Last year, police, councils and the security and intelligence services in the UK made over 500,000 requests for accesses to private emails and telephone records, which translates into around 1,500 surveillance requests per day, or one in 78 people living in the country being under cyber surveillance. Apparently, some local councils made requests to chase after dog owners who let their dogs foul. This naturally raises the spectre of omniscient and unbenign state, from which no one can escape. I tend to believe in governmental incompetence than in governmental conspiracy, so I wonder whether all these authorities actually have the ability and resources to interpret the data.
