"My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people shared across many more boundaries, than British society would feel comfortable with," he told The Times.

The Commons' home affairs select committee has warned that David Blunkett's secretive and uncosted plans for a biometric identity card scheme would alter the relationship between the individual and the State. Information on the cards would take three pages to list and be available to many, from the Inland Revenue to MI6, including any authorised government department. However, individuals would be barred from seeing the information on them.

Mr Thomas, 55, the information commissioner for the past two years, is responsible for promoting public access to official records and ensuring that the state does not collect unnecessary data on citizens.
He recalled Franco's fascist state and the eastern European communist regimes, which collected vast quantities of information on individuals.
Asked if he thought there was a risk of Britain heading the same way, he said: "I think there is a danger. I don't think people have woken up to what lies behind this. It enables the government ... to build up quite a comprehensive picture about many of your activities." Mr Thomas challenged the government to explain the purpose of ID cards.
 

Downing Street was responding to warnings issued by Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, that Government plans for huge centralised databases on all its citizens, such as the proposed biometric identity cards, meant Britain risked "sleepwalking into a surveillance society".He told The Times that the Government should define exactly what identity cards were for.

But a No.10 spokeswoman said today that information gathered for one purpose would not be misused for another. "We have made it clear that there are going to be guarantees about function creep," she said."That is not what is going to happen. There is going to be proper oversight. "Mr Thomas is the watchdog responsible for ensuring that the Government does not misuse personal information about its citizens.He singled out three projects of particular concern: David Blunkett's identity card scheme; a population register planned by the Office for National Statistics; and proposals for a database of every child from birth to the age of 18. He said: "My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people shared across many more boundaries than British society would feel comfortable with."

Asked if he thinks there is a risk of this occurring because of the Government's plans, Mr Thomas tells The Times: "I think there is a danger, yes." The office of the Information Commissioner is an independent body created by statute and answerable to Parliament.

Mr Thomas, 55, a solicitor, was appointed two years ago after a career in the private, public and voluntary sectors. His job is to promote greater public access to official records while ensuring that the State does not collect more information about citizens than is necessary.
Mr Thomas highlights his concerns by pointing to the former communist regimes in Eastern Europe and Franco's Spain which both collected huge amounts of information about citizens. "I don't want to start talking paranoia language, but data protection has a strong continental European flavour.
"Some of my counterparts in Eastern Europe, in Spain, have experienced in the last century what can happen when government gets too powerful and has too much information on citizens. When everyone knows everything about everybody else and the Government has got massive files, whether manual or computerised."

The Government's plans for an identity card include a national register which would include details such as a person's address, as well as any previous addresses he has lived at and when. The register will also include the fingerprints of every citizen.

Police, the security services, the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise will have access to the register. The Home Secretary will also be able to give any Whitehall department access without the need for a new Act of Parliament.

Mr Thomas says that the implication of gathering so much information and allowing such wide access is much more serious than a debate about plastic cards. "I don't think people have woken up to what lies behind this," he says. "It enables the Government of the day to build up quite a comprehensive picture about many of your activities. My job is to make sure no more information is collected than necessary for any particular purpose."

Although he does not oppose the idea of identity cards, insisting that he cannot be "for or against", he is critical of the Government's failure to spell out in a draft Bill the cards' exact purpose. He says: "The Government has changed its line over the last two or three years as to what the card is intended for. You have to have clarity. Is it for the fight against terrorism? Is it to promote immigration control? Is it to provide access to public benefit and services? Various other reasons have been put forward ... I don't think that is acceptable."

Mr Thomas is also concerned about the long-term effects of other databases proposed by Whitehall. The Citizen's Information Project, which is planned by the Office for National Statistics and is separate from the identity card register, would create a population database for use by public services. It would contain a person's name, address, sex, date and place of birth, and a unique reference number. It would allow people to update their name and address across all government departments by making one entry rather than, as now, informing each agency individually.
The Children Bill proposes a database of all children from birth until adulthood. It was put forward after the failure of official agencies to share information in the Victoria Climbie child abuse case. School achievements, medical and social services records and parental marital status could be on the database. The Health Department is also planning a database detailing treatments and social care for all patients.

