BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING...

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Ministers plan to force everyone in the country to declare their income and other wealth in a national census. They want questions that will disclose how much people earn and whether they have a second home in the next nationwide survey in 2011. There are also plans to ask how often couples spend the night together; and to make people reveal health problems like learning difficulties and 'emotional conditions'. When the census goes ahead in 2011 anyone who refuses to answer in full will face a criminal conviction and a fine of £1,000.

Those filling in the form will get eight boxes to tick showing their earnings, ranging from nothing to a top category of £37,000 and up. This suggests that anyone on over £37,000 a year will be regarded as wealthy when the census results are assessed. People will be told to say whether their money comes from wages, self-employment, pensions, state benefits, investment interest, rent, or maintenance payments. Details of holiday homes must be set out, and householders will have to say whether they own them.

Questions about how long people stay at an address other than their main home will show where else they stay and it will be possible to work out from replies with whom they are staying. This means single people, who pay 25% less council tax than couples and families, may be penalised if local authorities decide they are spending too much time with a partner. A range of questions on ethnicity will go into more detailed sub-categories than before. For example, boxes require people to say whether they are specifically Arab or a 'Gypsy/Romany/Irish Traveller'. 'White English' is now counted as an ethnic group. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Nov/06)

The Government is planning a database containing a file on every man, woman and child in Britain. Personal information containing details of every aspect of an individual's life will be available to 400,000 Whitehall civil servants and council workers. Lord Falconer has ordered privacy laws to be watered down to allow the plans to be forced through. The plans would allow anyone working for a public body to monitor everything from an individual's driving licence record to whether they had paid their council tax on time.

Allowing sensitive financial information to be viewed by all public bodies could leave it wide open to identity fraud and pensioners who take stands against soaring council tax bills by refusing to pay could have their rights to pension credit withdrawn. Data-sharing powers would also allow the electoral roll to be used to police the ID card database, allowing residents to be fined up to £2,500 for not registering their name or address.

Data protection laws, which are supposed to safeguard individuals' rights to information held about them, will be changed to force the moves through. The Government insisted the database would help people moving house avoid contacting local authority, driving licence and the Inland Revenue separately because records would be updated automatically.

Ministers have already made inroads into individual freedoms, including the creation of a £200 million Children's Index which will create a file containing information on the health and education of every child in England and Wales. The Valuation Office Agency is building a detailed property database of every home, including information on conservatories, scenic views and gardens, in preparation for the shake-up of council tax. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Sep/06)

Popping into her local supermarket to buy flowers for her mother's grave, Lynn Pierce used her Tesco loyalty card as usual. But two days after leaving the store, she was appalled when police called at her home and wrongly accused her of shoplifting. They had tracked her down after Tesco supplied them with personal information stored on her Clubcard account.

A suspicious CCTV operator had spotted Mrs Pierce stuffing her scarf into her handbag on her trip to buy flowers and thought she was stealing a blouse. Security staff at the store in Holyhead, Anglesey, tried to stop her before she left the shop but weren't quick enough. Instead of giving up, they traced her home address from the information she swiped through the till when she paid for her flowers.

It was only when the police called at her home in the nearby village of Valley that they realised there had been a mistake. Instead of finding the supposedly stolen £20 black and white blouse, they spotted Mrs Pierce's striped scarf lying on her sideboard. After looking at the supermarket's CCTV footage for themselves, officers realised she had been wearing the scarf when she walked into the shop but not as she left it.

Tesco has since apologised to Mrs Pierce and agreed to pay her £750 in compensation. The offer came after she turned down the firm's initial sweetener of £50 worth of coupons. A spokesman for North Wales Police said suspected shoplifters were normally dealt with in-store but because Mrs Pierce had already left the premises, they had to trace her address using her Clubcard.

A spokesman for Tesco said it was normal policy to use loyalty card accounts to trace suspected shoplifters. He added, "While we acted in good faith, we now fully accept Mrs Pierce was not involved in anything untoward, have apologised and made a gesture of goodwill for any embarrassment and inconvenience." (Source: Mail on Sunday)

Businesses using "spy chips" on everyday products have been warned they risk causing a public backlash. A number of companies are experimenting with the chips, or radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which can be embedded into everything from clothes to mobile telephones. The tag emits a signal which allow a scanner to detect the location of the item.

Supermarket chain Tesco tested a scheme with tiny microchips attached to a frequently-stolen brand of razor blades. When someone removed the product from a display, his or her photograph was taken by an in-store CCTV camera to deter shoplifting. High street chain Marks & Spencer are also experimenting with the technology on clothing.

Packets of Gillette's Mach 3 razor, a favourite target of shoplifters because they are small but expensive, were fitted with microchips in supermarket trials last year. Every time a packet was picked up, the chip activated a small camera in the "smart shelf", which photographed the customer. Although Tesco insisted the exercise was for stock control and that "products are tagged, not customers", the RFID labels, remain active over a range of five metres once the product leaves the store.