UK citizens are the most monitored in the whole of Europe, according to a new report by Privacy International.

In its 2007 International Privacy Ranking, the civil liberties group looked at how 47 countries carried out surveillance activities on citizens and described the UK as having an “endemic surveillance” society; beaten only beaten by China, Russia and Malaysia.

Britain’s “huge” CCTV network, the proposed national identity card scheme, and a lack of Government accountability were cited as reasons for the country’s poor privacy performance.

The study also raised concerns that UK “councils continue to spread surveillance policies, including RFID, CCTV, ID and data sharing, and road user tracking”, and criticised the lack of power given to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to protect people.

A representative for the ICO welcomed the report and told Computeractive: “The Information Commissioner has previously warned that the UK is at risk of becoming a surveillance society.”

“It is essential that all organisations which process personal information take data protection seriously in order to effectively protect individuals’ privacy."

Privacy International assessed each of the countries in the study on a range of factors, including the data protection offered to people, how data is stored and how much eavesdropping takes place. The civil liberties group said its findings show how governments are increasingly archiving data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens.

In May last year the ICO warned the UK was “in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society".