Warning of new era of surveillance state

Britain is heading for a new surveillance state of unmanned spy drones, GPS tracking of employees and profiling through social networking sites, the information watchdog has warned.

Tom Whitehead — The Telegraph

Photograph: Louie Psihoyos/Corbis

The relentless march of the surveillance society has seen snooping techniques “intensify and expand” at such a pace that regulators are struggling to keep up, according to Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner.

Despite moves by the Coalition Government to row back intrusions of privacy, a new wave of monitoring risks making the spy state greater than ever.

Mr Graham’s predecessor warned in 2006 that the UK could be “sleepwalking into a surveillance society” and an updated report for him today said such concerns are “no less cogent” in 2010.

It said that “visual, covert, database and other forms of surveillance have proceeded apace” and that much of it “goes beyond the limits of what is tolerable in a society”.

Britons are already the most watched citizens in the democratic world because of an army of surveillance systems including CCTV, cameras that track vehicles, vast Government databases and the sharing of personal data such as air passenger details.

It has led to some surveillance powers being abused for less serious matters such as dog fouling or proving a family was not eligible for a school catchment area.

But advances in technology and communications means members of the public now face the prospect of even greater and more intrusive monitoring, the report said.

It highlights a pilot by Merseyside Police to use unmanned helicopter drones, which has now finished, and that it is “quite probable” they will become more commonplace around the country and will be used during the 2012 Olympics.

It quotes reports that six other police forces are considering pilots but that potential applications could be to monitor minor offences such as fly tipping and waste management.

The report warns: “Drones also present a more pervasive form of surveillance than CCTV because of their mobility.

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