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UK ranked 'worst in Europe' at protecting private data
- Jan 2 2008, 09:22 AM
The UK has Europe's worst record for protecting private information, according to a new report.
London-based watchdog Privacy International (PI) conducted a survey of 47 countries and placed Britain at the bottom of the pile because of its ID card plans and lack of government accountability.
Deeming the UK "an endemic surveillance society" alongside Russia, the US, Singapore and China, the poll ranked the country as a whole as well as its individual nations.
"For the first time, Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England and Wales," observed the report.
It highlighted that this year's rankings mark out "an increasing trend among governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents."
This trend apparently leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion, while immigration and border control concerns are singled out for prompting nations to implement database, identity and fingerprinting systems, "often without regard to the privacy implications for their own citizens".
Canada topped the table, with Argentina, Iceland and Switzerland following close behind. 
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