UK a surveillance society, says survey

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Britons are subject to the most intense surveillance since the beginning of the war on terror, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by rights advocacy group Liberty.

As part of a larger report, the YouGov poll of 2,500 people found that 57 per cent of respondents believe the UK has become a "surveillance society" - but only 17 per cent trust the government to keep their personal details confidential. Nearly half, some 48 per cent of those surveyed, said the government and public sector holds too much personal information about individuals.

The Liberty report said that authorities are increasingly using surveillance to profile, rather than to target specific individuals.

"In times of heightened insecurity we quite rightly compromise some of our privacy for public protection, but if we don't pause for thought right now, our children will grow up without any sense of the value of privacy," said Liberty's policy director and the author of the report Gareth Crossman.

The report also found that 440,000 personal communication surveillance authorisations were recorded between June 2005 and March 2006.

The UK leads the world in CCTV cameras, with about 4.2 million, and has the largest national DNA database, with 3.9 million samples, Liberty said. The report said that by taking DNA samples at the time of arrest rather than conviction, black men are disproportionately affected, with 40 per cent represented, compared to 13 percent of Asian men and nine per cent of white men.

The lobby group called for better regulations on the use of CCTV and databases, and stronger powers for the Information Commissioner. It also said judges should be allowed to review authorisations for access given to email and phone calls, and to not extend police powers to take DNA.

Earlier this year, a report from the Royal Academy of Engineering said the UK surveillance society needed to be managed to prevent misuse.

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