Is Britain On Its Way to Becoming a Surveillance Society? Or Has it Already Arrived?
October 28th, 2008Via: BBC Panorama:
We are the CCTV capital of the world and more data is being held on us than ever before, with our phones, our computers, our bankcards and even our cars busily giving away information about where we go and what we do.
The government gathers more data on us than anyone else and has big plans to collect even more.
The Home Office has drawn up plans for the creation of a single central database containing details, though not the content, of every e-mail, text and mobile phone call made in the UK and of every web page browsed.
The government says no decision on the database proposal, which is expected to be included in the upcoming draft Communications Bill, has yet been made.
But in a speech on 15 October, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said a consultation on the controversial plan would be held in the New Year.
‘Orwellian nightmare’
Supporters of the central database say it is necessary as part of the government’s ongoing battle against serious crime and terrorism.
But critics have condemned the database as an Orwellian nightmare, an invasion of privacy incompatible with a free country.
