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LONDON (AFP) - Britain is becoming a "surveillance society", where CCTV cameras, credit card analysis and travel movements are being used to track people's lives minute by minute, a report published suggested..

The 140-page document, produced by academic group the Surveillance Studies Network, warns that by 2016 people's lives will be monitored even more than they are now by the government, the public sector and also big business.

Britain, which has up to 4.2 million CCTV cameras, about
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one for every 14 people, was ranked as the Western world's leading society where surveillance was "endemic" -- alongside countries such as China and Russia.

The government is pushing ahead with controversial plans to introduce biometric identity cards while Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he wants an expansion of the police's DNA database, even of people released without charge.

As international data protection and privacy commissioners prepared to meet in London, information commissioner Richard Thomas said the report was a "clear signal" that the country was waking up to a surveillance society.

"It's not just cameras in the street and things like that. It's technology monitoring our movements and activities," he told BBC radio.

"Every time we use a mobile phone, use our credit cards, go online, do searches on the Internet, electronic shopping, driving in our cars now: more and more information is being collected, so we're leaving an electronic footprint."

Thomas -- whose remit is to promote public access to official information and to protect personal data -- insisted they were not scaremongering by painting a "sinister, Orwellian picture".

Instead he said the "Report on the Surveillance Society" he commissioned was the start of a necessary debate about what should be the limits of technology.

"These things have happened, I wouldn't say by stealth, but they have happened gradually," he told the broadcaster, admitting that some schemes have been beneficial, such as those used to fight crime.

"We've got to say where do we want the lines to be drawn? How much do we want to have surveillance changing the nature of society in a democratic nature...

"We've got to stand back and see where technology is taking us and making sure we are happy."

The report highlights the use and sharing of data without a person's knowledge -- such as the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information for marketing purposes -- and the associated risks and dangers.

Thomas said he was concerned that some practices ran the risk of mistaken identity, inaccuracy, false suspicion and wrong inferences.

Politicians, civil servants, the police and law enforcement agencies needed to "wake up" and be aware of the "certain lines that must not be crossed" if they are to retain the trust and confidence of the public, he added.