British people are now more spied upon by their political leaders than any other population in the free world, according to an official report.

The linkage of databases and surveillance systems mean people are now having their movements tracked, habits profiled and photograph taken hundreds of times a day. The findings, in a report compiled on behalf of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, raised concerns that Britain is "waking up in a surveillance society."

Thomas said: "Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part. People are being scrutinized and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it.

"They don't know, for instance, that a record is kept of every Internet site they visit. They don't realize that when identity cards come in, there will be a record of their movements and every time they have engaged with any public service."

The report, compiled by surveillance experts and academics, points out that a typical Britton will be caught on camera up to 300 times a day. Britain now has 4.2m public CCTV cameras, or one for every 14 people, more than any other country.

Other examples of surveillance highlighted by the report include the growing use of automatic number plate recognition to track people's journeys and the long-term retention of logs detailing the websites people visit at home.

"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." Thomas said.

-Times On Line, 20 October 2006

Britain, a more privacy-conscious country than the United States, has raised its voice in protest, but opposition to surveillance will never prevail because security requires identity and the Mark of the Beast is the perfect identity system.