The linkage of databases and surveillance systems mean people are now having their movements tracked, habits profiled and photograph taken hundreds of times a day. The findings, in a report compiled on behalf of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, raised concerns that Britain is “waking up in a surveillance society”.

Thomas said: “Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part. People are being scrutinised and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it.

“They don’t know, for instance, that a record is kept of every internet site they visit. They don’t realise that when identity cards come in, there will be a record of their movements and every time they have engaged with any public service.”

He also revealed that his office is investigating allegations of lax security at the Post Office, HSBC, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The banks may face unlimited fines over claims that they dumped sensitive details of customers’ accounts on the streets.

The report, compiled by surveillance experts and academics, points out that a typical Briton will be caught on camera up to 300 times a day. Britain now has 4.2m public CCTV cameras, or one for every 14 people, more than any other country.

Other examples of surveillance highlighted by the report include the growing use of automatic number plate recognition to track people’s journeys and the long-term retention of logs detailing the websites people visit at home.

“It’s not just unwarranted intrusions into privacy, it’s also the dangers of inaccurate information, of mistakes being made, of information being held for too long,” Thomas said. He cited an example of a schoolgirl whose playground banter resulted in her father being refused work because he had been classed as a suspected paedophile. “The little girl was overheard saying, ‘My dad bonked me last night’. A dinner lady heard this and reported it to the school authorities,” Thomas said. Social services discovered that the girl was referring to her father tapping her playfully on the head with an inflatable hammer. The file was closed, but five years later the father discovered he was still a suspected sex offender.

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