Boing Boing: UK is a surveillance society:
The UK information commissioner called Britain a surveillance society, where "dataveillance" of buying habits is combined with cameras and other surveillance methods to track practically every movement of Britons.
I saw this first hand, as when the London Underground phased out almost all forms of paper tickets in favor of the inherently less private RFID-based Oyster card (the only paper tickets remaining were single-ride tickets, and the LU doubled the price of those). Even the banks get in on the act -- Citibank UK sent me a "mandatory questionnaire" that demanded that I disclose every source of income I have or might have or had, all property I owned all over the world, whom I loaned mney to and why, and so on -- they claimed that this was to comply with British terrorism rules. When I confronted them on this, they backed down and said it was an optional mandatory questionnaire.
Not only are cameras all over Britain -- especially London -- but many indoor spaces have rules that say you aren't allowed to shield yourself from their gaze, prohibiting motorcycle helmets and even hooded sweatshirts. The hoodie has become a symbol of surveillance-dodging hooligans -- a favorite (ab)use of the expansive, extra-judicial "anti-social behaviour orders" (ASBOs) is to order kids to stop wearing camera-foiling hooded jumpers.
4:21 AM
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