P-43 BIG BROTHER... is watching you in Britian....

Britain is becoming 'Big Brother' LONDON (AFP) - Britain is becoming a "surveillance society", where CCTV cameras, credit card analysis and travel movements are used to track people's lives minute by minute, a report published has suggested.

The nation has up to 4.2 million CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras, or about one for every 14 people.

The government is pushing ahead with controversial plans to introduce biometric identity cards, while Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he wants an expansion of the police's DNA database to cover even people released without charge.

"Every time we use a mobile phone, use our credit cards, go online, do searches on the Internet, electronic shopping, driving in our cars now: more and more information is being collected, so we're leaving an electronic footprint."
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Watchdog sounds alarm on UK "surveillance society" Civil liberties group Privacy International,in a survey of 37 countries, named Britain alongside Russia, China, Malaysia and Singapore as countries practicing "endemic" surveillance against the individual..... Only slightly better were the United States, Thailand and the Philippines, described as "extensive" surveillance societies."

The survey, conducted jointly with the U.S.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, was based on 13 criteria ranging from constitutional protections to visual surveillance and phone-tapping. Germany and Canada scored the best marks for civil liberties safeguards.

Privacy concerns in Britain have been highlighted by developments such as the planned introduction of national identity cards and a rapid growth in the deployment of security cameras..... With an estimated 4.2 million now spread across the country, the average Briton is captured about 300 times a day on film.

UPDATES:
'06 Nov 06 Blair goes on ID card offensive