Mr Thomas says: "I am not a Luddite. There are reasons why we need to promote better information sharing where children are at risk, but whether the right answer is to create a database of every child in the country should be questioned."

It is not the first time that warnings have been given about the rise of a Big Brother-style society in Britain. Statistics show that the country now has four million closed-circuit television cameras monitoring the population; there are details of 2.5 million convicted or suspected criminals on DNA databases; police have gathered 5.5 million fingerprints; and London Transport's Oyster card sends out a signal about an individual's whereabouts every time it is checked at a station.

Mark Oaten, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said he was concerned about the proliferation of databases: "While the Government can sometimes justify each measure individually, the danger is that we are slipping into a Big Brother society by stealth."
 

Alan Dashwood, a senior government adviser and one of the world’s foremost authorities in EU law, acknowledged it is "impossible to tell" whether the British legal system would be affected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The Cambridge professor's comments are enormously significant because they directly contradict the Prime Minister's assurance that UK laws had been given a water-tight safeguard.

Dashwood also admitted that he couldn’t "give a hard and fast answer" about what would happen when the landmark constitution is ratified.
In addition, he conceded that the European court enshrined within the document "will have more extensive jurisdiction in justice and home affairs".

The frank response to concerns about the far-reaching potential of the constitution signed by the Prime Minister last week is the first time a senior figure with close links to the government has contradicted Blair.

The collapse of the government’s united front comes as an analysis of European case law reveals that the European Court of Justice has already started to refer to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in its judgments, even though it is not supposed to be binding yet.

The charter, which protects everything from the "right to life" to the right to strike, has provoked widespread concern within the business community, where it is feared that it could be used to weaken the labour reforms ushered in by Margaret Thatcher.

News that it is already being acknowledged by European courts will rekindle widespread fears among business leaders that the flexibility of the UK labour market could further be undermined by the EU if the constitution is ratified.

Dashwood was formerly director of the Legal Service at the Brussels Council of Ministers and gives legal advice to government departments on EU law.
The claim that the charter will not affect our laws is unravelling.
He was hired by Blair in 2002 to write an alternative 75-page, anti-federalist constitution which was subsequently submitted unsuccessfully to the convention drawing up the final EU constitution.
When challenged about the impact of Blair's agreement last Wednesday at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, Dashwood at first stuck to the government line that the UK would be shielded from the charter's demands when dealing with purely domestic issues.

He said: "The horizontal provisions of the charter (particularly the distinction between binding rights and principles) ... would prevent the social provisions from being regarded as a source of rights."
But when pressed further whether the charter would affect UK laws, he then immediately clarified this: "I have to say you have a text there, and with cases, you don't know what will happen.... I can't give you a hard and fast answer."

Campaigners against further European integration seized on the admission as proof that the government was not convinced it had won the UK the across-the-board protection claimed by Blair after the EU summit in Brussels. Neil O'Brien, director of the anti-constitution pressure group Vote No, said:
"The government's claim that the charter will not affect our national law is fast unravelling. First the president of the European court said it will affect our laws, now the government's own legal adviser says he's not sure. The fundamental problem with the supposed safeguards on the charter is that the judges of the European Court are the ones who will interpret the restrictions. Who guards the guardians?"
 

The proposals include a European health insurance card to replace the E111 form, which entitles UK residents to free or reduced-cost emergency treatment when travelling in Europe.
A spokesman said this would be in addition to the NHS smartcard that is being developed to allow patients to book hospital appointments and access their personal "health space" on the internet. The space will store information about treatment preferences, next of kin and personal health records.
The department is also keen to get patients to use a third piece of plastic -- the national identity card being proposed by the home secretary, David Blunkett -- as proof of entitlement to NHS services. Patients may not be able to register with a GP or get non-emergency treatment without it.

It emerged yesterday that officials preparing the smartcard had been unaware of the UK's obligation to issue the European health insurance card by December 2005.
Already 13 European countries have issued these cards, showing name, date of birth and identity number. Under EU law, they will hold no medical data and cannot be adapted to become NHS smartcards.
The department said: "In line with EU regulations the card will be issued on an individual basis. Children/wards will not be covered by a parent's/guardian's card."