MPs have started a major inquiry into the UK ‘surveillance society’. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee hearing on supermarket loyalty cards and credit reference agencies last week was the first part of the debate.

There will be a series of evidence sessions before a final report is published after October’s parliamentary recess.

‘We are exploring the Information Commissioner’s claim that we are moving towards a surveillance society and, if that proves to be true, thinking about how we should respond to it,’ said John Denham, chairman of the committee.

The inquiry will consider the implications of the growing number of public and private databases and increasingly varied forms of surveillance.

Themes to be examined include public sector access to commercial databases, data sharing between government departments and agencies, and the practice of building a profile of a person from the information an organisation holds.

Last week’s session heard that UK citizens are more suspicious of business than of government.

But in the US, people are a lot less trusting of the state, said

J Trevor Hughes, executive director of the Institute of Associated Privacy Professionals.

‘In the UK there is greater acceptance of government use of data and greater willingness to allow it,’ he said. ‘People are most worried about the commercial use of data.’

The Home Affairs committee is not the only parliamentary group looking at privacy issues. A House of Lords inquiry is considering the impact of surveillance and data collection on the relationship between the citizen and the state.

‘The government will hold more information about us than ever before. We hope to ascertain whether necessary protection is in place,’ said committee chairman Lord Holme of Cheltenham.