UK 'sleep walking' to privatised Big Brother state

There are severe problems with bureaucracy at the ICO as well, which has had to handle a significant amount of complaints in past years, Halfon said.

In the 2009/10 period, the privacy watchdog received 33,234 complaints and requests for advice on data protection. It claimed to have shut 32,714 of these cases.

The Harlow MP said the situation had become so bad, it was a kind of "Sir Humphrey bureaucracy" a nod towards the obfuscating Yes, Minister character who was in charge of the fictional Government's administrative affairs.

"I think the ICO needs radical reform. It should be there to act as a data protector and not as an administrator," he told IT PRO.

"It should be a data policeman rather than Sir Humphrey."

A separate body could be set up to help ease the administration workload, Halfon suggested.

A love/hate technology relationship

There is a dichotomy that Halfon has had to deal with in his campaigns he loves technology but recognises its potential to have a negative impact on privacy.

"In many ways I love Google, I use Google Sync on my BlackBerry, I use Google Mail for House of Commons mail," Halfon said.

"Nevertheless, that does not mean that because we use their products that companies have the right to take our property."

Privacy issues are also exacerbated by a lack of understanding from those who are not so knowledgeable about technology, Halfon suggested.

"The problem is that most people don't know and so therefore it has all being going on without them having a clue. They have no idea that every time they go on the internet it is being traced, what they're looking at," he added.

"We're in a very dangerous world. It is as if we have given worldwide safe crackers the codes to our safe without our knowledge."

Tom Brewster

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.