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The United Kingdom is still an "endemic surveillance society" - Privacy International survey 2007

Privacy International have published their Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007, international Privacy ranking, which expanded on their original study last year.

The United Kingdom, is still, to our shame and to public fear, stll ranked in the worst category, i.e. an "endemic surveillance society" alongside the Russian Federation, China, the USA and Malaysia etc.

The incompetent Labour government has managed to further increase the size and scope of its "surveillance state" activities, without any effective transparent checks or balances. They have not achieved any extra "security" as a result of this snooping and spying on the public, but they have further lost public confidence and trust in centralised government bureaucratic systems e.g

The section of the survey on the United Kingdom, England * Wales and Scotland (which have slightly different legal systems) also makes dismal reading:

UNITED KINGDOM
  • World leading surveillance schemes
  • Lack of accountability and data breach disclosure law
  • Commissioner has few powers
  • Interception of communications is authorised by politician, evidence not used in court, and oversight is by commissioner who reports only once a year upon reviewing a subset of applications
  • Hundreds of thousands of requests from government agencies to telecommunications providers for traffic data
  • Data retention scheme took a significant step forward with the quiet changes based on EU law
  • Plans are emerging regarding surveillance of communications networks for the protection of copyrighted content
  • Despite data breaches, 'joined-up government' initiatives continue
  • Identity scheme still planned to be the most invasive in the world, highly centralised and biometrics-driven; plan to issue all foreigners with cards in 2008 are continuing
  • E-borders plans include increased data collection on travellers

England & Wales


  • Inherited constitutional and statutory protections from UK Government and many of the policies
  • National policies are not judged, e.g. Communications surveillance, border and trans-border issues
  • Councils continue to spread surveillance policies, including RFID, CCTV, ID and data sharing, road user tracking
  • Few democratic safeguards at local government level, even though local government may be more accountable to electorate because of smaller numbers, decisions do not appear to be informed by research, prototyping

Scotland


  • Inherited constitutional and statutory protections from UK Government and only some of the policies
  • National policies are not judged, e.g. Communications surveillance, border and trans-border issues
  • Stronger protections on civil liberties
  • DNA database is not as open to abuse as policy in England and Wales
  • Identity policy is showing possibility of avoiding mistakes of UK Government
  • Scottish government appears more responsive and open to informed debate than local governments in England

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