The Electronic Police State Report - UK is joint 4th with Russia

A report by internet security consultancy Cryptohippe has ranked the UK as being equally as repressive as Russia, in terms of having become an Electronic Police State.

This result emerges from Cryptohippie’s recently published Electronic Police State 2008 Report.

This is the first in what are intended to be a series of annual reports that will audit the "State use of electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens".

The audit focusses on 17 factors, ranging from requirement to produce documents on demand, through to the extent to which states force ISP’s and phone companies to retain data, the blurring of boundaries between police and intelligence work and ultimately the breakdown of the principles of habeas corpus.

The UK has been ranked as having a score of 3.18 on the scale used, the same as the score obtained by Russia.

Only China, North Korea, and Belarus obtained higher scores, indicating that the UK is the most repressive electronic police state in Western society.