the brits are so far gone...there is no way they are going to ever roll this back.
1) their media is to the left of ours, and their government and PC-lunacy still reads like satire here, for the time being.
2) their government is putting in place the mechanisms of a totalitarian state that Hitler and Stalin could only dream of, and DPRK would probably emulate if its serfs were permitted widespread use of 19- and 20th century technology such as cars and electricity. At present Westminster is content to merely repress unpopular viewpoints among the anglo-british gene pool, but the data compiled is going to be kept forever.
3) the legal mechanisms are already in place to force compliance. it is analogous to british subjects already being lightly restrained in a vice, with nowhere to go as it is slowly tightened.
I know there are folks on FR who might be willing to let the government put a thought-recorder in their skull since they have 'nothing to hide,' bur most rational beings would consider it a very bad idea to have the government database EVERY move you have ever made in your car from day x onward, with no real controls on who acceses that data today, or 5 years for now, or 20 when you become a political activist and run for local office, etc.
Just because something you do today isn't illegal doesn't mean you want to live with the knowledge that there affirmatively IS a government database somewhere with enough data to reconstruct the thing you have done at any point during the rest of your mortal life the second you come to their attention for some other reason. At present, in the US, aside from credit cards, tollbooths and cellphones, I don't think this infrastructure exists for the most part.
All it takes is one bad government and one real or imagined emergency and this data will be put to uses that even the 'record-my-every-move, I have nothing to hide' crowd will disagree with.
Did anyone who read 1984 actually think that one day there WOULD be microphones in the bushes in the UK? Do you think it is so far-fetched now?
I enjoy threads like these because they illuminate the thinking of those who will accept anyone as long as the beer and football continue.
You are right...and not "tin-foil" at all....