greater intrusion into individuals' private lives.
Legal protections are struggling to keep up with the growth of 'harmful' forms of surveillance with 'disturbing' effects, the Surveillance Studies Network warned.
Intrusive: A report has warned that data storage by social networking sites is part of Britain's developing 'Surveillance Society'
The report - from a group of academics - praised the new Government for ditching intrusive state databases and national ID cards, but it identifies a string of new threats.
It also led to a call for new safeguards to prevent snooping powers being misused.
The report expressed concern over the amount of data gathered and stored by private companies such as social networking sites, which it states has ' increased exponentially' in recent years.
It also raised questions over 'function creep' in which the use of technologies expand far beyond what they were originally intended for, such the national network of 10,000 Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR) cameras.
The report warned that the use of body scanners at airports which have led to problems of 'voyeuristic opportunism' - as operators snoop on naked passengers or colleagues.
Growing use: CCTV cameras are being use in more private areas as well as in schools to monitor teacher performance
And unmanned aerial police drones, originally used by the military, were found to have presented 'significant' privacy problems and are 'more pervasive than CCTV'.
Yesterday's report warned of the rise of 'surreptitious' and 'unaccountable' surveillance practices amid 'weak' legal protections.
It called for compensation for individuals placed under unlawful police surveillance and a requirement that forces inform afterwards anyone they have been watching.
Concern was raised over GPS devices used for employee monitoring which allow companies to track their staff to 'within a few metres'.
Meanwhile, other new technologies - trialled in Japan - allow managers to monitor the performance of cleaners and even tell exactly what task they are performing.
New programmes such as Google Latitude which allow users to show their online friends where they are at any one time on a map could also threaten civil liberties, the report suggested.
These could be hacked or combined with other public data to develop a detailed picture of someone's movements, the report warned.
The report's authors also raised questions over databases of personal information which can sort individuals by their ethnicity, or social class.
The report is an update from the 2006 SSN inquiry which led to the first warning that Britain was 'sleepwalking into a surveillance society'.
'The warning that the United Kingdom may be "sleepwalking into a surveillance society" or that one already exists, requiring limitation and regulation - is no less cogent in 2010 than it was several years ago,' the report stated.
The authors denied the UK is a 'police state', but they said: 'Much surveillance also goes beyond the limits of what is tolerable in a society based on the rule of law and human rights, one of which is the right to privacy.'
'Some technologies have gone from being a subject of speculation to being in mainstream use in many different areas.'
'Given the relatively low level of public and political understanding of technologies such as databases, it is too easy for functions to creep surreptitiously without exposure to widespread comment, debate, or procedures for deciding on the acceptability and accountability of new functions or uses.'
Surveillance: The report said unmanned aerial police drones, originally used by the military, present 'significant' privacy problems and are 'more pervasive than CCTV'.
The report prompted a warning from the data protection watchdog that new legal safeguards were needed to ensure privacy is protected in future.
Information Commissioner Christopher Graham called for checks on laws involving personal data both before and after they are brought into force.
He cited as an example of abuse the use of controversial RIPA powers by council officials to monitor whether parents were lying to schools about where they lived. Ministers have pledged to rein in their use.
Mr Graham said: 'Many of the new laws that come into force every year in the UK have implications for privacy at their heart.
'My concern is that after they are enacted there is no one looking back to see whether they are being used as intended, or whether the new powers were indeed justified in practice.
'One example of this is the use of covert CCTV surveillance by local councils to monitor parents in school catchment area disputes under powers designed to assist in crime prevention and detection."
A Government spokesman said: 'The new Government believes there has been too much intrusion into the private lives of people in this country.
'We have put civil liberties at the heart of our policies and our first piece of legislation was to scrap ID cards.
'We are committed to rolling back big government and state intrusion.'
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