Government

Has Britain become a police state? For certain we can say that she is different from a generation, or even a decade, ago. Our civil liberties, so dear yet taken for granted, have been shaved - nothing dramatic, mind you, but all the same diminished. For instance: The UK has the most comprehensive National DNA Database in the world. It contains information on 5.4 per cent of the population - the next highest national database, in Austria, is 1.04 per cent. And why? Because our Home Secretary Jacqui Smith thinks it necessary to keep the details of people who are arrested but then acquitted or not charged. Action group GeneWatch reports that criminal convictions have shown no significant increase as a result of Smith's policy, and the data has been used for genetic research without consent (GQ, Sunday Times). Combine this with CCTV where Londoners are photographed, on average, 320 times per day, and a proposed National Health Care database and it becomes troublesome. Factor in the Government's ability to lose large chunks of digital data and I'm worried (photo from the ScienceMuseum.org)