HOWZAT

“Surveillance fosters suspicion. The employer who instals keystroke monitors at workstations or global positioning satellite devices in service vehicles is saying that they do not trust their employees,” it said.

The report cautions of the danger of function creep, in which personal information that is collected for one function is extended to another.

It said that the Oyster card used on the London Underground is being used to help police with their inquiries into crimes.

The study says that the massive investment in information technology in the criminal justice system means that in future there will be one “master file”.

A vehicle passing under an automatic number plate recognition system will have its number taken and checked against the vehicle licensing register and its registered keepers.

The report says that within this information there will be the potential to gain access to other databases on the police national computer, such as the violent and sex offenders registers and insurance and MoT databases.

An automatic number plate recognition system that is used by police in Hertfordshire gives access to up to 40 nationally or locally held databases when tracking a vehicle, the report said.

With an estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit televisions in Britain — one for every 14 people — a person can be captured on more than 300 cameras each day.

Consumer data are being divided into four categories; geographic, demographic, psychographic — which concerns aspects of a person’s class and values — and consumer behaviour.

Transactions involving the use of a credit card, mobile phone, the internet and bank cards provide trails linked to an individual or type of person, the report said.

Loyalty cards, focus groups, call centre contacts and promotional contests all provide extra details.

The report said that information is often matched with data from official statistics to provide profiles that are matched to postcode areas and even streets. It said: “These are most readily connected to postal codes, and given streets are profiled with terms like ‘prudent pensioners’, ‘fledgling nurseries’ and ‘rustbell resilience’.”

With this type of information, firms can target their marketing to narrow groups of consumers.

Global positioning satellites and microchips which can be implanted into a human’s body and emit radio signals are predicted to be used increasingly for tracking criminals and monitoring people, including the elderly.

The microchips are currently used to track goods but are already being piloted among humans in the US.

Elderly people suffering from degenerative diseases have had the chip implanted in their body so carers can locate them quickly, the report said.

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