London, Dec 31, IRNA , Britain is the worst in Europe and alongside the US, Russia, Singapore and China for the protection of privacy, according to a report from a London-based international watchdog.
The UK is billed as “an endemic surveillance society” and is at the bottom of the league as the country with the world’s biggest network of surveillance cameras and because of its ID card plans and lack of government accountability.
In its survey of 47 countries, Privacy International (PI) gave ratings to Britain as a whole as well as its individual nations and found both Scotland performed “significantly better” than England and Wales.
Last month’s loss of computer discs containing personal and bank details of 25 million UK families claiming child benefit was said to highlight the “risks of storing information on huge government databases.”
The report concluded that the 2007 rankings “show an increasing trend among governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents.”
“The impact was worst in the US and across the EU as governments boosted surveillance and information gathering in the name of security and protecting borders,” it said.
The US performed worst among democratic countries in terms of “statutory protection and privacy enforcement.” In Europe, Germany fell from first to seventh and was replaced at the top by Greece with its “significant protection and safeguards” for privacy.
Canada heads the international table, with Argentina, Iceland and Switzerland close behind. Malaysia is bottom, with a score marginally lower than Britain’s.