LONDON — In an era when security is the top concern for officials in many countries — reinforced by November's deadly attacks in Mumbai — it takes a lot to be labeled 'the most surveilled democracy in the world.' In the case of Britain, the label is not necessarily meant as a compliment. Some — including the European Court of Human Rights — fear that the snooping has run amok.
Video cameras are ubiquitous. An average Londoner is captured on video hundreds of times a day as he walks the streets, rides the 'Tube,' visits the bank or drives a car.
Including private cameras in shops and banks, there may now be more than 10 million video cameras operating in a country with a population of about 60 million, according to David Murakami-Wood, a specialist on surveillance issues at Newcastle University. This is more than double the number earlier this decade."
He argues that the supposed benefits of Britain's vast surveillance network don't justify the growing costs and infringement on freedom.
"Britain is regarded as the society to avoid" for its pervasive surveillance and disregard for personal privacy, said Colin Bennett, a British-born author and academic at the University of Vancouver in Canada. He contends the surveillance culture is "out of control," targeting not just suspected terrorists and criminals but millions of ordinary people.
Yet a visit to Compton Square in Islington, the north London neighborhood where the author George Orwell wrote his novel "1984" six decades ago about an omnipresent "Big Brother," suggests that many Britons grudgingly accept having their movements watched closely. They cite the string of bombings that hit London as recently as July 2005.
"Most people ignore it" when new surveillance cameras go up in their neighborhoods, said Fabien Cox, a 48-year-old consultant to the international water industry. Holding a pint of beer as he stood at the bar of Orwell's favorite pub, the centuries-old Compton Arms, Cox admitted he was more accepting since a double-decker bus traveling his normal route to work was blown up during the 2005 attacks.
Trevor Lloyd, a 32-year-old broadcast engineer who lives in the area, got seven traffic tickets — each about $90 — within a week of moving to London after being caught on surveillance camera parking just inside the city's restricted "congestion charge" zone. "You become criminalized yourself quite easily, and there's no right of appeal," Lloyd said.
Lloyd added, however: "The flip side is the terrorist thing." Given security threats, he found the video cameras around the city "reassuring." And he's not greatly disturbed by a new plan for everyone in Britain to carry a government-issued biometric identity card, which will include dozens of pieces of personal information, including fingerprints. They will be "expensive" and "a bother," he said.
The acquiescence of ordinary Britons troubles civil liberties advocates.
"It's remarkable that there is no general protest" over widespread surveillance, said Simon Davies, a director with the advocacy group Privacy International.
Many of Britain's neighbors in continental Europe consider Britain heavy-handed in its use of surveillance tools. When even the "most law-and-order mayor in France" visits Britain, "they feel like it's a horror film," said Sebastian Roche, a political scientist at the University of Grenoble in France....source
