While others have been questioning for months whether the UK has already become a surveillance society, Deputy chief constable of Hampshire, Ian Readhead, is worrying that this is indeed where his country is headed.

He told the BBC’s Politics Show that CCTV was being used in small towns and villages where crime rates were low.

His force area includes the small town of Stockbridge, where parish councillors have spent £10,000 installing CCTV.

Mr Readhead questioned whether the relatively low crime levels justified the expense and intrusion.

“If it’s in our villages, are we really moving towards an Orwellian situation where cameras are at every street corner?

These concerns have not fallen on totally deaf ears.  The Commons Home Affairs committee is set to announce an inquiry into the growing use of surveillance in the United Kingdom.

It is thought the inquiry will include the impact of identity cards, the expansion of the DNA database and the large rise in the use of CCTV cameras.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said the move was welcome, adding: “Under Labour we have progressively moved towards a surveillance society with the government’s obsession with ID cards and the DNA database being just two examples.

Since the UK already has the world’s largest DNA database, Mr. Readhead has said he would like the use of such a database to be reviewed.  More worrying, is the other uses of data mining against British Citizens.

…research published in November revealed other types of surveillance, from “dataveillance” – the use of information from credit cards, mobile phones and loyalty cards – to US security agencies monitoring telecommunications.

Richard Thomas has been fighting against a surveillance society for the past two years, often vocal about the road the government is traveling on.

“We’ve got to say where do we want the lines to be drawn? How much do we want to have surveillance changing the nature of society in a democratic nation?,” he told the BBC.

At the time a spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) said there needed to be a balance between sharing information responsibly and respecting the citizen’s rights.

With people like Mr. Readhead and Richard Thomas continuing to press the government, many of the protocols put in place by the current administration could be reversed.  Though it is a reality now that the UK is the worst Western society at protecting it’s citizens’ privacy, there is still time to change the road they are on and still time to return from the brink of making Orwell’s dream a nightmare of a reality.