January 02, 2008

Singapore - "an endemic surveillance society"

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Privacy International (PI) rates Singapore as "an endemic surveillance society" in its survey.

The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the "black" category along with Russia and Singapore.
Singapore:
- No right to privacy under constitution, though the High Court has ruled that personal information may be protected under duty of confidences
- No statutory protections, and has been under review for thirteen years
- Judicial warrants are not necessary for surveillance
- ID required for using ISP's
- Data-sharing with government is not necessarily on legal basis
- No workplace surveillance regulation as this is regulated under property law
- Some protections for genetic testing
- 'Biopass' is a passport with fingerprint and facial biometrics

Link to PDF version of the survey

Link

Submitted by lancerlord on January 01//4:03pm and published by jseng, tinkertailor :: 1509 reads | trackback
Comments 2

I think the countries with 'Black' ratings are most concerned with counter-terrorism and security, and are able to afford to pay for surveillance. I seriously doubt if any Singaporean would want to live in any of the 'White' areas, e.g. Greenland? Most of Africa? South Pole?

Posted by Concerned Citizen* on 3 January, 2008 - 8:54am

To Concerned Citizen:

The "white" areas were areas that weren't even considered in the survey! The only country which had a reasonable score was Greece. That's not so bad a place to live in is it? It is a mistake to think that privacy invasion has to be a necessary consequence of "fighting terrorism".

Posted by Anonymous Coward* on 3 January, 2008 - 2:48pm