Received a letter through the post the other week that contained two photos reproduced in lazerjet ink on A4 paper. Ah, a blackmail threat, how refreshing ... but no it turns out my secret life less exciting.

The first was a fuzzy shot of a scooter riding down the middle of a bus lane at 8.34am on a weekday, according to the digital readout below the frame. My reaction was to think - naughty.

The other was a close-up of a numberplate at the next set of traffic lights. That, my befuddled brain thought, looks a lot like my numberplate, but what was certain was that the booted ankle in the corner of the frame was definitely mine. My mother used to warn me something like this would happen but her advice was along the lines of clean underwear and bus crashes. Now I have to clean my shoes before I go out lest I come to the attention of a traffic camera. Welcome to surveillance society.

Betrayed by my Blundstones, the accompanying missive told me my crime was against the Road Traffic laws. I coughed up over the web and, of course, the system recognised my details because I have a residents' parking permit and pay my council tax.

They, in this case, must be my local council but they, as we discovered last week, could be anyone from the Post Office to the police looking or listening in. The bugging of Labour MP Sadiq Khan, while visiting a constituent in prison, is just the tip of the surveillance society. There are close on 1000 applications a day to the Interception of Communications Commissioner to eavesdrop on private communications. These could be anything from local authorities looking for rogue traders to the Ambulance Service. A total of 653 state bodies have the power to intercept private communications.

It's bad enough that MPs should be bugged without the Home Secretary's knowledge or approval but lamentable that lawyers (and Khan was a successful defence lawyer before becoming an MP) are routinely bugged on prison visits. The only people not surprised are the defence lawyers who say that bugging in prisons is routine. A case against 11 alleged drug dealers in Lincoln Crown Court had to be dropped a few years ago when it emerged the police had bugged the conversations of lawyers and their clients.

Britain is the world leader in snooping on it citizens. There was a day when we used to rail against the injustice of East Germany's system where one in six of the population was in the pay of the Stasi - it seems we just knocked down the wall to another part of prison.

Britain has more than six million CCTV cameras tracking us along streets and through public transport systems. It might not seem a lot but when you consider Britain accounts for a quarter of the world's total CCTV cameras you get the urge to look over your shoulder. There's one on the corner of the building opposite our office shielded by a black bubble so that you're never sure which way it's looking. In London they are more common than pigeons.

From the moment we switch the lights on in the morning and turn on the metered tap to brush our teeth in the evening we can be monitored. Your mobile phone, email and supermarket shopping habits are all easily accessible, which is something we no longer question. By taking desperate measures you can still disappear off the screen - living on a canal boat and only paying a cruiser licence to British Waterways in cash each year seems to be the most effective. It's called living off-grid, although becoming a real life Jason Bourne doesn't sound that much fun.

The mission creep of technology that recognises my socks at traffic lights is partly responsible but the acceleration of surveillance has taken place largely under the Labour government. It's a government that has never taken civil liberties very seriously, having made the call that privacy and state intrusion are middle-class pursuits and most voters will back increased security against crime and terrorism.

In terms of how the law deals with terrorist suspects and how much intrusion we as a society should be prepared to tolerate, Blair did famously say, in an unscripted comment, that "the rules of the game have changed".

Brown, when he took over, seemed to indicate he understood the balance between security and individual liberty but there are mixed messages. One minute it's all go on the introduction of identity cards and the next ministers are suggesting postponement until after the election. Now fears about ID theft and security itself are pushing the scheme further into the background.

All this prowling through our private lives is acceptable (even when it catches me out) so long as we know there are proper oversight procedures, but the case of Khan has shown clearly that there are not.

There may be a chink of light in Brown's acceptance of the argument that intercept evidence can be used in court cases. The security services are against this, claiming it will reveal their inner workings, but the Americans use intercepts to bring down the Mafia without undue exposure, so what's the big deal?

What the spies may fear is that if tapped evidence is to be used in court then it might be time, as Liberty and Justice argue, that the task of authorising the gathering of covert information be given to the judiciary and removed from the hands of the police and politicians.