UK

Watch out, we’re under constant surveillance

By team ⋅ March 27, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Times, 6th February

Walking down your high street means instantly being under CCTV surveillance. In the UK today, an estimated 4.2 million cameras are positioned all around us on lampposts, shops and street fronts alike. Indeed, many cameras are privately operated as covert surveillance is a constant reality in 21st century Britain: retailers and organisations, such as the Royal Mail have the power to mount surveillance if they suspect you of theft or violence.

The ability to spy on the average Briton is widely held and frequently employed by an ever increasing range of public bodies. Institutions such as MI6, MI5, GCHQ and the Serious Organised Crime Agency adopt methods of bugging, tapping and shadowing as ordinary practices. Surveillance and interception are also increasingly used by police forces across the nation. Branches of police intelligence are stationed at Prison Service headquarters and the phone calls of Category A prisoners are routinely taped.

You can be legally followed by men or women from the Office of Fair Trading, the Health and Safety Executive and the Rural Payments Agency. The Charity Commission, the Food Standards Agency and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain are authorised to perform surveillance operations on those suspected of wrongdoing. Furthermore, every one of the 474 local authorities maintain the right to ask for permission to access you phone records, texts messages and e-mail history. The National DNA database holds 3.9 million genetic profiles of Britons, many without past convictions.
Sir Christopher, who is conducting an inquiry into the bugging of MP Sadiq Khan’s meeting with a terrorist suspect, claimed that 40,000 surveillance operations were launched between 2006-2007, with only 67 unauthorised campaigns.

By 2010, the Government aims to establish a compulsory National Identity Register which will contain a wide range of personal information as part of the scheme for national identity cards. Once the stuff of John le Carre novels and the Stasi in East Germany, surveillance is evidently a growing reality.