The European Union is laying the foundation for an agreement that will allow law enforcement officials to eavesdrop on Internet, fax and mobile phone conversations and will force the communications providers to foot the bill.

The plan, known as Enfopol 98, was tabled behind closed doors by the European Justice and Home Affairs Council in December. Its purpose is to combat serious crime, such as drug trafficking, child abuse and terrorism.

What concerns many people is that there is no clear definition of what constitutes a serious crime, and that law enforcement officials do not have to obtain a court order before an interception. "Anybody or any company involved in any crime can be tapped," said Mr. Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch, the London-based civil liberties group. "It’s simply at the discretion of the police officer concerned."

Enfopol will enable police to track and record e-mail and mobile phone calls across international boundaries through real-time remote access points or backdoors. For instance, Internet service providers must provide police forces with access to their computer systems so that they can track e-mail traffic. The agreement also includes a memorandum of understanding between Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway. So law enforcement officials from any of these states can eavesdrop on each other’s citizens.

Communications services are increasingly using cryptography (codes) to protect the privacy of communications. If they do, Enfopol says the codes must be broken and information supplied in audible or legible form. "The downloading of cryptographic key material should be immediate," it says, so that "an efficient, economic and current operation is guaranteed."

To make the new tapping system simple and fast to operate, a secret expert group has been developing a "tag" system that can identify individuals wherever they are. Called the "International User Requirements for Interception" (IUR), the data to be passed from country to country include not only names, addresses and phone numbers, but credit card numbers, PIN codes, e-mail addresses, and computer log-on identities and passwords.

Tapping centers will have to be sent information not only about ordinary phone calls, but also about conference calls, redirected calls, unanswered calls and even when phones are switched on. Mobile phones will be used to track a target’s movements.

The Institute of Employment Rights has said surveillance techniques are being used on the [British] workforce and are an "alarming" threat to the privacy of workers. It said that intrusive surveillance can lead to insecurity and stress and can even prevent workers organizing themselves collectively.

The Institute complained of cases involving:

• Interception of e-mails,

• Bosses listening in to call-center workers to check they are being "cheerful,"

• The use of computers to count key strokes,

• Companies using infrared transmitters to record the exact movements of workers.

The report said workers at a London hospital discovered surveillance cameras had been secretly placed in staff locker rooms.

The oil company BP has temporarily switched off secret microphones at its petrol stations after staff complaints, according to a newspaper report. The company had set up 148 hidden microphones across the UK to record customers' conversations and, without their knowledge, their workers.

Despite the resignation of two members of staff who only found out about the hidden devices after an engineer refurbished a service station in Ayr, the company still plans to install them in all of its 1,600 petrol stations.

A BP spokesman told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the microphones could help identify robbers who sometimes call each other by name during hold-ups. But one of BP's employees who resigned over the issued told the paper she was appalled. "The public have a right to know if their privacy is being invaded," she said.

Privacy outside the home is almost extinct. The number of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Britain's public places has now passed 1 million, according to industry figures.

So dense is the network that in many urban areas people may be monitored from the moment they step out of their front door and be kept under observation on their way to work, in the office and even in a restaurant if they choose to dine out. Over the course of a day they could be filmed by 300 cameras.

Barbara Morgan, director of the CCTV User Group, said: "There are more cameras here in proportion to the population than anywhere else, including the United States. The UK is the largest user of CCTV in the world."

The latest figures show that, in cities, people are captured on film at least once every five minutes; the rate drops only slightly in smaller towns.

The figures were calculated by Dr. Clive Norris, a criminologist at Hull University who is to publish a book called The Maximum Surveillance Society. Norris said: "A million cameras could be a conservative estimate. On an average day in London, or any other big city, an individual is filmed by more than 300 cameras from 30 different CCTV networks. The filming goes on throughout the day, and in some areas, such as the London Underground, it is constant."

Even the ordinary cameras common on British high streets are capable of amazing feats. Many have zoom lenses powerful enough to read a newspaper headline at 100 yards.

Others can be connected to computers with software capable of recognizing vehicle number plates or the faces of criminals. A potentially controversial application for CCTV is being pioneered by Virgin Megastores, where managers use cameras to monitor who their customers are and how they make their choices.

In Arizona, some supermarkets now require a fingerprint before they will cash a customer's check. In Japan, companies use eye scans to ensure security. New York State keeps the genetic records of all convicts on file to aid crime detection.

Around the world, new technology is allowing corporations and governments unprecedented ability to fight fraud, detect scams, and enhance security. But the technology that tracks suspected terrorists and tells marketers that people who drive old Volvos are more likely to eat fat-free yogurt may also be creating a new "surveillance society."

As public and private agencies collect motor-vehicle data, medical records, even the fingerprints of millions of people--and sift it with microsecond efficiency--such data could eventually be pieced together to determine who gets a job, a loan, or a health-insurance policy.

Unless societies are vigilant, experts warn, the notion of living a private life, where some things are nobody's business but your own, will not survive the next century.

"1984 may have simply been too early a date," says Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, referring to George Orwell's seminal work. "We are now approaching a time when we will live in a surveillance society where all our movements and actions will be monitored."

To be sure, a few policymakers and technologists are fighting to reverse these trends. But some high-tech fraud-fighters say the battle is already lost. "The days of privacy are over," says John Valentine, president of Infoglide Corp. in Austin, Texas. "You can't even change your name without being found."

"Twenty-five years ago, the fear was the big dossier, the big file, the big database," says James Dempsey, senior staff counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy advocacy group in Washington. Now, "all these computers are linked together…. Big Brother and his twin, Big Corporation, have joined forces."

U.S. authorities will use top secret spy satellites to watch boat traffic on the fragile Florida Keys' coral reef, Reuters reported. Although officials said the satellite data will be used only to learn about human impact on the reef, feisty residents who have warred with the Feds on issues ranging from the booty of the Spanish Main to the collection of tropical fish complained they will be under the watchful eye of Big Brother.

Starting in June the spy satellites will begin counting boat traffic at various points along the 110-mile (176 km) archipelago, said scientist Chris Elvidge of the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. The National Reconnaissance Office operates constellations of spy satellites to eavesdrop on foreign communications and photograph clandestine military sites. Some of the satellites are believed to produce black and white photos so detailed that they can literally read the writing on a wall.

Attorney General Janet Reno has asked a federal commission to study the legality of taking DNA samples from everyone arrested instead of just the convicted sex offenders and violent felons currently permitted by law. Such widespread testing would hugely expand government's reach by placing the genetic fingerprints of millions of Americans into state crime databases even if they never were convicted of a crime. Privacy rights groups and others are greatly concerned about growing government surveillance of citizens.