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The public’s ability to live freely without being spied on is under threat from new surveillance cameras that can provide a “deep dive” picture of people’s private lives, a Government watchdog warned today.

Tony Porter told the Standard that facial recognition technology combined with “data mining” of personal details held online meant there would soon be “very little” that could be kept secret about a person’s lifestyle once they were captured on camera.

He said that risked “horrible” results and warned that the danger of serious invasions of privacy was being heightened by the spread of drones and body-worn cameras.

Potential problems included unregulated cameras being used for “voyeurism” or to expose online the conduct of students having “a good old time”.

Mr Porter, the Government’s surveillance camera commissioner, recently announced a new strategy to protect the public from excessive intrusion.

However, he warned that technological advances were moving “at the speed of light” and presented a “massive challenge” for him and an unprecedented threat to privacy.

“With smart cities there will be integrated surveillance, integrated to other networks, to other databases, other capabilities,” he said.

“If you go through one town you will be pictured by 300 cameras on 30 different systems. That’s not to include other databases: automatic numberplate recognition, mobile phone.

All that comes together and people can make judgments about you, determine what your lifestyle is. There is very little about your day-to-day functionality that wouldn’t be disclosed by integrated technology.

“To be able to see somebody’s face [and] to understand routine through all those cross-checks gives a very deep, rich and textured framework as to how somebody lives their life.

“The worst scenario is that manufacturers lead the technological advance, that the balance of security versus privacy gets lost… and that what we understand as a free society is eroded — our ability to engage in public freely without being spied on… We want to make sure that surveillance is tempered and we can engage in free assembly without being spied on.”

Mr Porter, a former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer, emphasised that the proportionate use of cameras could bring “splendid” benefits, including the potential to detect terrorists.

But public consent and debate was needed about the pros and cons of new surveillance systems.

He added: “I can see a time where at an airport you could have somebody on a terrorist wanted list pushing a bag with explosives in, sensors can detect that, it alerts a camera and notifies via automatic facial recognition a person on a wanted list and links into police officers. Nobody would say that’s a bad thing.

“The difference comes when people are using integrated technology, blind-siding the public.

"They have no idea how their data is being utilised and the statement that ‘if you have done nothing wrong what’s your problem’ doesn’t stack up. People need to manage these systems with integrity. That’s going to be a massive challenge.

“The risks are that you start to have unregulated production of databases where people have no idea they are sitting on a database and there are elements of data mining going on, that is a step too far.

“You’ve also got the risk of mis-reads, false assumptions. You could end up inconvenienced, at worst having your liberty taken.”

Mr Porter’s strategy says estimates that the UK has up to six million surveillance cameras are almost certainly too low. He also points out that while state organisations using cameras must abide by a code of conduct, compliance is voluntary for the private sector.

On the dangers ahead, Mr Porter said that cameras on drones posed a “significantly high” risk of a “privacy invasion”.

He added: “We have heard of neighbours getting angsty because there is a drone flying over the garden and the children are playing in the paddling pool or the women are sunbathing and they feel it’s voyeurism.”

Security guards with bodyworn cameras at universities were also a concern. “I’ve got daughters at university and I don’t want security guards sticking a million pixels up their nose when they are having a good old time and there’s a risk that it can be uploaded on YouTube.”