Electronic tags for public in 10 years

The British public could be fitted with computerised ID tags within 10 years as we silently submit to living in an increasingly intrusive society.

This was the stark warning outlined in a report, A Surveillance Society, produced for the Office of the Information Commissioner, which looks at surveillance in 2006 and projects forward ten years to 2016.

Presenting the report, produced by the Surveillance Studies Network, Commissioner Richard Thomas warned we have already unwittingly let our lives be tracked by visible and invisible means.

"Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Today I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us," he said.

This includes systematic tracking and recording of travel and use of public services, automated use of CCTV, analysis of buying habits and financial transactions, and the work-place monitoring of telephone calls, email and internet use.

Moreover, we can expect technologies to be used more extensively and routinely to track our everyday movements and habits. The  report warned that by 2016 almost every movement and purchase made would be tracked by linked surveillance technologies such as RFID.

For example shoppers could be tracked through unique RFID tags embedded in t heir clothes; cars linked to global satellite navigation systems will allow agencies such as the police to track selected cars more closely.

The report also said employees could be subject to biometric and psychomet ric tests and jobs refused to those who are seen as a health risk or don’t submit to the tests.

The report mirrors a 2005 National Consumer Council report, The Glass Consumer, which also said growing use of personal data from credit cards to mobile phones for commercial purposes is undermining individual privacy.

Hoping to spark a public debate about the pros and cons of surveillance technologies Thomas said: "It's not just unwarranted intrusions into privacy; it's also the dangers of inaccurate information, of mistakes being made, of information being held for too long."