Population Registers and Privacy in Britain, 19361984

The book delves into the tension between British governments seeking information and citizens desiring privacy, focusing on the wartime population register. It contrasts its abolition with later attempts to reintroduce similar systems, highlighting a shift in political attitudes towards centralized data collection. The narrative explores how privacy campaigns challenged these initiatives, yet government responses reframed the debate into technical discussions, ultimately shaping the 1984 Data Protection Act, which increased governmental surveillance rather than safeguarding individual privacy.