Britain, the country with the world’s biggest network of surveillance cameras, has the worst record in Europe for the protection of privacy, according to a report from a London-based international watchdog.
The UK is billed as “an endemic surveillance society” alongside Russia, the US, Singapore and China in the survey of 47 countries by Privacy International (PI).
Britain is bottom in Europe because of its cameras, ID card plans and lack of government accountability. Rankings are given for the UK as a whole as well as for its individual nations. “For the first time, Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England and Wales,” says the report. Simon Davies, director of PI, said the loss this year of computer discs containing personal and bank details of 25 million UK families claiming child benefit highlighted the risks of storing information on huge government databases.
Filed under: surveillance society
