Privacy watchdog will investigate day-to-day surveillance for Parliamentary report

Privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)will report to Parliament later this year on the degree to which UKcitizens are put under surveillance.

The study will be a follow up to a previous ICO report whichsaid that citizens were at risk from growing pressure in Governmentto share information between departments and even with the privatesector, and that companies' data gathering threatened to create atwo-tier consumer society.

"Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalkinginto a surveillance society," said then-Commissioner Richard Thomason the launch of that report. "Today I fear that we are in factwaking up to a surveillance society that is already all aroundus."

The ICO has commissioned a new study into surveillance in the UKwhich will be the basis of its report to Parliament later thisyear. Parliament's Home Affairs Select Committee has asked the ICOto make the surveillance report.

The Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) will produce the study onwhich the ICO will base its findings. SSN, which is a charitablecompany, will produce the factual analysis on the ways and thedegree to which ordinary UK citizens are put undersurveillance.

The new report will be the follow up to a 2006 ICO report 'ASurveillance Society', also produced by SSN.

An ICO statement said that the report would be "an analysis ofdevelopments in surveillance and the collection of informationabout individuals since the report, A Surveillance Society, wasproduced for the ICO in 2006".

"This new analysis will accompany the Information Commissioner’s2010 report to Parliament on the state of surveillance, in whichthe ICO will highlight any significant issues that requireparticular attention," the ICO said.

That 2006 report found that more information on more people wasgathered more routinely than ever before, and that it was beginningto have an adverse impact on people's day to day lives.

It described a near-future in which wealthy, educated peoplewould receive better, faster service from companies while slowingdown the physical social and economic movements of poorerpeople.

Explaining that report's findings to technology law podcastOUT-LAW Radio in 2006, assistant Commissioner Jonathan Bamford saidthat Government and private enterprise were increasingly relying ondata about people that could seriously damage their futureprospects.

"If you are talking about building up profiles of people you aregoing to find there's an element of social sorting going on," hesaid. "You actually see that some people become favoured and otherstreated with suspicion."

"You could be the best behaved child in the class but if theprofile that's generated on you based on your relatives show you asbeing a risk of being disruptive or being one of the 20% of peoplewho commit 80% of the crime in later life you're going to betreated in a particular way whoever comes into contact with you,however you are. There are worries there for the future for socialstigmatisation, social exclusion, a society of haves and havenots," he said.

The ICO said that the new report should concentrate on theday-to-day monitoring of everyday activity, rather than the kind ofspecific, covert surveillance that individuals might experience inexceptional circumstances.

"The study should take account of the developments intechnology, policy, law and practice but should be focussed on thepractical consequences of these developments for individuals andsociety now and in the immediate future," said the invitation totender for the research. "The focus should be more on thesurveillance that individuals face as they live their everydaylives rather than the specific covert surveillance activities."