Information Commissioner Richard Thomas stirred more than a little controversy last month when suggesting fears that the UK would “sleep walk into a Surveillance Society” have now become reality.

Thomas’ comments relate to a research report – produced by a group of academics collectively known as The Surveillance Studies Network the results of which were presented at the 28th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners’ Conference.

Delegates were informed that 4.2 million CCTV cameras watch over us (that’s one camera for every 14 individuals). We are ‘spied on’ by mobile telephone triangulation, it seems. Our calls are monitored in the workplace. The Metropolitan Police is even using the data stored on Oyster Cards to monitor the movements of suspects across the Capital.

“We have to say where we wish the lines to be drawn,” asserted Thomas at The Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel. “How much do we really want to have surveillance changing the nature of society in a democratic nation? We are not luddites, and neither are we technophobes. However, let us not forget the fundamental importance of Data Protection. Sometimes it’s dismissed as being rather bureaucratic, but the Data Protection Act exists to put fundamental safeguards in place. We must make sure that certain lines are not crossed.”

The Surveillance Studies Networks’ Dr David Murakami-Wood added: “We really do inhabit a society predicated on State secrecy and the State not ceding its supposed right to keep information under control while, at the same time, the Government wants to know everything about each one of us.”

It’s only right that there should be a balance between the responsible sharing of information and respect for the citizen’s rights. Many commentators would dearly love to precipitate a debate concerning the risks involved if data gathered is erroneous or falls into the wrong hands.

However, let’s not be drawn into throwing the baby out with the bath water here. MI5 director-general Eliza Manningham-Buller has confirmed that there are “over 1,600 identified individuals actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist acts in the UK and overseas.” If Britain is prone to “endemic surveillance” it is surely with that statistic in mind.

Can we really ever have too much security in this country? Unless the acceptable boundaries of the privacy laws are continually tested then 7/7 will be but the tip of the iceberg.

Source

SMT

Postscript

Brian Sims Editor